My Dreams Seek Revenge: Hiroshima
June 20, 2017
I’ve visited Hiroshima many times. The thing that always struck me about Hiroshima was simply being there. The train pulled into the station under an announcement that you had arrived in Hiroshima. It was another stop on the bullet train’s long run from Osaka to Fukuoka, so they called out the name as if it […]
Read More
Escalation! US Hits Syrian Jet, Russia Cuts Communications
June 19, 2017
A US Navy F-18 shot down a Syrian military aircraft over Syrian territory Sunday, marking the first time the US has engaged in air to air combat since the US attack on Yugoslavia in 1999. US claims that the Syrians were targeting US-backed rebels were undermined by reporting by the generally pro-rebel Syrian Observatory for […]
Read More
America’s Real Loss of Prestige and Leadership Abroad
June 19, 2017
Because we traded the smooth talking guy for the clumsy boob with no manners, it is popular to bleat that America has given up its role as leader of the free world, to say other nations don’t respect us anymore, or look to us for moral guidance – in the extreme, that we are no […]
Read More
Peter Van Buren on Moral Injury and Hooper’s War
June 18, 2017
As research for Hooper’s War: A Novel of WWII Japan I encountered people suffering in ways they had a hard time describing but which they wrestled with God over everyday. They told me they went away to fight with an idea “we’re the good guys, they’re not” that did not always survive the test of […]
Read More
Where Is Israel’s Anti-Establishment Leader?
June 16, 2017
When I was young, there was a joke: "There is no one like you – and that’s a good thing!" The joke applies now to Donald Trump. He is unique. That’s good, indeed. But is he unique? As a worldwide phenomenon, or at least in the Western world, is he without parallel? As a character, […]
Read More
Feed the Hungry, Treat the Sick: A Crucial Training
June 16, 2017
On June 15, 2017, the New York Times reported that the government of Saudi Arabia aims to ease the concerns of some U.S. legislators over US weapon sales to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis plan to engage in “a $750 million multiyear training program through the American military to help prevent the accidental killing of civilians […]
Read More
William J. Astore on Trump and the Afghan War
June 15, 2017
A concept that you learn quickly in the military is that you can delegate authority but not responsibility. The buck stops with the guy or gal in charge, and when it’s policy at the national level, that guy is the commander-in-chief, currently Donald Trump. Yet when it comes to the Afghan war, it appears Trump […]
Read More
Ron Paul on New Russia Sanctions: The Deep State Unifies Congress
June 15, 2017
When it comes to bad foreign policy, the House and Senate are completely bipartisan. Yesterday’s 97-2 Senate vote for more Russia sanctions was a perfect case in point. What justifies yet more sanctions on Russia? Violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine, meddling in the US election, and conducting war in Syria. But if this is […]
Read More
Peter Van Buren on the Ethics of Hell
June 15, 2017
Japan absorbed WWII. The collective memory was tidied up. Little is taught about the war in modern Japanese schools, and even less of what is taught is true. There seems no reason to bring up all those bad deeds and rotten memories. For the most part, the Japanese created their own alternate history of the […]
Read More
Rep. Walter Jones: Debate and End the Afghanistan War
June 14, 2017
Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) and his legislation (HR 1666) to end the US government’s war in Afghanistan were the subject of a short and informative report on WNCT-TV in Greenville, North Carolina this week. “Here we are sworn by the Constitution to have the responsibility to debate to send our young men and women to […]
Read More
