Twenty Years After 9/11, ‘The Only Way To Effectively Counter Terror Is To End War’
September 13, 2021
As the United States on Saturday commemorates the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks with plenty of patriotic zeal but perhaps too little introspection, peace advocates have marked the occasion by reflecting on the costs and bloody consequences of the so-called “Global War on Terror” as they reaffirmed that the best safeguard against […]
Read More
Watch Out for ‘Blobaganda’
September 13, 2021
Ross Douthat suggests that defeat in Afghanistan will have adverse consequences for the U.S. elsewhere in the world: Mattathias Schwartz has written an interesting account of his experience in the foreign policy “Blob” and how “blobaganda” gets produced: To understand how blobaganda works, you have to look for what isn’t there. Not much airtime is given to […]
Read More
Conflicts of Interest: White House Slams the Door on Diplomacy with Iran
September 13, 2021
On COI #160, Kyle Anzalone discusses deteriorating US ties with Iran. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned the window for negotiations with Tehran would soon close, not long after the US announced a new round of sanctions. Israeli officials, meanwhile, have vowed to step up efforts to confront the Islamic Republic. Together, the aggressive US […]
Read More
Two Decades of Madness
September 11, 2021
Reprinted from NewsVandal with permission. Two decades of war. Two decades of profiteering. Two decades of killing innocent bystanders. Two decades of surveillance. Two decades of detention and too many years of torture, undue process and profiling. Two decades of hyper-patriotism. Two decades of militarism, unrepentant Exceptionalism and religious righteousness. Two decades of lies, deceit […]
Read More
What Ending a War Could Look Like
September 9, 2021
When you imagine ending a war, do you imagine the U.S. President lamenting the human cost of the war’s financial expense while simultaneously demanding that Congress increase military spending – and while mentioning new wars that could potentially be launched? Do you picture him blowing up families with missiles from robot airplanes, and committing to […]
Read More
Reject the Myths of Empire
September 9, 2021
Ross Douthat suggests that defeat in Afghanistan will have adverse consequences for the U.S. elsewhere in the world: That said, defeats on distant frontiers can also have consequences closer to the imperial core. The American imperium can’t be toppled by the Taliban. But in our outer empire, in Western Europe and East Asia, perceived US […]
Read More
The Value of Looking Backward
September 9, 2021
Former President Obama famously expressed his belief about the "war on terror" that "we need to look forward as opposed to looking backward." Will we learn from the unfolding disaster in Afghanistan? Only by looking backward. An honest assessment would show: 1: The US occupation of Afghanistan was avoidable. In late 2001, Taliban leaders were […]
Read More
Conflicts of Interest: The People Who Were Right About Afghanistan
September 8, 2021
On COI #159, Kevin Gosztola joins Kyle Anzalone to discuss the people who were right about the Afghan War all along, among them Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who cast the sole ‘no’ vote against the 2001 authorization to attack Afghanistan. Lee correctly predicted that the bill would be exploited to justify an endless war, and has […]
Read More
‘Sexy’ Jets, Airshows Sell War and Militarism
September 8, 2021
The growing campaign to oppose Canada spending tens of billions of dollars on 88 new fighter jets faces an important, if unconventional, obstacle: the warplanes themselves. Fighter jets are an important tool of militarist propaganda. In recent weeks Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) planes have done numerous flyovers and participated in airshows across the country. […]
Read More
The Poor, Put-Upon Foreign Policy Establishment
September 7, 2021
Max Boot joins Richard Haass in touting the great success of the U.S. foreign policy establishment: Yes, post-1945 policymakers got it catastrophically wrong in Vietnam. But they got it right by containing the Soviet Union while building security alliances and promoting free trade. Those policies set the stage for the greatest expansion of freedom and […]
Read More
