Their Videos and Ours, Their “Caliphate” and Ours
by Tom Engelhardt
Whatever your politics, you’re not likely to feel great about America right now. After all, there’s Ferguson (the whole world was watching!), an increasingly unpopular president, a Congress whose approval ratings make the president look like a rock star, rising poverty, weakening wages, and a [...]
The Underrated Saudi Connection
by Patrick Cockburn
[This essay is excerpted from the first chapter of Patrick Cockburn’s new book, The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising, with special thanks to his publisher, OR Books. The first section is a new introduction written for TomDispatch.]
There are extraordinary elements in the present [...]
The Limits of America’s African Experiment in Nation Building
by Nick Turse
Juba, South Sudan — The soft glow of the dancing white lights is a dead giveaway. It’s Christmas in July at the U.S. Embassy compound. Behind high walls topped with fierce-looking metal impediments meant to discourage climbers, there’s a party under way.
Close [...]
Drone-Killing the Fifth Amendment
by Peter Van Buren
You can’t get more serious about protecting the people from their government than the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, specifically in its most critical clause: “No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” In 2011, the White House ordered the [...]
Choreographed War and Other Aspects of the World’s Greatest Game
[The following passages are excerpted at TomDispatch from Eduardo Galeano’s Soccer in Sun and Shadow (Nation Books, Open Road Media ebooks).]
The Stadium
Have you ever entered an empty stadium? Try it. Stand in the middle of the field and [...]
How Egypt’s Generals Sidelined Uncle Sam
by Dilip Hiro
Since September 11, 2001, Washington’s policies in the Middle East have proven a grim imperial comedy of errors and increasingly a spectacle of how a superpower is sidelined. In this drama, barely noticed by the American media, Uncle Sam’s keystone ally in the Arab world, Egypt, like [...]
Speaking Truth From the Robotic Heavens
Enemies, innocent victims, and soldiers have always made up the three faces of war. With war growing more distant, with drones capable of performing on the battlefield while their “pilots” remain thousands of miles away, two of those faces have, however, faded into the background [...]
by Nick Turse*
The numbers tell the story: 10 exercises, 55 operations, 481 security cooperation activities.
For years, the U.S. military has publicly insisted that its efforts in Africa are small scale. Its public affairs personnel and commanders have repeatedly claimed no more than a “light footprint” on that continent, including a [...]
America’s New Model for Expeditionary Warfare
by Nick Turse
Lion Forward Teams? Echo Casemate? Juniper Micron?
You could be forgiven if this jumble of words looks like nonsense to you. It isn’t. It’s the language of the U.S. military’s simmering African interventions; the patois that goes with a set of missions carried out in [...]
How Obama Became a Publicist for His Presidency (Rather Than the President)
Like many days, March 3rd saw the delivery of a stern opinion by President Obama. To judge by recent developments in Ukraine, he said, Russia wasputting itself “on the wrong side of history.” This might seem a surprising [...]
From IPS News- Mobilizing Against Hunger in Brazil, Where It Affects 33.1 Million People
- Animals are Core to Pandemic Prevention – We Must Strengthen Their Defences
- Weaponizing Free Trade Agreements
- Why We Need a Digital Safe Space for LGBTQ Youth – Thoughts from Asian Teens
- Androids in Human Populations
- Nature-Positive Ventures Crucial for Africa’s future, say experts at Africa Green Economy Conference
- Smelter Finally Closes Due to Extreme Pollution in Chilean Bay
- EU’s Exclusionary Migration Policies Place People on the Move toward Europe at Greater Risk
- IPBES to Release New Assessments on the Values of Biodiversity and Sustainable Use of Wild Species
- The World Is Melting Down and the Cause is Corruption- The G20 Needs to Take Action
