A dark secret behind the Hiroshima bomb is where the uranium came from, a spy-vs.-spy race to secure naturally enriched uranium from Congo to fuel the Manhattan Project and keep the rare mineral out of Nazi hands, reports Joe Lauria.…Read more →
So far there have been 44 U.S. presidents, each with their own legacy. Two of these presidents were in office for only a month, so their legacies are short.
The apparent madness in the Obama administration starting a new Cold War with Russia and China makes sense if viewed from the perspective of the Military-Industrial Complex, which must justify ever-larger budgets, as Chuck Spinney explains. By Chuck Spinney Today,…Read more →
Upset that presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump isn’t one of them, angry neocons insist that they represent America’s reasonable foreign policy consensus, a claim challenged by ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar. By Paul R. Pillar The ululation among neoconservatives over their…Read more →
From the Archive: A century ago, the British-French Sykes-Picot deal carved up the Mideast, setting in motion conflicts made more complicated when Israel emerged and mastered American politics, as Morgan Strong described in 2010. By Morgan Strong (Originally published May 31, 2010)…Read more →
Like grade inflation in college, the Pentagon has engaged in medal inflation, diluting awards for actual heroism by proliferating ribbons for bureaucratic skills, as Chuck Spinney and James Perry Stevenson explain. By Chuck Spinney It should be clear that the…Read more →
If Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was a deserter, then he’s a hero. Furthermore, he might have been the only sane American in Afghanistan. That war is not only unnecessary, it is wrong. Bergdahl’s recognition of this fact (if that’s what occurred) proves his sanity. Then again, perhaps he just got tired of killing and the threat of being killed. Or maybe the military’s excessively macho culture got to him. If he did just walk away from his post, it’s clear something cataclysmic happened in his psyche. It is not his fault other soldiers may have been killed searching for him.
Ariel Sharon was a serial mass murderer, engaged in massacres of unarmed victims in four countries, of all ages and conditions. He was a “hero” for hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews who settled on land and in houses seized from Palestinians in the West Bank. He was praised by Western leaders at his funeral for his violent, lifelong opposition to Arab nationalist movements throughout the Middle East. That he was a fanatical upholder of Jewish supremacist policies and practices did not go unnoticed by wealthy Zionist donors in the US.
According to the tale called The Iliad, the Greek god of war, named Ares, was “The most hateful of all gods….” Indeed, his father Zeus commanded him: “Do not sit beside me and whine, you double-faced liar.” Zeus treated him like this because Ares reveled in bloodshed and his only attributes were those that are the worst in humankind. Unfortunately since, the days of Olympus, war has defined the human race as much, if not more, than any of its other, often more positive elements.
