b. traven After 9/11, Bush/Cheney and an authoritarian national security state ran amok. Vengeance was the byword, and few in the government were careful about who the enemy was. Fear of another humiliating attack on the scale of 9/11, combined with a sociopathic disregard for human rights, drove a torture regime that was authorized from…
W.J. Astore About seven years ago, I had an impassioned debate with a conservative friend about whether the U.S. had engaged in torture and, if we had, whether it had been effective. My position was clear: we had engaged in torture, and it was both wrong and counterproductive. My friend was unconvinced. His arguments, which…
Stuart Lyle Former CIA Director and Army four-star general David Petraeus is not very good at keeping secrets. He shared multiple binders full of top-secret materials with a journalist – and was found out. And he bedded that journalist, the attractive Paula Broadwell, but was unable to keep his infidelity secret either from his wife…
Daniel N. White I’m glad to see the U.S. starting to reestablish normal diplomatic relations with Cuba. If there has been anything productive or beneficial from our 1960-present diplomatic and economic freeze out of Cuba for us, them, or anyone else I fail to see it. A failed policy, it shows how easily the U.S.…
b. traven and W.J. Astore Are America’s foreign policy leaders mad? It’s a serious question. Consider last week’s dispatch of 300 military trainers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade to Western Ukraine, a country involved in a contentious jousting match with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Or consider this week’s deployment of an aircraft carrier battle group off…
Nicolas J S Davies As I wrote this essay on the 12th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq (March 19-20), the news was filled with its violent repercussions across the Middle East and the world. The latest atrocity was a multiple suicide bombing at two mosques in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, that have killed…
Michael Brenner Why bother with facts? That question threads its way through political discourse, through educational philosophy and through observations on the media. Rarely is it confronted squarely. For the lines between actual reality and virtual reality have been so blurred that the distinction itself no longer is generally recognized. The axiom that since I…
W.J. Astore The United States continues to insert the bodies of its troops into leaky Iraqi and Afghan dikes. That’s the image that came to mind with the recent news from Iraq and Afghanistan. More American “advisers” and weapons being sent to Iraq. The revival of night raids by U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan. No…
W.J. Astore The juxtaposition of two stories in my NY Times military “feed” got me to thinking this morning. The first story involves Ashton Carter, President Obama’s nominee to replace Chuck Hagel as America’s new Secretary of Defense. Carter, the article suggests, is a “centrist who may advocate a stronger use of American power.” The…
W.J. Astore News that President Obama has doubled the number of American troops (whoops — I mean advisers) in Iraq to 3100 is already a tacit admission of defeat in that troubled region. Let’s recall that the Iraqi security forces the U.S. trained and equipped to the tune of $25 billion simply melted away when…
The Contrary Perspective 