In October 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union teetered on the brink of nuclear war after American spy planes discovered that the Kremlin had stationed medium-range atomic missiles on the communist island of Cuba in the Caribbean, barely over the horizon from Florida.
One minor piece of good news came out of the defense spending bill that the House passed last week. While approving a bill giving more to the Pentagon than the Pentagon asked for, the House did remove a few small items from the military budget. One was dear to the heart, and campaign war chest, of Hal Rogers (R-KY), the chair of the spending committee.
The CIA seems to think the accuracy of drones is an excuse to worry less about who’s targeted.
Al Qaeda in Iraq mounted its deadliest attacks of the year.
Iran has no immediate plans to block the Strait of Hormuz on response to sanctions.
States that acquire WMD fail to fully anticipate the dangers of their enemies seizing them.
The first thing I saw last month when I walked into the belly of the dark grey C-17 Air Force cargo plane was a void — something missing. A missing left arm, to be exact, severed at the shoulder, temporarily patched and held together. Thick, pale flesh, flecked with bright red at the edges. It looked like meat sliced open. The face and what remained of the rest of the man were obscured by blankets, an American flag quilt, and a jumble of tubes and tape, wires, drip bags, and medical monitors.
PTSD and moral injury are the first steps to healing from war.
In July 1990, on my way home from the meeting with our new friends in Moscow, I stopped off in London to do research for The Struggle Against the Bomb. Sitting in the Public Record Office and examining the newly-opened prime minister’s records, I was startled to discover a folder of documents showing that in the late 1950s cabinet-level government officials had launched a conspiracy to undermine Britain’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
Killing civilians is hardly drones’ only crime.