Glenn Greenwald. Introduction by William Astore. What is a patriot? To my mind, someone who stands up for the best of America. Someone who remembers that the government serves the people and not vice-versa. Someone who knows that democracy and freedom are based on transparency and honesty. And someone who is willing to sacrifice, even…
W.J. Astore In Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, the U.S. military is fairly good at projecting power. Indeed, the military prides itself on “global reach, global power,” achieved through a worldwide system of bases and funded by enormous amounts of “defense” spending. What the U.S. military is not so good at is understanding foreign cultures. Often,…
b. traven Who is the real aggressor in Ukraine? The U.S. appears to be playing the democracy card again, this time to save Ukraine from big, bad Putin. But is there a joker in the deck? Is it possible that our President, our Vice President, and our eminent Secretary of State, emboldened by their claims of…
W.J. Astore There’s a new bear in the woods and his name is Vladimir Putin. Remember that Reagan campaign ad from 1984 that showed a menacing, obviously Soviet, bear patrolling the woods, with ominous music in the background? Fast-forward thirty years and a bare-chested Putin is that new bear, marauding in the Crimea and threatening…
W.J. Astore Much like my father, I can be a pack rat. Going through old files, I found a “blue book” exam that I took as a college freshman in 1982. The essay question I had to answer was whether the U.S. could have won the Vietnam War. Recall that in 1975, South Vietnam had…
W.J. Astore When Hannah Arendt, the famous German-American political philosopher, criticized American involvement in the Vietnam War, she said that our foreign policy “experts” fell prey to using excessive means to achieve minor aims in a region of marginal interest to the United States. You could say the same of most of America’s foreign interventions…
b. traven A few weeks ago I wrote that Russia, in occupying Crimea, was mainly concerned about maintaining their basing of their Black Sea Fleet in Crimea. This after their clear understanding that the regime change in Kiev, partially financed by us, was largely part of the U.S. strategy of surrounding Russia with American assets…
Daniel N. White Front blew in Sunday in Texas, a dry norther, and once again I’m allergy sick. Physically debilitated and mentally impaired too. I know better than to operate power equipment on allergy days. I minimize my driving, and mostly I do things indoors and breathe the HVAC filtered air. Most of the work I…
Michael Murry I watched Rachel Maddow’s new documentary (“Why We Did It”) on why the U.S. went to war in Iraq in 2003. Her answer was “oil,” which is true enough as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go nearly far enough. First of all, a matter of style: I found her breathless “now it…
W.J. Astore Rachel Maddow at MSNBC aired a new documentary last night on why we went to war against Iraq in 2003. In a word: oil. Bush and Cheney were looking to overthrow Saddam Hussein as a prerequisite to controlling and privatizing Iraqi oil production. Pre-war planning in the U.S. as well as Great Britain…
The Contrary Perspective 