Commentary, Satire & Poetry
So North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has invited President Trump to meet with him to discuss, reports state, possibly doing away with the North's nuclear weapons. This meeting will supposedly take place somewhere within two months. Much can happen in two months for much seems to happen every day, every hour in the Trump White…
We can thank South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his negotiators for achieving what the Trump administration has not: an agreement by North Korea to discuss ending its nuclear weapons program. It was the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un , who actually made the first gesture toward peaceable discussion when he offered to send a…
Continue reading ➞ South Korea (Not U.S.) Makes Progress on Peace with Help from the North
Vice President Mike Pence walked right up to the "demarcation line" between North and South Korea, looked around, and then went back to Seoul to issue this stirring invitation to diplomacy and peace: "Just in the past two weeks, the world witnessed the strength and resolve of our new president in actions taken in Syria…
By John Frederick Kaufman So the United States suddenly felt the need to give our MOAB ("mother of all bombs")--more officially known as GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast--a try on Thursday in the desert of Eastern Afghanistan. Though the bomb has been around for awhile, neither Presidents George W. Bush nor Barack Obama cared to actually…
Continue reading ➞ In the Aftermath of Dropping the “MOAB” Bomb on Afghanistan
American journalists may be the "enemies of the American people," according to President Trump, but that didn't stop a whole lot of them from supporting Trump's order launching 59 Tomahawk missiles at one air base in Syria. The U.S. missile attack was said to be in retaliation for the Syrian army's use of chemical weapons.…
Continue reading ➞ Journalists, Democrats Rally Round the Flag of War (and a Flagging President)
(Post from Common Dreams website) . . . "In the meantime we know another truth: that a US military escalation against Syria (because we must not forget that US Special Forces and US bombers are already fighting there) will not help the victims of this heinous chemical attack, it will not bring the devastating…
The ongoing war in Syria is a vast catastrophe; what began as a peaceable resistance movement against the Assad regime, one among many in the "Arab Spring" of 2011, has devolved into a brutal war in which at least 300,000 have been killed and as many as 96,000 Syrian civilians have died, including more than 17,000 children. It…
Must politicians and journalists succumb to the language of war? Or the flip side: Must we put words like "peace" on weapons of war? I'm thinking of the U.S. nuclear missiles called "peacekeepers." The "war" on this or that, we say, or the dropping of "bombs" to mean big news; the use of "killer" as an adjective synonymous with…
First published February 17, 2017 in The Capital Times If there is any consolation to be found in the election of President Trump, it is the opportunity to make anti-war protest great again. Most liberals/progressives were willing to overlook Hillary Clinton’s militaristic sympathies during the Democratic primary and in the national election. I certainly did,…
Continue reading ➞ It’s a Really Good Time for an Anti-War Movement
Talks are underway this week at the United Nations in New York on a possible global treaty to officially ban all nuclear weapons. More than 120 nations are participating, but not surprisingly the nuclear nations (those that own nuclear weapons), including the United States, and various allies of them are not eager to outlaw what they…
Continue reading ➞ Why it’s Realistic to Ban Nuclear Weapons and Why U.S. Should Lead
How's this for a grand generalization? The United States is not great at providing health care and really good at waging war. And by "good" I do not mean effectively. We wage war a lot because we can afford to and very few Americans ever personally feel its considerable terrible effects. And we don't do health care very effectively…
Continue reading ➞ “War is the Health of the State”–But Not People
