Laurie Calhoun

April 7, 2016

I have long believed that well-made films offer a rich source of moral insight, and Drone Strike, directed by Chris Richmond, is no exception to the rule. It’s a very short film, less than twenty minutes long, but like a carefully crafted short-story, it packs a mighty punch. The primary means of conveying its message […]

Daniel McAdams

April 6, 2016

Congress loves war, but it just doesn’t like to have to vote for it. When you vote for a war you are on record having supported it. So what happens if instead of turning Libya into Switzerland into Libya, the bombing turned Libya into Bangladesh? Better to not have supported it on record. But there […]

Peter Van Buren

April 6, 2016

Perhaps the most fundamental flaw in the flailing U.S. anti-ISIS strategy is the belief that any group willing to fight ISIS must support at least some US goals, and that any group not ISIS is better in the long run than ISIS. Such a viewpoint ignores the near-infinite complexities of Middle East alliances and politics, […]

Daniel McAdams

April 5, 2016

The scandal around the fixing of intelligence around the Pentagon training program for Syrian rebels has been on slow burn for some time. The mainstream media has largely avoided it, but when Pentagon superiors quash reports of intelligence analysts because they don’t match the desired outcome of the policy there is a big problem. Having […]

Peter Van Buren

April 4, 2016

Evil is participatory, says interviewee David Harris at the beginning of a documentary in progress about Vietnam-era draft resisters, The Boys Who Said No! Evil continuing depends on people joining in, and the first step to stopping it, he continues, is withdrawing your own participation. So Harris said no to the Vietnam-era draft, and went […]

Daniel McAdams

April 4, 2016

You know the old saying: if at first you don’t succeed, keep trying the same dumb thing over and over and wonder why you are still not succeeding. Well, at least that’s the Beltway version of that old saying. We know what happened last time the Pentagon launched a program to train rebels to fight […]

Peter Van Buren

April 2, 2016

The next time a candidate or reporter asks during a debate about education or healthcare “But how are you going to pay for that?” I would like the person being questioned to respond “The same way we find money to pay for Iraq.” So maybe it would just be better for Flint, Michigan to claim […]

Grant Smith

April 2, 2016

“Israel’s Influence: Good or Bad for America?” was the theme of a daylong conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on March 18, 2016. The Conference archive is available on YouTube below: Speakers included Antiwar.com’s Justin Raimondo, as well as Gideon Levy, Susan Abulhawa, Philip Weiss, Rula Jebreal, Huwaida Arraf, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, […]

Daniel McAdams

April 1, 2016

US backing for the overthrow of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was supposed to be all about democracy. As Washington tells it, the people took to the street demanding democratic reforms and Assad did not listen, so he lost his legitimacy and needed to be overthrown. The US helped facilitate that overthrow by shipping in tons […]

Daniel McAdams

March 31, 2016

It is going to cost the US $3.4 billion, but Commander of NATO’s European Command Gen. Philip Breedlove announced that the US will be sending thousands of additional troops to deploy on Russia’s border in the Baltics, as well as in Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria. This “European Reassurance Initiative” is said to protect NATO’s eastern […]