Tomgram: Danny Sjursen, With Friends Like These…
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Think of U.S. policy in the Middle East as the proverbial broken record. Explain it as you will, Washington’s focus always comes back to Iran. Seldom has a country that remains anything but a superpower (even a regional one) loomed larger. It all started in 1953 when the CIA
For those who aid US’s ‘outlaws,’ no good deed goes unpunished: Sri Lankan Refugee Family That Hid Snowden in Hong Kong Now Trapped in Limbo
By Dave Lindorff
Hong Kong — The bipartisan vengeance of the US government and it’s pervasive intelligence apparatus, on display currently in its rabid hounding of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, appears to know no bounds.
But as ugly as the full-court effort to bag Assange, already trapped by US the combined efforts of complicity government in Britain and Sweden and by US economic pressure on the government
Ten Questions About the Gulf War Monument Planned for Washington
Yes, they’re planning a monument to the Gulf War. I have some questions about the design.
- Really? Seriously? WTAF? Were there just not enough war monuments yet?
- There’s no monument to the arming of Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, without which there could have been no Gulf War, and no monument (yet) to the deadly sanctions and bombings that followed or to the 2003-begun war on Iraq, which couldn’t have happened without the Gulf War. Why pick out the Gulf War segment
Tomgram: James Carroll, The 12 Days of Bombing That Never End (for Me)
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Call it strange, but call it something. After all, never in history had there been such active opposition to a war before it began. I’m thinking, of course, about the antiwar surge that, in the winter and early spring of 2003, preceded the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Starting in the autumn of 2002, in fact, the top officials of President George W. Bush’s administration couldn’t
The Worst Statue in Charlottesville
A case can be made that just about any public statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, is the worst one. The much lamented statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson are not alone in their offensiveness. Determining a winner in a contest for the worst monument in Charlottesville is not nearly as important, I think, as removing any of the lot of them from our central public spaces and installing them in a museum. I’m grateful to everyone who has advocated for the removal of any of these monstrosities
Talk Nation Radio: Ross Caputi on the Sacking of Fallujah
Ross Caputi is a PhD student in History at UMass and a coauthor of the critically important new book The Sacking of Fallujah: A People’s History. Ross Caputi’s experience as a U.S. Marine in Fallujah in 2004 compelled him to speak out against the war and to organize solidarity efforts with Fallujah. He is also a co-founder of the Islah Reparations Project.
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download from LetsTryDemocracy or Archive.
Pacifica
Hong Kong looks freer than the US: Press Freedom is Under Threat in the Land of its Birth
By Dave Lindorff
Hong Kong — Here in this ultra-modern city on the coast of southern China, I read in the morning paper that 11 consulates representing most of the nations of Europe, have lodged protests with the city’s chief executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor over a controversial new extradition bill that if passed would allow Hong Kong to extradite suspects to nations with which Hong Kong does not have an extradition deal.
How About a Peace Race Instead of an Arms Race?
In late April, the highly-respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reported that, in 2018, world military expenditures rose to a record $1.82 trillion. The biggest military spender by far was the United States, which increased its military budget by nearly 5 percent to $649 billion (36 percent of the global total). But most other nations also joined the race for bigger and better ways to destroy one another through war.
This situation represents a double tragedy.
U.S. Army: 0 — Internet: 1
The U.S. Army tweeted a harmless rah-rah tweet and got hit with a burst of reality never encountered on corporate-controlled media. Score one for the internet.
The Army asked: “How has serving impacted you?”
Here’s a tiny sample of the responses:
Karen @educatorsresist 5 hours ago
Replying to @USArmy
I lost my virginity by being raped in front of my peers at 19. Got married to a nice guy who was part of my unit. He was in the invasion of Iraq. Came home a changed man who beat the shit out of me. He’s convinced y’all are stalking him and he’s homeless so great job there!