Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Trump and the war hawks. Or war sluts. Or war pigs. I thought about all three of these. Then I thought: Why insult hawks, sluts, or pigs? Donald Trump is forming his cabinet by rounding up the usual...
Veterans Day and the Purpose of Veterans
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Originally posted for Veterans Day in 2020. I come from a family of veterans. My father and his two brothers served in the military during World War II. My mother’s brother (Uncle Freddy) fought at...
The Insanity of US Foreign Policy
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. What do you do with a president (and of course he's just reading a script given to him) who says he "fully, fully, fully" supports Israel as it commits genocide in Gaza, gobbles up the West Bank, invades...
Israel’s So-Called Seven Front War
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. From my CNN feed this morning: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country faces war on seven fronts and called them the “enemies of civilization.” Heavy Israeli airstrikes pounded southern...
The Grim Death Toll in Gaza
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Ninety-nine American healthcare workers who volunteered to work in Gaza and who’ve witnessed the effects of the Israeli onslaught there suggest that nearly 120,000 Palestinians are already dead. That huge...
More Money for Ukraine, More Weapons for Israel
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Whether they like it or not (and they seem very much to like it), the Democratic Party has become America’s war party. This is especially true with respect to Ukraine. Zelensky has won another $7.9 billion in...
MICIMATT for President!
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern coined the term MICIMATT to describe America’s sprawling national (in)security state. It’s an expanded version of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s...
Genocide Historian Omer Bartov on Israel and Gaza
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Omer Bartov is a historian who specializes in German military history and genocide studies. I have three of his books: “The Eastern Front, 1941-45, German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare”; “Hitler’s...
Escalation in the Russia-Ukraine War
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. It’s Friday the 13th, and though I’m not superstitious about the date, I’m not liking this headline in today’s New York Times: Top News The topic will be on the agenda Friday with the first official visit to...
Kursk, 1943; Kursk, 2024
Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. In July 1943, the Nazis launched a colossal assault at the Kursk salient on the eastern front. The Soviet Red Army was ready. After roughly two weeks of massive battles, the Red Army prevailed as the Nazi...