W.J. Astore The year was 1915. Europe, indeed much of the world, was embroiled in the devastating Great (or World) War. Under President Woodrow Wilson, the United States was proud to have stayed out of the war, the massive bloodletting of which seemed peculiarly European, an “Old World” form of militarized madness that most Americans…
Greg Laxer The common thread connecting these three recently deceased individuals stands out like a flashing neon sign for an objective observer: they were all executed without benefit of arrest, arraignment and trial. That is why I dare to link the supposed arch-fiend bin-Laden with a young black man in a St. Louis suburb and…
Michael Gallagher. Introduction by William Astore. It was called mutually assured destruction, or MAD for short. In the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union threatened each other with mass murder. If the nuclear missiles had flown, perhaps 100 million souls would have been vaporized in thirty minutes. Perhaps the human species (and most…
“War is like love; it always finds a way.” So wrote Bertolt Brecht, and when it comes to American politics and foreign policy in 2014, you can bet on Brecht being right. There is no major anti-war party in the USA today. Despite claims to fiscal austerity, Democrats and Republicans fall over themselves to fully…
W.J. Astore “[W]ar is a distressing, ghastly, harrowing, horrific, fearsome and deplorable business. How can its actual awfulness be described to anyone?” Stuart Hills, By Tank Into Normandy, p. 244 “[E]very generation is doomed to fight its war, to endure the same old experiences, suffer the loss of the same old illusions, and learn the…
b. traven John Kerry, America’s Secretary of State, has spent the last four months cobbling together a new Palestinian-Israeli peace process charade. To this end, he’s appointed Martin Indyk as his “Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian (Peace) Negotiations.” Why has the U.S. media failed to assess this appointment in any critical way? If Indyk had been Muslim…
Litsa Binder. Introduction by William Astore. “Peace is our profession” was the official slogan of the U.S. Air Force’s Strategic Air Command (SAC), a goal they were willing if necessary to enforce by thermonuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction (MAD) with the Soviet Union. In the Reagan years, the costly MX intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)…
Richard Sahn The other day I was jogging through the streets of Williamsport, PA (home of the Little League World Series) and noticed in one neighborhood three Pittsburgh Steelers flags. Although I’m not a sports fan now—I was when I was a teenager—I occasionally flip through the channels of my TV and watch a few…
A sequel to our recent article, Dueling Bumper Stickers I remember making collages in grade school; they were always good fun. I came across this collage of bumper stickers yesterday at the Gypsy Joint Cafe in Great Barrington, Mass. (They make scrumptious sandwiches and salads, by the way.) It’s a representative sample of sentiments that…
Being Catholic, I’m a big fan of the Sermon on the Mount and Christ’s teaching that “blessed are the peacemakers.” Yet in American history it seems that “forgotten are the peacemakers” would be a more accurate lesson. We’re much more likely to remember “great” generals, even vainglorious ones like George S. Patton or Douglas MacArthur,…
The Contrary Perspective 