This week, the British government announced plans to cut its military personnel by 10 percent, scrap 40 percent of the army’s artillery and tanks, and withdraw all of its troops from Germany within 10 years, the New York Times reports. The plan will involve a cut of about 8 percent in real terms in Britain’s…
Two weeks until Election Day, and no-one is talking about the wars, the New York Times reports. (Of course, that’s not quite true: as the Washington Post reports, for example, this former Army Green Beret is running for Congress in Missouri on a platform of ending the war in Afghanistan.) Unsurprisingly, the wars may have…
Recently, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been sounding the alarm about the fact that the burden of "our" wars is being disproportionately borne by a very small slice of the population: soldiers and their families. Like, I am sure, many Americans, I have sharply conflicted feelings about this. One the one hand: I strongly agree…
For the Washington Post, there’s no such thing as a war that America can’t afford. In an editorial today, the Washington Post takes President Obama to task for being concerned about the cost of the war in Afghanistan and the fact that it conflicts with domestic priorities. That the Washington Post, a knee-jerk supporter of…
A major contribution of the "inside experts" Afghanistan Study Group report (read here ; send to your reps in Congress here), released last week to spur Washington debate towards de-escalating the war at the next fork in the road is that its very first recommendation is this: 1. Emphasize power-sharing and political inclusion. The U.S….
President Obama wants credit for keeping his promise to end the war in Iraq. Some credit is due: the President reaffirmed his commitment to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011, as required by the agreement between the U.S. and Iraq. But only partial credit is due, because the war-ending task…
Much ink has been spilled over the President’s pledge to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan in July 2011. The White House insists that the date is firm. But the pace of withdrawal is yet to be determined, and the White House hasn’t said a word about when – if ever – a U.S. military…
"Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them" was former non-Senator Al Franken’s 2003 examination of the lies and distortions of right-wing pundits and politicians. Such a book, if it were written today, should certainly include a fair and balanced look at some of the lying liars still running our foreign policy: in particular, at…
575: That’s how many U.S. soldiers have lost their lives in the Afghanistan war since Barack Obama became President at noon on January 20, 2009, according to the icasualties.org website, which tracks U.S. soldiers’ deaths using reports received from the Department of Defense – and which is widely cited in the media as a source…
Is there a man or woman in America today who is willing to stand at noon in the public square and claim that demands to bomb, invade, and occupy other people’s countries have anything to do with human liberation? If such people can be found, let them answer a few simple questions about the U.S….