Category Archives: The Military Industrial Complex

U. S. & China are new Competitors in an old, obscure, but important island dispute

A tug of war between China and America in the Indian Ocean Saltwire: Atlantic Canada News Service — Sept. 6, 2023 Most of the international community regards the Chagos Islands as belonging to Mauritius, from which they were detached in 1965. Henry Srebrnik, a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island, … Continue reading U. S. & China are new Competitors in an old, obscure, but important island dispute →

You Could See It Coming — CNN: Army ABANDONS anti-extremism effort

Anybody remember this story? RELEASE IMMEDIATE RELEASE DOD Stand-Down to Address Extremism in the Ranks Feb. 5, 2021 Today, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III signed a memo directing commanding officers and supervisors at all levels to select a date within the next 60 days to conduct a one-day “stand-down” to discuss extremism in … Continue reading You Could See It Coming — CNN: Army ABANDONS anti-extremism effort →

Say Hello to The New “Antiwar” Movement: It’s Already Winning

Back in the day, the Vietnam years, resisters against the military draft could muster an occasional bit of whimsy. A favorite button was about beer. But if truth is the first casualty of war, for many of us whimsy and a sense of humor were soon missing in action too. Draft resistance became a mass … Continue reading Say Hello to The New “Antiwar” Movement: It’s Already Winning →

Alfred McCoy on the Rise of China

[NOTE: In 2008, Al McCoy was a main speaker at a conference on U. S. torture that I helped organize. Both his talk and his academic record marked him as a scholar to reckon with on matters of foreign policy and empire. This record drew me to this new analysis of the rapid shifts of … Continue reading Alfred McCoy on the Rise of China →

Sweden, Finland, NATO, Neutrals & Nukes: A Concise Analysis

[NOTE: These two short columns offer an admirable review of two key moments in the impact of Putin’s Ukraine invasion on my own thinking. When I imagined these countries as actual places (which, I admit, wasn’t often), my speculation was that they held to a “plague-on-both-your-houses” stance vis-a-vis the USSR/Russia on one side, and the West, … Continue reading Sweden, Finland, NATO, Neutrals & Nukes: A Concise Analysis →