Julie Gutman: As we celebrate liberty and democracy on July 4, let us ask what our founding fathers would have to say about the current torture debate.
Taking Responsibility for Killers Among Us
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Dick Price: We can surely guess that you, me, and our neighbors down the street are not likely to shoulder any part of the responsibility ourselves. No, we’ll focus our attention on these two bad seeds, these misfits perpetrating unthinkable crimes, these alien beings so unlike us.
This Does Not End Well: Escaping Afghanistan
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John Peeler: An agonizing series of missteps by U.S. troops in Afghanistan show us how precarious is our hold there, reinforcing the idea that we just don’t belong there, that we don’t respect the Afghani people.
Time to Leave Afghanistan Now
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Joseph Palermo: At about $10 billion a month, and an increasing number of American casualties in an environment more volatile than ever, the American people need to take long, close look at whether staying in Afghanistan until December 2014 is worth it.
All I Want for Christmas Is My Civil Liberties!
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Coleen Rowley: Obama’s expected signature will not only de-link the “war on terror” from its original justification, the 9-11 attacks of more than a decade ago, to ensure the “long war” does not end.
Iraq: Out Like a Lamb
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Dick Price: I can now honor the service of the military men and women who have fought so long in Iraq—the great majority of whom who have acted honorably under fire—just as I hold fast to the notion that the Iraq invasion was undertaken for disreputable ends.
Iraq: Just Another War Without an End
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Walter Brasch: We know Second Lieutenant Therrel Shane Childers was the first American soldier killed by hostile fire in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Panama’s Response on Behalf of Vietnamese Agent Orange Victims
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James Rhodes: Washington continues to recruit young men and women under the mantra “we support our troops.” That may be true, but America does not support its VETERANS!
Afghanistan: A Moment of Opportunity for Obama
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Tom Hayden: The targeted killing of Osama bin Laden is powerful evidence that terrorist threats, both real and hypothetical, can be more effectively suppressed by special forces operations than by deploying hundreds of thousands of American soldiers on the ground.
War and Workers
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Lydia Howell: Whether it’s debt-ridden college graduates working as baristas or small town youth with only fast-food and Wal-Mart as post-high school career options, high unemployment keeps a volunteer military ranks full.
Bradley Manning’s Torture Commonplace in U.S. Prisons
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Sherwood Ross: Those supporting Manning need to recognize he is an icon for the bizarre, systemic destruction of tens of thousands of other human beings locked away in perpetual silence by their tormentors, often for mere infractions of prison rules, without the review of any judge or jury.
Elections a Setback for Peace
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Tom Hayden: The peace bloc – activist groups, anti-war Congress members, writers and artists, here and across the NATO – can exercise a massive drag against the war-making machine through 2012 as long as the wars remain deeply unpopular.
Fixing the World Not Our Responsibility
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Steve Hochstadt: The main problem has been the the policy of intervention. We can’t create a safe world by sending more arms overseas.
‘No Drama Obama’ Needs a Strong Second Act
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Walter M. Basch: The Obama administration is a welcome change from the Bush–Cheney years. However, much of what President Obama is doing appears to be an extension of Bush–Cheney values.
Ever-Expanding Wars: An Appalling New Year Certainty
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Emily Spence: We can be assured that, eventually, the ongoing military rampage will lead to a third world war if Russian or Chinese leaders, finally, reach a limit to the threats that can be endured from western imperial hubris. In fact, how can anyone anywhere embrace an increasingly extensive war trajectory? Moreover, we cannot accept the untimely deaths in the hundreds upon hundreds of thousands. They weigh too heavily on the national conscience — that is if one can even exist after so much unbridled wanton carnage.
Kicking the Can Down the Street
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I am afraid to say that President Obama is even risking his presidency by this decision. From this point forward, he will lack the support of the rank and file Democratic majority and become dependent on the very Republicans whose highest priority is to defeat him in 2012.
Was William Calley a Scapegoat?
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Ever since the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, many have held that higher-ups were more responsible than William Calley, who was convicted of murder and now has issued his first public apology. Gary Kulik, himself a Vietnam veteran, declines to shift the blame.
The Army Experience Center and the Development of a Warrior Caste
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There was no overall strategy in the shift, according to two recruiting insiders, except that a strident, jingoistic tone was adopted in communications from the command to recruiters.
Reporting for Duty in Vietnam
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Chicken Hawks Talk like tough guys. They’ll send your kids to war but they never reported to duty themselves and they make sure their own kids don’t serve duty.
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An Article of Faith
Michaelangelo Price: And what about O’Reilly’s “alone time” fantasy, fake writer Ann Coulter? Can you imagine her piggish self-interest in social climbing the dregs of Long Island society has anything at all to do with genuine patriotism?