Tomgram: William Astore, A Bright Future for Weapons and War

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

There are always winners and losers, aren’t there? For instance, the seven children who died in that last drone strike the U.S. military launched in Kabul as it was leaving town were certainly losers. Those who ordered that strike against an ISIS-K suicide bomber who wasn’t there… well, no, not actually.

Let’s face it. If the history of twenty-first-century America tells read more

Tomgram: Rajan Menon, Wars of Unintended Consequences

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

TomDispatch began with the Afghan War — with a sense I had from its earliest moments that it was a misbegotten venture of the first order. Here, for instance, is a comment I wrote about that disaster in December 2002, a little over a year after the U.S. began bombing and then invaded that country:

“This week, two wounded American soldiers and a dead one brought some modest read more

Tomgram: Jane Braxton Little, Becoming a Climate Refugee

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

Last month, I wrote a piece, “My Extreme World and (Un)Welcome to It,” about the shock of finding myself in what might be thought of as World War III, or perhaps World War(m) III; that is, already living in a country experiencing unbelievably extreme weather. July had just been declared the read more

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Post-Afghanistan, Nation (Un)Building Comes Home

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman… Whoops!… American Empire What Really Matters in the U.S. of A. By

They weren’t kidding when they called Afghanistan the “graveyard of empires.” Indeed, that cemetery has just taken another imperial body. And it wasn’t pretty, was it? Not that anyone should be surprised. Even after 20 years of preparation, a burial never is.

In fact, the shock and awe(fulness) in Kabul and Washington over these last weeks shouldn’t have been surprising, read more

Tomgram: Patterson Deppen, America as a Base Nation Revisited

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

In January 2004, Chalmers Johnson wrote “America’s Empire of Bases” for TomDispatch, breaking what was, in effect, a silence around those strange edifices, some the size of small towns, scattered around the planet. He began it this way:

“As distinct from other peoples, most Americans do not recognize — or do not want to recognize — that the United States dominates read more