b. traven Mort Sahl, a stand-up comedian before the day that being a stand-up comedian meant telling sexist and toilet jokes, was an outspoken and very funny satirist of all that was holy to the powers that be during the Cold War. In those days it was an act of political bravery just to be…
Richard Sahn I frequently drive through Eastern PA and New Jersey, usually on my way to New York City or New England. Much to my dismay, rest areas along the Interstate highways are often closed, either for repair or for no apparent reason. Now, I’ve always planned long distance car trips based on the number…
Daniel N. White Henry G. Gole, a retired U.S. Army colonel, published a fine book, Soldiering (Potomac Press, 2006) that deserves a much wider readership than it has earned to this date. Gole, son of an immigrant father from a German-speaking part of Slovenia, joined the Army in 1952 and went off to Korea as…
I started writing for TomDispatch, a remarkable contrarian site founded and edited by Tom Engelhardt, a fine editor/writer and even finer gentleman, in October 2007. My first article was on the Petraeus surge and how President Bush and his administration were hiding behind the absurdly bemedaled and beribboned uniform of that general. Tom Engelhardt’s generous…
W.J. Astore Note to readers: I wrote these words in November 2008, just after Obama was elected President for the first time. I’ve decided not to edit them. Perhaps they capture the thoughts (however flawed) of one American who was trying to understand the mess we had made of Iraq. Straight Talk on Iraq: Of…
The tradition of the citizen-soldier is still alive in this country — just look at our National Guard units. But the burden of military service is obviously not equally shared, with the affluent and famous tucked away safely at home. How many people remember that Jimmy Stewart, legendary Hollywood actor, flew dangerous combat missions in…
W.J. Astore Back in the ancient time of 2007, you may recall that color-coded threat warnings were constantly appearing on our TV screens. Those “Homeland Security threat advisory ratings” fluctuated between yellow (elevated) and orange (high). With the lone exception of the State of Hawaii in 2003, the threat ratings never dropped to blue…
W.J. Astore A few years ago I was talking to an experienced U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, a battalion commander in Iraq. He compared the Iraqi situation to a Rubik’s Cube – a puzzling array of shifting loyalties, interconnected tribes, and religious sects. At the time, I thought it was a telling metaphor. But the metaphor…
W.J. Astore Nick Turse has a fine op-ed in the New York Times, “For America, Life Was Cheap in Vietnam.” In it he argues that for Americans involved in the Vietnam War, life was very cheap indeed – Vietnamese lives, that is. Turse has written a powerful book, “Kill Anything that Moves,” that documents the…
Daniel N. White Books on war are too important to be left to generals, or for that matter to the usual war buffs. I suspect that the entire cadre of American lefties who read seriously about war could fit handily into an SUV. If so, Bruce Cumings might just occupy the driver’s seat. His one-volume…
The Contrary Perspective 