imperialism

Mike Pompeo on the U.S. Victory in Afghanistan

The U.S. appears about to announce a peace agreement with the Taliban trading the withdrawal of U.S. forces for a Taliban commitment to exclude al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups from the country. (Presumably the Taliban themselves will be removed from the State Department’s terror list.) It has been under discussion for at least several years, attracting little journalistic attention.

Book review. Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent by Priyamvada Gopal

Book review. Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent by Priyamvada Gopal
by Ian Sinclair
Peace News
October-November 2019

Written by University of Cambridge Reader Priyamvada Gopal, Insurgent Empire confronts the now infamous 2014 YouGov poll which found 59 percent of Britons thought the British empire was “something to be proud of”.

A Veteran in a World of Never-Ending Wars and Improvised Explosive Devices

  Recently, on a beautiful Kansas Saturday, I fell asleep early, exhausted by the excitement and ultimate disappointment of the Army football team’s double overtime loss to highly favored Michigan. Having turned against America’s forever wars and the U.S. military as an institution while I was still in it, West Point football, I’m almost ashamed to admit, is my last[Read More...]

In Defense of Cory Morningstar’s Manufacturing for Consent Series

Good investigative journalism doesn’t only reveal hidden mechanisms of our time;  it also exposes those who refuse to confront the mechanisms. Remember when the late Bruce Dixon courageously and cogently called Bernie Sanders “a sheep dog candidate”? Remember when Eva Bertlett, Vanessa Beeley and others truly stood with Syrian people in opposing the western intervention?  I do. Those who could not face the reality came up with all sorts of profanities and ill conceived theories to demonize the messengers.

 Why Ending the Afghan War Won’t End the Killing

I’ve never been to Afghanistan, but I am the mother of two young children. So when I imagine what life must be like there after 18 years of war, my mind conjures up the children most vividly — the ones who have been affected by the conflict — and their parents. I think of the 12-year-old boy who was carrying water to[Read More...]

Bolton’s Firing Opens a New Potential for a Russia-China-USA Alliance

With President Trump’s long overdue firing of John Bolton on September 10th, a window into the battle between neocon zombies infesting the White House and Donald Trump was made visible once more. As much as people enjoy oversimplifying American politics- clumping all “right wing politicians” together as ideological war mongers, the reality as showcased again this week, is that things are more nuanced and that President Trump is not just another neocon.

The Ultra-Costly, Underwhelming F-35 Fighter

How are you with numbers? I can deal with $1.5 million. I think I can even imagine $1.5 billion, a sum a thousand times greater. But how about a million times greater: $1.5 trillion? That happens to be the estimated cost of the Pentagon’s program to build, deploy, and maintain the no-longer-so-new F-35 jet fighter over its lifetime. How can any people invest so[Read More...]