Guantanamo Past the Point of All Shame

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, September 9, 2021

U.S. high schools should teach courses on Guantanamo: what not to do in the world, how not to make it even worse, and how not to compound that catastrophe beyond all shame and recovery.

As we tear down Confederate statues and continue brutalizing victims in Guantanamo, I wonder if in 2181, had Hollywood still been around, it would have made movies from the perspective of Guantanamo’s prisoners while the U.S. government commited new and different read more

Tomgram: Jane Braxton Little, Becoming a Climate Refugee

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

Last month, I wrote a piece, “My Extreme World and (Un)Welcome to It,” about the shock of finding myself in what might be thought of as World War III, or perhaps World War(m) III; that is, already living in a country experiencing unbelievably extreme weather. July had just been declared the read more

Talk World Radio: Coleen Rowley on the Failures of 9/11 and Everything Since 9/12

Talk World Radio is recorded as audio and video on Riverside.fm. Here is this week’s video and all the videos on Youtube.

This week on Talk World Radio, the failures of September 11th and the failures of the global war launched on September 12th. Our guest Coleen Rowley is a retired special agent and former Minneapolis Division legal counsel of the FBI who taught constitutional law and law enforcement ethics to FBI agents and other law enforcement, then became a whistleblower about the FBI’s read more

Atheism Could Save Journalism, Democracy, and Your Family

I know, I know, journalism is so bad you don’t really want it saved or really see what saving it would mean — much less want it saved by some evil abomination like atheism. And we’ve never actually had democracy. And I’ve got no business mentioning your family, especially in the same breath as something as disgusting as atheism. But hear me out.

I’m thinking of those members of your family who believe they should eat horse medicine or that the earth’s climate is doing OK or that Iraqis read more

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Post-Afghanistan, Nation (Un)Building Comes Home

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

The Decline and Fall of the Roman… Whoops!… American Empire What Really Matters in the U.S. of A. By

They weren’t kidding when they called Afghanistan the “graveyard of empires.” Indeed, that cemetery has just taken another imperial body. And it wasn’t pretty, was it? Not that anyone should be surprised. Even after 20 years of preparation, a burial never is.

In fact, the shock and awe(fulness) in Kabul and Washington over these last weeks shouldn’t have been surprising, read more

THE “LONGEST WAR” IS NOT OVER

Speaking from the White House on August 31, President Joe Biden lied to the people of the U.S. and to the world: “Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan — the longest war in American history.” The U.S. war on Afghanistan did not end— it has only adapted to technological advances and morphed into a war that read more

Climate Crisis Chronicle #1: Cat 4 and 5 Hurricanes, Tornados Where They Haven’t Been, and Rising Temps Ahead Bode More Like It

By Dave Lindorff

My township of Upper Dublin, located about 12 miles north of Philadelphia, got clobbered by Hurricane Ida, but what’s strange about that is we’re located 1100 miles, as the crow (or a jet plane on a direct route) flies, from where Ida made landfall last Sunday.

While hurricanes, even a powerful Cat 4 storm like Ida with 150 mph sustained winds as it reached the coast of Louisiana, weaken quickly once they leave a warm body of water, and become no read more

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, David Swanson, Jackie Larkin September 9, 2021

By Gorilla Radio, September 5, 2021

LISTEN HERE.

Many took heart when America announced an end to its military occupation of Afghanistan last month. But optimism for a beginning of peace in that benighted country’s decades-long state of civil conflict and uncertainty is now clouded by bellicose statements made in Washington by an administration that seems to want to end its war and fight it too. Following a recent attack against civilians and American troops at Kabul’s airport, in a speech delivered read more

What Ending a War Could Look Like

By David Swanson

When you imagine ending a war, do you imagine the U.S. President lamenting the human cost of the war’s financial expense while simultaneously demanding that Congress increase military spending — and while mentioning new wars that could potentially be launched?

Do you picture him blowing up families with missiles from robot airplanes, and committing to continuing those “strikes” while maintaining that such things don’t constitute continuing the war?

Did you hope that if read more