War Is A Crime

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

How about a little round of Auld Lang Syne? After all, when it comes to war crimes, whatever he ends up doing, Donald Trump will still be a johnny-come-lately. Remember, for instance, that top officials in the administration of George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, reportedly read more

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

In those pre-seat-belt years — it might have been 1953 — I can remember being in the back seat of the family car with our dog. My dad was driving, my mom sitting next to him. And I can still practically hear them launching, with remarkable gusto, into the first verse of the Air Force song:

“Off we go into the wild blue yonder,
Climbing high into the sun.
read more

Mother Jones magazine has updated its database of U.S. mass shootings. I’ve downloaded it and made a few changes, before posting it here.

The main change I’ve made has been to add a column indicating whether the shooter was a U.S. military veteran. I’ve also deleted some of the shooting incidents, reducing the list from 111 to 97 shootings. I’ve done this, just as I had done previously, in order to read more

World BEYOND War — June 3, 2019

On the evening of June 3, 2019, the City Council of Charlottesville, Va., voted to divest the funds in its operating budget from weapons dealers and fossil fuel producers. Here’s the resolution as passed by the City Council: PDF. The city has also committed to taking the same step with its retirement fund by this coming autumn.

The proposal to do this was brought to the city in March by a coalition of groups called Divest Cville, which attended and spoke at city read more

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

We’re plunged into a world in which yesterday’s strangeness is instantly overwhelmed by today’s, which, in turn, is guaranteed to be overshadowed by tomorrow’s. Our president regularly regales his infamous base while mocking his enemies in ways that, not long ago, would have been presidentially inconceivable. It’s a world in which he recently flew to Japan and presented read more

No matter how many times one presents the facts to people at real-world events, or through online media, progressive radio, and non-US television networks, there is simply no stopping virtually everyone in the United States believing the most ludicrous myths about World War II.

So, my new scheme for debunking is a Me Too one. Not that I mind promoting the Me Too movement. I think it’s a very welcome development in U.S. culture. I don’t, of course, have any use for the truly ridiculous position read more

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 read more