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

Here’s the strange thing for the self-proclaimed greatest power in history, the very one that, in this century, has been fighting a series of unending wars across significant parts of the planet: if you exclude Operation Urgent Fury, the triumphant invasion of the island Grenada in 1983, and read more

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

It wasn’t until this sentence in the sixth paragraph of the September 23rd New York Times article on the killing of Afghan civilians that the wedding slaughter was even mentioned: “But Haji Attaullah Afghan, head of the provincial council in Helmand, said read more

Mark Isaacs is the author, among other books, of the new book, The Kabul Peace House, which we discuss, and which describes a community of peace activists in Afghanistan. Mark is president of Sydney PEN, an affiliate of PEN International, a worldwide association of writers which defends freedom of expression and campaigns on behalf of writers who have been silenced by persecution or imprisonment. He speaks with us from Australia. His website is markjisaacs.com

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You cannot promote the rule of law by loudly bragging about committing murder. You cannot end terrorism by committing terrorism. Here is a U.S. president openly proclaiming that he has committed murder in order to let people be afraid they’ll be next. If anything fits the definition of terrorism, that does. The U.S. public cannot see it because (1) whatever the U.S. does is good, (2) Trump’s fans support anything he does, (3) loyalists of the Democratic Party believe that any crimes read more

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

You know, it’s strange. There are certain moments that you and everyone in your generation never forget. For instance, I can tell you exactly where I was — eating a 25-cent hamburger in a diner that might have been called the Yankee Doodle in New Haven, Connecticut — when a man stuck his head in the front door and said, “The president’s been shot.” That, read more

Despite the upbeat words from America’s billionaire president about the “economic miracle” he has produced, economic inequality in the United States is on the rise.

In August 2019, the Economic Policy Institute reported that, in 2018, the average pay of CEOs at America’s 350 top firms hit $17.2 million―an increase, when adjusted for inflation, of 1,007.5 percent since 1978.  By contrast, the typical worker’s wage, read more

KOREAN BELOW THE ENGLISH

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, October 26, 2019

I’ve never heard of or even seen fantasized a society or a government that wasn’t deeply flawed. I know neither North nor South Korea is an exception. But the primary impediment to peace in Korea appears to be the United States: its government, its media, its billionaires, its people, and even the arm of the U.S. called the United Nations.

The U.S. public has, and chooses to have, very little control over its government, read more

There were whispers in the village, high up in the mountains of Afghanistan. There was a Stranger here. He had made a friend and been invited to live in a home despite not being family, despite probably not even being of the ethnicity or religion of every person who could be trusted.

The Stranger had obtained for a family a small interest-free loan and helped them create a store. He’d hired kids off the street. Now the kids were inviting other kids to come and talk with the Stranger about working read more

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

We’re in an age in which the president who miraculously “captured” ISIS in “a month,” or so he recently claimed, and has tweeted his read more