War Is A Crime

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

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

The advent of sound recording deep-sixed this age-old thought experiment and offered a definitive answer: Yes!

I’ve got another one for you, though: if you water-torture someone at a secure military compound and no one is around to see it, is it a war crime?

Tricky, right?

Well, what if someone read more

Back before Donald Trump was inaugurated, I wrote an article called “Fantasies About Russia Could Doom Opposition to Trump.” Perhaps it is less quixotic, or perhaps it is more, to hope that, after more than two years of being barraged with those fantasies, but with their main focus having publicly flopped, more people will now be open to trying something else. That pre-inauguration article read:

“Trump should be impeached on Day 1, but the same Democrats who found the one nominee who could read more

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

Who now remembers the classic 1956 sci-fi movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers? In it, alien spores drop to earth in… yes, California (undoubtedly not too far from the Mexican border)… and develop into seed pods that can replicate and then take over any nearby sleeping human being. What a nightmarish film. It certainly scared the hell out of 12-year-old read more

Here’s the description of an event planned for April 2nd at the University of Virginia:

“His Excellency Daniel Mulhall, Ambassador of Ireland to the United States, will speak as part of the University of Virginia Center for Politics’ Ambassador Series in the Rotunda Dome Room on April 2 from 3:30-4:45 p.m. Ambassador Mulhall will address the relationship between Ireland and the United States with emphasis on the countries’ Declarations of Independence for which Ireland celebrates its 100th read more

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

If you live among the Other 96% — that portion of humanity that the U.S. government does not claim to represent, but where the U.S. military maintains some 1,000 major military bases, here are some helpful tips and past examples of success.

First of all, do everything you can to let people in the United States know how much they are paying financially for the bases in your country. While some of us in the United States primarily object to bases because of their use in read more

I sent the New York Times this letter on March 20, 2019:

To the Editor,

Peter Navarro’s op-ed “Why America Needs a Stronger Defense Industry” argues that “Investing in the sector means more jobs at home and improved security abroad.” He praises the construction of tanks used in wars in Iraq.

Here is a study demonstrating that military spending produces fewer jobs than other types of public spending, or even than not taxing money from working people in the first place:
“The U.S. read more

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

I remember him (barely) as a thin, bald, little old man with a white mustache and a cane. As I write this, I’m looking at a photo of him in 1947, holding the hand of little Tommy Engelhardt who had just turned three that very July day. They’re on a street somewhere in Brooklyn, New York, Tommy in shorts and a T-shirt and his grandfather, Moore (that wasn’t his original read more