BLOG Post #308: The Afghanistan Debacle 16 Aug 2021 An audio version of this blog is available at: https://www.podserve.fm/dashboard/episode_player_2/37657 Over a nearly twenty-year period, the war in Afghanistan is estimated to have cost about $2.2 trillion and resulted in…
BLOG Post #304: Presidential Warmaking 14 Jul 202114 Jul 2021 A podcast of this blog is available at https://www.podserve.fm/dashboard/episode_player_2/35072 Presidential Prerogatives Once upon a time, American leaders only went to war when, in accordance with the Constitution, Congress declared it. …
BLOG Post #250: The Afghanistan Pentagon Papers 10 Dec 20199 Dec 2019 The war in Afghanistan, America’s longest, has cost about 2,300 US lives, over 20,000 wounded, and about $1 trillion. Now, thanks to the persistence of the Washington Post, we have…
BLOG Post #236: Iran—Who and Where is the Threat? 21 Jun 201921 Jun 2019 The official US narrative on Iran is that it is an escalating threat to “peace and security” in the Middle East and must be stopped. Step by step, with Mike…
BLOG… Post #121: Unintended Consequences and the Warfare State 7 Jul 201627 Feb 2017 “The danger is, as ever with these things, unintended consequences.” So wrote Prime Minister Tony Blair to President George W. Bush in 2002, as Bush prepared to invade Iraq (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/07/06/full-text-annotated-tony-blairs-2002-iraq-memo-to-george-bush). …
BLOG… Post #117: Evaluating Obama’s Foreign Policy Record 15 May 201627 Feb 2017 So you’re not excited by Donald Trump’s announcement of his first foreign-policy acts as president: building the Mexico Wall, the No-Muslims Wall, the End-of-NATO Wall, and the China Trade Wall. …
BLOG… Post #96: Truth and Consequences 21 Oct 201527 Feb 2017 A recently discovered piece of Vietnam War history has new meaning today. At the same time that Richard Nixon was telling the public that the US air war in Vietnam…
BLOG… Post #88: Consorting with the Devil 19 Aug 201527 Feb 2017 Throughout the Cold War, and doubtless right down to the present, professional people with skills relevant to “national security” have been secretly recruited to work for the Central Intelligence Agency…
BLOG… Post #85: We Apologize 23 Jul 201527 Feb 2017 The following article originally appeared in Global Asia, vol. 10, No. 2 (Summer 2015), pp. 112-117, under the title “'We Apologize': Two Words to Embrace to Right Injustices." Apologies are never easy—not between…
BLOG… Post #67 – Presidents and War 14 Feb 201527 Feb 2017 President Obama has submitted a request to Congress for authorization—actually, reauthorization—of wars the United States has been fighting for many years. Though he considered the initial authorization in 2001 to…
BLOG… Post #55 – Obama’s Wars: Deeper into the Quagmire 25 Nov 201427 Feb 2017 President Obama continues to do everything to fulfill his prediction of September 12 that the Middle East wars will long outlast his administration. At that time (see my post #47,…
BLOG… Post #30 – Their War, Our War 21 Jun 201427 Feb 2017 In one of his last public statements on the war in Vietnam, a televised interview on September 2, 1963, President Kennedy said that in the end the South Vietnamese government…
In the Human Interest - Mel Gurtov 