In Afghanistan, America’s Biggest Foe Is Self-Deception

Staff / Truthdig Mar 1, 2017 That a few thousand troops could reverse the present situation and ensure progress toward victory is a fantasy. Dig deeper ( 10 Min. Read )

A Violent Cesspool of Our Own Making

By William J. Astore / TomDispatch Jan 26, 2017 When it comes to building and exporting murderous weaponry, not even Vladimir Putin’s Russia comes close to the United States. Dig deeper ( 9 Min. Read )

Why It’s So Hard for Members of the Military to Speak Out

By William J. Astore / TomDispatch Aug 12, 2016 Assuming that many privates and generals have complicated, often highly critical feelings about various crises of war-making, why don’t they ever express them publicly? Dig deeper ( 12 Min. Read )

We Have Met the Alien, and He Is Us

By William J. Astore / TomDispatch Jul 14, 2016 Only when we see the evidence of our own invasive nature can we begin to become the kind of land we say we want to be. Dig deeper ( 10 Min. Read )

Dominating the Skies — and Losing the Wars

By William J. Astore / TomDispatch Jun 22, 2016 U.S. pilots have total mastery of the fabled “high ground” of war. And yet throughout the Greater Middle East, America’s conflicts rage on with no endgame in sight. Dig deeper ( 12 Min. Read )

A Dictionary of Euphemisms for Imperial Decline

By William J. Astore / TomDispatch Apr 18, 2016 Cloaking violent, even murderous actions in anodyne language might help a few doubting functionaries sleep easier at night, but it should make the rest of us profoundly uneasy. Dig deeper ( 10 Min. Read )

A Military Leviathan Has Emerged as America’s 51st and Most Powerful State

By William J. Astore / TomDispatch Mar 25, 2016 A military increasingly divorced from ordinary Americans blends soldiers with privatized mercenaries, empowers commanders to cash in on retirement and wields a quasi-missionary imperial force in at least 135 countries. Dig deeper ( 11 Min. Read )

The U.S. Military Suffers from Affluenza

By William J. Astore / TomDispatch Feb 12, 2016 The Pentagon has immense difficulty shouldering blame for its massively fatal failures and wrongdoing, and thus suffers from an institutional version of affluenza. Dig deeper ( 9 Min. Read )

Taking Selfies in Iraq and Afghanistan: America’s Peculiar Brand of Global Imperialism

By William J. Astore / TomDispatch Oct 30, 2015 Overloaded with gadgets, ignorant of foreign cultures, spoiling for action, and never (individually) staying long, American troops have become the imperial equivalent of globetrotting tourists. Dig deeper ( 8 Min. Read )

The Shared Failings of America’s Military Academies and Senior Officers

By William J. Astore, TomDispatch Aug 19, 2015 Familiar as America’s most senior military officers may be with the warnings of Thomas Jefferson, they have consistently ignored or misapplied them, facilitating our current state of endless war and national decline. Dig deeper ( 10 Min. Read )

America’s Got War: Poverty, Drugs, the Middle East and Terror

By William J. Astore, TomDispatch Jun 29, 2015 When you define something as war, you dictate the use of militarized or coercive forces as the primary instruments of policy. Violence becomes the means of decision, total victory the goal. Anyone who suggests otherwise is labeled a dreamer, an appeaser or even a traitor. Dig deeper ( 9 Min. Read )

The American Military Uncontained

By William J. Astore, TomDispatch May 14, 2015 Despite all the happy talk about a “new world order” after the Cold War, the U.S. military never gave a serious thought to becoming a “normal” military for normal times. Instead, in the words of Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, our leaders sought to "reshape norms, alter expectations, and create new realities" by "unapologetic and implacable demonstrations of will." Dig deeper ( 10 Min. Read )