Antiwar.com Blog

This week, the New York Times reported that the U.S. government made war in Afghanistan while helping to “recruit, train and pay for lawless bands of militias that pillaged homes and laid waste to entire communities.” Those militias “tortured civilians, kidnapped for ransom, massacred dozens in vendetta killings and razed entire villages, sowing more than a decade of hatred toward the Afghan government and its American allies.”

Written by a former Kabul bureau chief for the Times, the article appeared under a headline saying that “U.S.-backed militias” in Afghanistan were “worse than the Taliban.”

Now they tell us.

Continue reading “Now It Can Be Told… After All the Harm Has Been Done”

Upon his inauguration as president, Donald Trump will become the leader of a United States executive branch mired in two major wars via its continuing pumping of money, weapons, and intelligence into support of the Ukraine and Israel governments. Trump has declared his opposition to the continuation of these wars. But, how can he end them?

The means by which Trump can end the wars is simpler than many Americans think. This means just does not come to mind for many Americans because it is far removed from the course US presidents have tended to pursue over the last few decades.

Righty tighty. That’s it. Taking the US out of these wars is as simple as turning off a standard outdoor water faucet. President Joe Biden has turned the handle all the way lefty loosey. Trump should just turn it back all the way. Shut off the money flow. Shut off the weapons flow. Shut off the intelligence flow.

Continue reading “Righty Tighty: A Simple Way Donald Trump Can End the Ukraine and Israel Wars”

Antiwar.com columnist Ted Snider is interviewed by Pascal Lottaz at Neutrality Studies.   An excellent dialogue on the causes of the Ukraine conflict:

Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Between Rock and a Hard Place.

Since this is Timmy/Zimmy week here, and elsewhere, let’s just start with ecumenical Bob’s wildest Christmas song, “Must Be Santa.”

Then, in case you missed the return of Darlene Love with “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” an annual staple on the old Letterman show but now revived (with my old pal Miami Steve Van Zandt and others) on Fallon.

“Silent Night” in an Atomic City

(Re-posted from my Oppenheimer/nuclear era Substack.) As some of you may know – since I posted about it not along ago – I have just completed my new film, and it is now going out to festivals. Below you will find the trailer for “The Atomic Bowl: Football at Ground Zero & The Forgotten Bomb.” This is my fourth documentary in the past four years and the previous three all made it to PBS. It’s narrated by Peter Coyote and produced by Lyn Goldfarb. By coincidence, PBS.org (after a lag) has again made free and easy for streaming my award-winning “Atomic Cover-up,” so you can watch that here if wish. I’d be happy to read any comments or questions about either film.

Continue reading “Christmas Here – and in Nagasaki, 1945”

On COI #733, Kyle Anzalone breaks down the latest news from China, Ukraine, and the Middle East.

Subscribe on YouTube and audio-only.

Trump threatened to steal another country’s land again:

Trump reiterated his intentions to take back the Panama Canal, after threatening he would in a Truth Social post on Saturday. Trump said that the United States is being “ripped off” at the Panama Canal and has insinuated that China is gaining influence over the waterway. “We’re being ripped off at the Panama Canal like we’re being ripped off everywhere else,” Trump said Sunday.

The fearmongering about China is a reminder of how pernicious defining U.S. foreign policy around great power rivalry can be. The threats against Panama show how Trump’s crude imperialism and the pursuit of rivalry with China reinforce each other. Trump assumes that the U.S. is always being “ripped off,” and he believes that the answer to this is to steal from other countries. If he thinks another country is getting too close to a rival, he wants the U.S. to “solve” that by threatening to steal some of their territory. Trump sees weaker countries in our hemisphere that he wants to dictate terms to, and rivalry with China provides him with the excuse for threatening them. He has probably been encouraged in this by his National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who has been inflating the Chinese “threat” in Panama for years.

Continue reading “Panama and Trump’s Throwback Imperialism”