Daniel Luban: A Final Word on Amalek

A guest post from Daniel Luban: I have no desire to bore the reader with endless discussion of the Amalek controversy, so I will just weigh in with one final comment on the controversy and Jeffrey Goldberg’s response to it. First, Andrew Sullivan’s post on the controversy is worth reading, and reiterates the same basic [...]

Happy Birthday Randolph Bourne

Today is the 123rd birthday of Randolph Bourne, the antiwar writer and intellectual for whom the Randolph Bourne Institute, which operates Antiwar.com, is named. Bourne was a major opponent of the First World War, and died during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic at the young age of 32. Despite his short life he managed to [...]

Obama’s Torture Coverup

Does President Obama have a vested interest in covering up the crimes of the Bush administration? His decision to block the release of photos of U.S. troops abusing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan is a reminder that the nation may still be running on “Cheney time.” As long as the photos are not released, former [...]

Memorial Day: Burning Pols in Effigy

I stopped by the Visitors Center at Manassas Battlefield Park last month and was struck by a quote capturing Georgia private B. M. Zettler’s reaction to being enmeshed in the battle of Bull Run: “I felt that I was in the presence of death. My first thought was, ‘This is unfair – someone is to [...]

If North Korea is bad…

… for detonating a nuclear bomb comparable to the one dropped at Hiroshima, then what about Truman and the crew of the Enola Gay? How was Harry’s decision any different than Kim’s? After all, as David Kramer recently noted, if Truman executed 144,000 Japanese civilians by firing squad, his actions would have been described as [...]

Rolling Thunder, War and Memorial Day

Originally Posted @TAC I had always revered Rolling Thunder — the romantic vision of a Band of Brothers, refugees from a South Asian hellhole whose common experience, really, was the only thing separating them from a certain reckless breed of motorcycle gang. Their annual sojourn to the National Mall for Memorial Day, emblazoned in leather [...]