DANNY SHAW – Vladimir Putin is considered a threat because he restored Russian sovereignty, erased the humiliation of the Boris Yeltsin era, and championed Russia’s national interests. But that is just what the U.S. elite could not tolerate.
Tag: Osama bin Laden
Afghanistan: What Went Wrong? What Have We Learned?
MARC PILISUK – For years, military preparedness and war itself have been granted extensive support in the United States. At the current moment, public opinion is questioning whether this support has added to Americans’ security or placed it in greater danger. Indeed, the termination of a failed war in Afghanistan has brought into question, whether that war was wrong from the start.
COVID-19 is a True Terrorist but the National Security State is Helpless and Useless
ANDREW BACEVICH – Deferred for far too long, Judgment Day may at long last have arrived for the national security state.
Why Those “Endless Wars” Must Never End
ANDREW BACEVICH – Here’s the strange thing for the self-proclaimed greatest power in history, the very one that, in this century, has been fighting a series of unending wars across significant parts of the planet: if you exclude Operation Urgent Fury, the triumphant invasion of the island Grenada in 1983, and Operation Just Cause, the largely unopposed invasion of Panama in 1989, Washington’s last truly successful war ended 74 years ago in August 1945 with the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japanese cities. Every war of even modest significance since — and they’ve been piling up — from the Korean and Vietnam wars to the ones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Libya, and elsewhere in this century (and the last as well, in the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq) has either ended badly (Vietnam) or not at all (see above).
Depleted Uranium Weapons Leave Shameful Legacy of Radioactive Death
BARBARA KOEPPEL – Although the United States and its allies call their newest weapons conventional, which means non-nuclear, the truth is more complicated. Scientists I interviewed here in the United States, and in Canada, Europe, and Lebanon describe this latest generation of weapons as radioactive and chemically poisonous. While not nuclear, they leave high levels of uranium in their wake. And it’s now documented that cancer and birth defects associated with exposure to radiation have soared in countries where the United States and its allies have waged wars since the early 1990s.
U.S. Prepares for War in Korea
BRUCE GAGNON – South Korea and the US launched their annual Key Resolve military exercise Monday, which involves scenarios for the employment of US anti-missile assets and special warfare forces tasked with removing North Korea’s leadership in a contingency.
Nonviolence Works Better
TOM H. HASTINGS – Democracy, said Winston Churchill, is the worst form of government—except for all the rest. This is also true for nonviolence. When people are victims of injustice, especially a violent injustice, a violent response is easy to justify. “I’m not going to sit still while someone attacks me,†is quite reasonable. But the consequences of our actions are worth considering.
Obama and Osama: Where Does the Truth Lie?
IBRAHIM S. BAHATI – Since Osama bin Laden’s death 2 May 2011, the official account of the Navy Seals’ raid has been challenged, most recently and cogently by journalist Seymour Hersh, alleging that “Washington’s official account of the hunt for Bin Laden and the raid that led to his death was a lie.†In fact, there have been more “conspiracy-factual theories†about this event than there are on Illuminati. Was OBL there? Was he even alive then? Is he still?
A Preview of Coming Wars: Do Black Lives Matter in Africa?
DAVID SWANSON – Reading Nick Turse’s new book, Tomorrow’s Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa, raises the question of whether black lives in Africa matter to the U.S. military any more than black lives in the United States matter to the police lately trained and armed by that military.
Renaming Afghan War, Renaming Murder
DAVID SWANSON – The U.S.-led NATO war on Afghanistan has lasted so long they’ve decided to rename it, declare the old war over, and announce a brand new war they’re just sure you’re going to love.
Democrat, Republican Policies Overlap Substantially
RITIKA SINGH and BENJAMIN WITTES – Political parties in the United States, like a spatting couple in a bad marriage, have been fighting over the law of counterterrorism for more than a decade. And like the spatting couple, they have developed an almost rote script for their fight. The script has a logic of its own. It is a comfortable one for both spouses—and the fight is soothing in its own way. Republicans and Democrats alike wrap up some portion of their party’s identity and self-image in the conflict over national-security policy. The fight gives each side the impression—and the confidence—that the other endangers America. And it gives each side something to tell voters about why they should vote one way rather than another.
Want to Eliminate Terrorism? Offer Nonviolent Leadership
TOM H. HASTINGS – When I teach about the possibilities of a nonviolent response to terrorism, I try to cover many aspects of this complex topic. One of the main strands is the idea that the objectives of al Qa’ida, as stated by Osama bin Laden on several occasions in the 1990s, were not at all unreasonable, but their methods, we agree, were grotesque.
Report: Time is Ripe to Rebalance U.S. Security Resources
LAWRENCE KORB and MIRIAM PEMBERTON – Two of 2011’s most extraordinary developments point in a single direction.
First, the death of Osama bin Laden was accomplished by means that resembled a police action. A painstaking investigation preceded the operation by a group of special forces roughly the size of a SWAT team. Then came the extensive diplomatic work to improve the critical, complex, and challenging relationship between the United States and Pakistan.
UN Human Rights Chief Criticizes U.S. on Guantanamo Bay
JENNIFER M. FREEDMAN – President Barack Obama’s failure to close Guantanamo Bay and his decision to try some prisoners in military courts are “extremely disappointing,†said the United Nations’ top human-rights official.
Revenge is Obsolete
WINSLOW MYERS – Our euphoric national mood in the wake of the assassination of Osama bin Laden may make for a reluctance to look once again, or perhaps for the first time, at his demands. There has been almost nothing in the mainstream press that examines his motivations for terrorism.
Libertarian View: 10 Reasons to End the Wars Now
WES BENEDICT — The long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been back in the news recently, and we just had the bizarre spectacle of the Republican National Committee Chairman saying he didn’t like Obama’s war in Afghanistan, while the DNC chastised him for failing to support the troops.