Tomgram: Laura Gottesdiener, The Wrath of the U.S. Along the Euphrates River

Burning Raqqa 
The U.S. War Against Civilians in Syria
By Laura Gottesdiener

It was midday on Sunday, May 7th, when the U.S.-led coalition warplanes again began bombing the neighborhood of Wassim Abdo’s family.

They lived in Tabqa, a small city on the banks of the Euphrates River in northern Syria. Then occupied by the Islamic State (ISIS, also known as Daesh), Tabqa was also under siege by U.S.-backed troops and being hit by daily artillery fire from U.S. Marines, as well as U.S.-led coalition read more

What’s Missing from Dunkirk Film

Yes, I’m going to tell you what’s missing from this film without watching the film. Trump has, as promised, made me so sick of winning that I really could enjoy watching a defeat film, but I think I’ll pass. If I’m wrong about what’s missing from it (I mean one of the many things that are, no doubt, missing from it), I promise that I will eat an entire plan for victory in Afghanistan annually for the next decade.

One of the oddest things about World War II is how it read more

Focus: Raqqa – July 25, 2017

Tomgram: William Hartung, The Trillion-Dollar National Security Budget

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

In May 2012, TomDispatch featured a piece by Chris Hellman and Mattea Kramer, both then analysts at the National Priorities Project, headlined “War Pay: The Nearly $1 Trillion National Security Budget.” The two of them ran through the figures for the cumulative annual budget for what we still mysteriously read more

Is “Good German” status quo the order of our day? #Aegis9

 
Jason Rawn leading a Maine Peace Walk in 2014

Today’s guest post by civil disobedient Jason Rawn was rejected by the Times Record. A daily paper local to General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works plant, the Times Record customarily publishes a monthly opinion column written by various Peaceworks members. In July the editor refused the submitted piece saying that drawing connections between the present day and the Holocaust is “a bit much.” But is it? You be the judge.

Are We The “Good Germans” Now?

by Jason Rawn

I’m read more

Focus: Raqqa – July 21, 2017

At Every Door

At Every Door
by Kathy Kelly

July 21, 2017

“I come and stand at every door
But none shall hear my silent tread
I knock and yet remain unseen”
                            -Nazim Hikmet
On July 18, 2017, at a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing focused on “The Four Famines: Root Causes and a Multilateral Action Plan,” Republican Senator Todd Young, a former Marine, asked read more

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Bombing the Rubble

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

Empire of Destruction 
Precision Warfare? Don’t Make Me Laugh 
By Tom Engelhardt

You remember. It was supposed to be twenty-first-century war, American-style: precise beyond imagining; smart bombs; drones capable of taking out a carefully identified and tracked human being just about anywhere on Earth; special operations raids so pinpoint-accurate that they would represent read more

Focus: Turkey and Syria – July 19, 2017