We Fight Low Information
William Astore: War should never be debated in the abstract; it’s only at our own peril when we reduce it to mindless entertainment. We must always remember how hideous the face of war can be, and how pitiless it is to those caught in its path of destruction.
William Astore: Until Americans turn away from militarism and learn again how to “support our Constitution” more than our troops, until we return to a broader vision of national security that deemphasizes a garrison mentality, we will continue to wound, perhaps mortally, a once great republic.
William Astore: Our wars and their impact are kept in remarkable isolation from what passes for public affairs in this country, leaving most Americans with little knowledge and even less say about whether they should be, and how they are, waged.
William J. Astore: But I despair at the way money and media and mercenary players have invaded the game and changed its character from a pastime to a business. Just one recent example: today’s opener between the Red Sox and Yankees was moved to 8:05 PM for the benefit of ESPN Sunday night baseball in the hopes of garnering higher ratings and advertising revenue. Few seem to care about inconveniencing the fans, or flouting the tradition of opening day played in the afternoon under God’s natural light.
Judging by the local newspaper that serves the rural area of Pennsylvania where I live, hunters no longer shoot and kill deer: they harvest them. “Harvest” is the latest euphemism of choice for killing, and it’s applied not just to the culling of the deer herd but also to the killing of bears, bobcats, and [...]
Recently in the New York Times, Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti showed that the Bush Administration, the CIA, and the Senate and House Intelligence Committees failed to ask for any historical context before approving so-called “harsh interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding, in 2002. No one apparently knew, or wanted to know, that the U.S. had defined [...]
In 1967, outraged by the course of the Vietnam War, as well as her country’s role in prolonging and worsening it, Mary McCarthy, novelist, memoirist, and author of the bestseller The Group, went to Saigon, then the capital of South Vietnam, to judge the situation for herself. The next year, she went to the North [...]
The American people’s faith in their government—even with the election of Barack Obama—remains compromised. One reason is obvious. Americans see low-level military operatives being imprisoned for mistreatment, even murder, of prisoners. At the same time, high-level officials go uninvestigated and unpunished. In their case, we’re told to look forward rather than backward, an empty phrase [...]
JP Sotille: Like so many of the so-called “Left” in America, Maher has basically accepted the key notion that a whole population of like-minded people have decided to kill Americans because of an irrational religious belief system.
Ivan Eland: Less scrupulous Republicans, such as McCain and Graham, should realize that their line of attack on Benghazi is not strong–Americans don’t usually vote on foreign policy unless a huge catastrophe has occurred.
By purchasing and dedicating commemorative bricks, Americans everywhere will be helping Advantage US Vets establish the Roots & Sprouts Farmstead as a not-for-profit workplace which will directly hire jobless honorably discharged veterans.
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