Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner.
United States

The NATO Afghanistan War and US-Russian Relations: Drugs, Oil, and War

by | Jun 7, 2012

I delivered the following remarks at an anti-NATO conference held in Moscow on May 15, 2012. I was the only North American speaker at an all-day conference, having been invited in connection with the appearance into Russian of my book Drugs, Oil, and War. As a former diplomat worried about peace I was happy to attend: as far as I can tell there may be less serious dialogue today between Russian and American intellectuals than there was at the height of the Cold War. Yet the danger of war involving the two leading nuclear powers has hardly disappeared.

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Praying at the Church of St. Drone The President and His Apostles

by | Jun 7, 2012

Be assured of one thing: whichever candidate you choose at the polls in November, you aren’t just electing a president of the United States; you are also electing an assassin-in-chief.  The last two presidents may not have been emperors or kings, but they — and the vast national-security structure that continues to be built-up and institutionalized around the presidential self — are certainly one of the nightmares the founding fathers of this country warned us against.  They are one of the reasons those founders put significant war powers in the hands of Congress, which they knew would be a slow, recalcitrant, deliberative body.

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The Price of Democracy

The Price of Democracy

by | May 29, 2012

On health care and the military budget, no one can dispute that the United States spends exorbitantly. Whether we get our money’s worth is a matter of considerable debate. But there is one arena in which the United States is a world-class spender where you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who would argue that we get world-class results for our money. I’m talking about our electoral system, which has produced a legislature that attracted a historic low of 10 percent public approval this year, an administration still beholden to Wall Street and the military industrial complex, and (indirectly) a Supreme Court that tilts  so far to the right that I’m surprised the building itself hasn’t fallen over.

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How to Forget on Memorial Day

by | May 25, 2012

It’s the saddest reading around: the little announcements that dribble out of the Pentagon every day or two — those terse, relatively uninformative death notices: rank; name; age; small town, suburb, or second-level city of origin; means of death (“small arms fire,” “improvised explosive device,” “the result of gunshot wounds inflicted by an individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform,” or sometimes something vaguer like “while conducting combat operations,” “supporting Operation Enduring Freedom,” or simply no explanation at all); and the unit the dead soldier belonged to.  They are seldom 100 words, even with the usual opening line: “The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.” Sometimes they include more than one death.

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Scram!

Scram!

by | May 22, 2012

Get out of town. Go on, scram! That’s what a graduation ceremony is all about: the big boot. Thanks for those thousands of dollars, here’s a receipt in the form of a diploma, and now hurry up and make room for the next class. Oh, and don’t forget to write: checks that is, once you’ve somehow paid off your mountainous student debt.

I wasn’t invited to give a commencement address this year. But here’s what I would say if an institution were foolish enough to give me a microphone and an audience.

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