War Is A Crime

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

I’m sure you’ve never heard of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services. But just so you know, though it was established almost three-quarters of a century ago, only recently Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth read more

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

Once upon a time, perhaps a century ago — actually, it was probably 1959 — bored by my high school American history class, I began fiddling with a sheet of paper I had hidden inside my history textbook on which I had traced a global map. I soon found myself drawing the Chinese conquest of the world (and, of course, of my own country). At the time, as I read more

“Abolition” isn’t just a fun word to say.

“I want to abolish prisons,” doesn’t just mean that you think there are too many prisons and they are too horrible. “Abolish the police” isn’t just a hip way to say “I’m angry at abuse by police.” Abolishing something means eliminating it entirely, which often also means creating very different institutions that do things very differently.

Entirely means every last speck.

Abolishing war, and preparations for war, and weapons of war, read more

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

The Surrender President Creating a Distinctly Declinist Power on a Distinctly Declinist Planet By Tom Engelhardt

Ours would be the normal story of imperial powers rising and falling on Planet Earth — nothing new there, of course — if it weren’t for one thing: the fact that this world, too, is now falling. Unfortunately, nothing is truly normal about this planet of ours anymore, as the slow-motion read more

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

Yes, all these centuries later, this planet is at war — at least, three utterly disastrous ones — in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. And it seems that isn’t faintly enough for our president who, at this point, is distinctly stirring up the waters of the Caribbean.

And if the history of this country since the name of the Department of War was changed to… no, not read more

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

Let’s face it: we’re now in a different country. You know, the one where, if you happen to live in a city with a Democratic mayor (as I do), then watch out. Sooner or later, you’re likely to see not just ICE agents but armed National Guard troops on the streets. Memphis happens to be the latest target of Donald Trump’s militarized wrath. (No matter that the city has read more

Two U.S. military veterans allegedly shot and killed at least three people each this past weekend, Thomas Jacob Sanford in Michigan, and Nigel Max Edge in North Carolina. So, it is a safe bet that they will both be added (with, almost certainly, no mention of their status as veterans) to the database maintained by Mother Jones that I have for years been using as a starting point to track statistics on mass shootings.

It’s been almost two years since I posted an update. In that time, Mother read more

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All those courageous United Nation delegates triumphantly walking out (gasp!) on a Netanyahu speech on Friday actually had a legal obligation to arrest him and deliver him to the International Criminal Court which has long since issued a warrant for his arrest.

Those heroic governments of Italy and Spain that are making a show of responding to public pressure against their complicity in genocide should be prosecuting Israelis under universal jurisdiction; establishing a complete embargo on weapons read more

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

When I was a kid, I replayed the Civil War on the floor of my room with toy soldiers. (All these years later, I still have a tiny Ulysses S. Grant on a horse beside my desk.) As a teenager, I read historian Bruce Catton’s famed read more