Lethality Beyond the Pale

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

In those first minutes, they’ll be stunned. Eyes fixed in a thousand-yard stare, nerve endings numbed. They’ll just stand there. Soon, you’ll notice that they are holding their arms out at a 45-degree angle. Your eyes will be...

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

In the lead-up to the war in Iraq, President George W. Bush made a promise. "The Iraqi people can be certain of this," he said. "The United States is committed to helping them build a better future." A decade later, his successor,...

A Question for Veterans That Needs Answering

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

This post contains graphic sexual content.

On August 31, 1969, a rape was committed in Vietnam.  Maybe numerous rapes were committed there that day, but this was a rare one involving American GIs that actually made...

Waterboarding Americans and the Redefinition of Torture

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

Try to remain calm -- even as you begin to feel your chest tighten and your heart race.  Try not to panic as water starts flowing into your nose and mouth, while you attempt...

The Last Best Chance for the Truth About a Lost War and America’s War-Making Future

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

He’s been battered by big-money conservative groups looking to derail his bid for secretary of defense.  Critics say he wants to end America’s nuclear program. ...

The American System of Suffering, 1965-2014

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

Pham To looked great for 78 years old.  (At least, that’s about how old he thought he was.)  His hair was thin, gray, and receding at the temples, but his eyes were lively and his physique robust...

(Provided Your Home is the Middle East)

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

A billion dollars from the federal government: that kind of money could go a long way toward revitalizing a country’s aging infrastructure.  It could provide housing or better water and sewer systems.  It could enhance...

How the Empire Changed Its Face, But Not Its Nature

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

They looked like a gang of geriatric giants. Clad in smart casual attire -- dress shirts, sweaters, and jeans -- and incongruous blue hospital booties, they strode around “the world,” stopping to stroke...

Total Tops Iraq at That War’s Height

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

Afghanistan may turn out to be one of the great misbegotten “stimulus packages” of the modern era, a construction boom in the middle of nowhere with materials largely shipped in at enormous expense to no...

The Election Year Outsourcing that No One’s Talking About

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

In the 1980s, the U.S. government began funneling aid to mujahedeen rebels in Afghanistan as part of an American proxy war against the Soviet Union. It was, in the minds of America’s...

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

On July 12th, TomDispatch posted the latest piece in Nick Turse’s “changing face of empire" series: “Obama’s Scramble for Africa.” It laid out in some detail the way in which the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has, in recent years, spread its influence across...

Secret Wars, Secret Bases, and the Pentagon’s “New Spice Route” in Africa

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

They call it the New Spice Route, an homage to the medieval trade network that connected Europe, Africa, and Asia, even if today’s “spice road” has nothing to do...

Special Ops, Drones, Spy Games, Civilian Soldiers, Proxy Fighters, and Cyber Warfare

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com.

It looked like a scene out of a Hollywood movie.  In the inky darkness, men in full combat gear, armed with automatic weapons and wearing night-vision goggles, grabbed hold...

With Its “Roadmap” in Tatters, The Pentagon Detours to Terminator Planet

U.S. military documents tell the story vividly.  In the Gulf of Guinea, off the coast of West Africa, an unmanned mini-submarine deployed from the USS Freedom detects an “anomaly”: another small remotely-operated sub with welding capabilities...

Green Zones of the Mind, Guerrillas, and a Technical Knockout in Afghanistan

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

Recently, after insurgents unleashed sophisticated, synchronized attacks across Afghanistan involving dozens of fighters armed with suicide vests, rocket-propelled grenades, and small arms, as well as car bombs, the Pentagon...

How the U.S. Fanned the Flames in Afghanistan

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

Is it all over but the (anti-American) shouting -- and the killing?  Are the exits finally coming into view?

Sometimes, in a moment, the fog lifts, the clouds shift, and you can finally see...

The Pentagon’s Afghan Basing Plans for Prisons, Drones, and Black Ops

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

In late December, the lot was just a big blank: a few burgundy metal shipping containers sitting in an expanse of crushed eggshell-colored gravel inside a razor-wire-topped fence. ...

What 70 Downed Drones Tell Us About the New American Way of War

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

American fighter jets screamed over the Iraqi countryside heading for the MQ-1 Predator drone, while its crew in California stood by helplessly.  What had begun as an ordinary reconnaissance mission...

What a Busted Robot Airplane Tells Us About the American Empire in 2012 and Beyond

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

The drone had been in the air for close to five hours before its mission crew realized that something was wrong.  The oil temperature in the plane’s turbocharger,...

The Pentagon’s Secret Training Missions in the Middle East

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

As the Arab Spring blossomed and President Obama hesitated about whether to speak out in favor of protesters seeking democratic change in the Greater Middle East, the Pentagon acted decisively.  It...