W.J. Astore Why, looky here, another article in the New York Times that examines the Republican “hawks” posturing for a presidential run in 2016. As the article blurb states, “Republicans are scrambling to outmuscle one another on national security issues.” It’s all about looking tough and calling for more boots on the ground in…
W.J. Astore Like so many bloated Hollywood movies nowadays, America’s wars may bomb, but they always produce their own sequels. Look at the latest news from Iraq and Afghanistan. These wars have persisted for more than a decade, with several re-releases to include “surges” and repeats. The latest from Iraq is preparations to retake the…
b. traven Mission accomplished, George Bush! You succeeded in making Saddam Hussein look like Mahatma Gandhi compared to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the ISIS Caliphate. Your invention of non-existent weapons of mass destruction (WMD) back in 2002 as an excuse to invade the sovereign state of Iraq in 2003 has come back to bite us…
W.J. Astore Is the U.S. military doomed? I’d say yes. But it’s not because our troops are uncommitted, our weapons are bad, and our tactics are flawed. Rather it’s because of the conventional wisdom in Washington and the Pentagon that continues to commit our troops to unnecessary and unwinnable wars. This conventional wisdom is perhaps…
W.J. Astore In my latest article for TomDispatch, I examine why the Iraqi security forces that the U.S. trained and equipped at a cost of $25 billion performed so poorly when attacked by ISIS in June. Read on! And be sure to check out other articles at TomDispatch, a contrarian site edited by the inestimable…
Craig Miller Juan Williams, writing for the Hill, had this to say about the application of the 2001/2002 AUMF (Authorization for Use of Military Force) to the Islamic State: As my friend and Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano has noted, [using the AUMF] is ridiculous because ISIS did not exist in 2001…
W.J. Astore Also at Huffington Post. President Obama’s decision to deploy 3,000 troops to Liberia in Africa to assist in efforts to contain Ebola got me to thinking about the military as white blood cells. As a military officer, I took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. In a…
Michael Murry President Barack Obama’s most recent speech launching yet another self-declared Personal Presidential Crusade against yet another Evil Muslim Acronym (ISIS/ISIL/IS, whatever) reminds me of something that General David Petraeus, Commander of the International Security Assistance Forces in Afghanistan once said regarding his mission objectives and his prospects for achieving them: “I think no…
W.J. Astore In April 2009, I wrote an article for TomDispatch.com recounting Mary McCarthy’s critique of the American experience in Vietnam, and how her lessons applied to President Obama’s “surge” in Afghanistan. A central lesson cited by McCarthy was the American desire never to be labeled a loser. That desire explains, at least in part,…
W.J. Astore President Obama’s speech tonight on the Islamic State (or ISIS) promises more military action. More airstrikes, more boots on the ground (mainly Special Forces), more training for the Iraqi military (who have endured more than a decade’s worth of U.S. military training, with indifferent results), and more weapons sales (which often end up…
The Contrary Perspective 