W.J. Astore Here are a few excerpts from my latest article at TomDispatch.com. I urge you to read the entire article here. Thank you! War on drugs. War on poverty. War in Afghanistan. War in Iraq. War on terror. The biggest mistake in American policy, foreign and domestic, is looking at everything as war. When a war…
W.J. Astore If you’re in the U.S. military or you’re a veteran, you probably know casualty figures, especially deaths, from America’s wars. To cite one example, America lost more than 58,000 men in the Vietnam War. Their names are inscribed on the “The Wall” in DC. I’ve been there. Seeing all those names is a…
W.J. Astore Many people associate the Confederate flag (the “stars and bars”) with the South and the U.S. Civil War (Whoops — I mean “The War of Northern Aggression”). For some people, it’s been a more or less vague expression of Southern heritage, or a symbol of rebellion, a sort of redneck “good ol’ boy”…
By Graciela Huth. Introduction by Michael Murry. Graciela (Grace) Huth calls herself “an old woman.” She says that she writes as a form of therapy, “to unload my anger and avoid having a stroke due to what is going on today in the USA.” Yet her long life of good citizenship and community activism testify…
W.J. Astore The American people are being kept divided, distracted, and downtrodden. Divisions are usually based on race and class. Racial tensions and discrimination exist, of course, but they are also exploited to divide people. Just look at the current debate on the Confederate flag flying in Charleston, South Carolina, with Republican presidential candidates refusing…
Daniel N. White I recently came across a most worthwhile book at the library: The Road to the Killing Fields: The Cambodian War of 1970-1975, by Wilfred P. Deac, published in 1997. There’s no shortage of books out there about the Vietnam War, but our satellite wars in Cambodia and Laos have gotten almost no…
Nile Stanton Back in the age when slavery was deemed acceptable by many people, it was no doubt more widely and readily accepted by slave owners and those in the numerous businesses that financially profited from it. I imagine that shipping businesses that profited from transporting slaves were deemed vital and in the national interest,…
W.J. Astore Since the end of the Vietnam War, when it eliminated the draft, the United States has relied on an “all-volunteer military,” or AVM. But that military, as one would expect, has not drawn equally from all segments of American society. Its recruits have been more rural than urban, more Southern and Midwestern than…
W.J. Astore Reports that President Obama is considering even more troops and bases to fight ISIS in Iraq put me to mind of Roman general Publius Quinctilius Varus. Two millennia ago, Varus committed three Roman legions to the Teutoburg Forest in Germania in terrain that neutralized Roman advantages in firepower and maneuverability. Ambushed and caught…
W.J. Astore For George W. Bush, American troops were the greatest force for human freedom in the world. For Barack Obama, the troops represented the world’s finest fighting force, not just in this moment, but in all of human history. What is the reason for such hyperbolic, I’d even say unhinged, praise for our troops? …
The Contrary Perspective 