As I was putting the finishing touches on my new book, the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute published an estimate of the taxpayer dollars that will have gone into America’s war on terror from September 12, 2001, through fiscal year 2018. That figure: a cool $5.6 trillion (including the future costs of caring for our war vets). On average, that’s at least $23,386 per taxpayer.
In an exclusive for The American Conservative, U.S. Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, writes that a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to be put before Congress soon is “deeply flawed” and an abdication of its responsibility under the Constitution to declare war. What would President Trump and his handlers do with these new war powers?
Liberated Jobar. Syrian Arab Army soldiers on duty. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)
21st Century Wire says…
In the first two parts of this report, I have estimated that about 2.4 million people have been killed as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, while about 1.2 million have been killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a result of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.
The Washington Post: Watchdog or stenographer to power?
by Ian Sinclair
Morning Star
22 March 2018
STEVEN SPIELBERG’S new film about the Washington Post’s decision in 1971 to publish the Pentagon Papers — a secret history of the Vietnam War that proved successive US presidents had lied to the US public — has received huge amounts of critical acclaim.
Britain’s collusion with radical Islam: Interview with Mark Curtis
by Ian Sinclair
Open Democracy
20 March 2018
In our mid-season review and analysis of Homeland season 7, Pearse and I get into various strands of the show including the Brett O’Keefe/Waco arc, the Russiagate conspiracy, how the CIA should be portrayed as having utterly failed the country but have somehow dressed themselves up as the heroes, fake news, Russian ‘active measures’ and […](Read more...)
by Gaius PubliusIn a nice piece at TomGram ("On Seeing America’s Wars Whole: Six Questions for A.G.
Book review. Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam by Mark Curtis
by Ian Sinclair
Morning Star
5 March 2018
Informed by months of research in the National Archives, this updated edition of Secret Affairs reconfirms the so-called war on terror the West has been waging since 9/11 “is a joke”, as British historian Mark Curtis argues.
From racism and sexism to the military-industrial complex, the politics both within the Marvel Cinematic Universe and surrounding it here in the real world are a constant source of news stories and controversy. This week we look at how the world’s biggest film franchise is both the source and the subject of political disputes and […](Read more...)
