What Trumps the Horrors of the South Sudanese Hellscape? The Donald

By Nick Turse / TomDispatch May 6, 2016 In a place where catastrophic food insecurity may tip into starvation at any time, where armed men still arrive in the night to steal and rape, a local aid worker wants -- seemingly needs -- to know if Donald Trump could actually be elected president of the United States. Dig deeper ( 12 Min. Read )

In Praise of Impractical Movements

By Mark Engler and Paul Engler / TomDispatch Mar 10, 2016 Social movements turn issues and demands considered both unrealistic and politically inconvenient into matters that can no longer be ignored. They succeed, that is, by championing the impractical. Dig deeper ( 12 Min. Read )

Donald Trump and the Remaking of America

By Andrew J. Bacevich / TomDispatch Mar 3, 2016 Trumpism is not a program or an ideology. It is an attitude or pose that feeds off of, and then reinforces, widespread anger and alienation. Dig deeper ( 7 Min. Read )

Will American ‘Successes’ Lead to More Iraqi Military Failures?

By Nick Turse / TomDispatch Jan 22, 2016 There’s good news coming out of Iraq again The efforts of a 65-nation coalition and punishing US airstrikes have helped local ground forces roll back gains by Islamic State. Dig deeper ( 18 Min. Read )

AFRICOM’s New Math, the U.S. Base Bonanza and ‘Scarier’ Times Ahead in Africa

By Nick Turse / TomDispatch Nov 18, 2015 In the shadows of what was once called the “dark continent," a scramble has come and gone. Look hard enough and you’ll find the results of that effort: a network of bases, compounds and other sites whose sum total exceeds the number of nations on the continent. Dig deeper ( 16 Min. Read )

Iraq, Afghanistan and Other Special Ops ‘Successes’

By Nick Turse / TomDispatch Oct 26, 2015 U.S. special operations forces deployed to a record-shattering 147 countries in 2015 -- 75 percent of the nations on the planet, a jump of 145 percent since the Bush administration. I pursued that record of “success” with a few experts on the subject. Dig deeper ( 10 Min. Read )

U.S. Special Ops Forces Deployed in 135 Nations

By Nick Turse, TomDispatch Sep 24, 2015 They belong to the special operations forces, America’s most elite troops. And odds are, if you throw a dart at a world map or stop a spinning globe with your index finger and don’t hit water, they’ve been there sometime in 2015. Dig deeper ( 11 Min. Read )

U.S. Special Ops Missions in Africa Fail to Stem Terror Groups, Coups and Human Rights Abuses

By Nick Turse, TomDispatch Sep 11, 2015 Will episodic training with militaries regularly implicated in human rights abuses, militaries that overthrow their governments, and militaries that have consistently failed to defeat local terror groups turn them into professional, successful armies? Dig deeper ( 14 Min. Read )

From the Archives of TomDispatch: America’s Empire of Bases

By Chalmers Johnson, TomDispatch Aug 12, 2015 A vast network of American military bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire not likely to be taught in any high school geography class. Without grasping the dimensions of this globe-girdling Baseworld, one can't begin to understand the size and nature of our imperial aspirations or the degree to which a new kind of militarism is undermining our constitutional order. Dig deeper ( 13 Min. Read )

Will Americans Support the Child Veterans of South Sudan?

By Nick Turse, TomDispatch Jun 4, 2015 Despite a law prohibiting it, the United States provided aid and assistance to armed groups that employed roughly 13,000 child soldiers in civil-war-wracked Sudan. Dig deeper ( 14 Min. Read )

One Boy, One Rifle and One Morning in Malakal

By Nick Turse, TomDispatch May 18, 2015 When I was their age, I wasn’t trusted to drive, vote, drink, get married, gamble in a casino, serve on a jury, rent a car, or buy a ticket to an R-rated movie. No one would have thought it a good idea to put an automatic weapon in my hands. But someone thought it was acceptable for them, including the government of the United States. Dig deeper ( 18 Min. Read )

Sex, Drugs and Dead Soldiers: What the U.S. Africa Command Doesn’t Want You to Know

By Nick Turse, TomDispatch Apr 22, 2015 As American military operations have ramped up across Africa, reports of excessive drinking, sex with prostitutes, drug use, sexual assaults, and other forms of violence by AFRICOM personnel have escalated, and many of them have been kept under wraps. Dig deeper ( 16 Min. Read )