Author: Tom Engelhardt

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TomDispatch is essentially a no-submissions site. The only exception I’ve made over the years has been for those in the U.S. military or retired from it who, miraculously enough, became critical of it and the forever wars that it so relentlessly pursued. I’ve always felt that they had something of importance to offer the rest of us. The first such out-of-the-blue read more

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

You may have noticed those U.S. aircraft carrier task forces repeatedly entering the South China Sea to challenge Beijing or the increased arms read more

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Nineteen years ago, the administration of George W. Bush responded to the 9/11 attacks by invading Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. And, yes, you won’t be shocked to learn that the Taliban is stronger now than at any time since that moment. Though U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan has read more

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

The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire
Or What It Means to Fall on a Failing Planet
By Tom Engelhardt

We’re now living in an age of opacity, as Rudy Giuliani pointed out in a courtroom recently. Here was the exchange:

“‘In the plaintiffs’ counties, they were denied the opportunity to have an unobstructed observation and ensure opacity,’ Giuliani read more

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Consider the second paragraph of the lead story in the November 20th New York Times:

“The leaders of Western Europe have called Mr. Biden, as has the president of the world’s rising superpower, Xi Jinping of China. PayPal’s chief executive extended his ‘warmest congratulations to President-Elect Joe Biden, who will become the 46th president of the U.S.A.’ The Boeing read more

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There’s a history still to be written of how key officials in the Trump administration and the Pentagon stiffed the commander-in-chief when it came to America’s forever wars. How, for instance, did the generals with whom Donald Trump initially surrounded himself convince the man who had, in part, won the presidency by campaigning read more

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Here’s the strange thing. In 2016, Donald Trump campaigned vociferously to end America’s forever wars and yet, as he fruitlessly fights departing the White House four years later, he’s probably going to leave more read more

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Yes, tensions are still rising between the world’s greatest emitter of greenhouse gases, historically speaking, and the country emitting the most read more

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Yes, he golfed numerous times, gave a double thumbs-up through his car window, and tweeted read more

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

Let me admit, as a start, that I’m a fan of New Yorker satirist Andy Borowitz. Sadly, our world — and Donald Trump in particular — was made for him. A typical recent Borowitzian read more