Antiwar.com Blog

Washington, D.C. – BringOurTroopsHome.US, a national right-of-center group of Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans, in a letter Wednesday urged Republican Congressional candidates to disavow any endorsement or contributions from Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., because of Cheney’s obstruction of President Donald Trump’s attempts to withdraw the U.S. from involvement in nearly two-decade old wars in the Middle East.

“I am writing you with a warning and a plea,” former Idaho Army National Guard Sgt. Dan McKnight wrote GOP candidates. “Your campaign for Congress may be approached by or may already have been endorsed by Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming. I urge you in the strongest possible terms to reject any such endorsement. And if you have already received such backing, I urge that you immediately and publicly renounce it and return any funds she may have sent you.”

McKnight also urged GOP candidates, if elected, “to oppose the election of Rep. Cheney to any position of leadership in the Republican caucus. …Her retention of a leadership spot in Congress is an insult to America’s veterans and all who value their 2nd Amendment rights.”

McKnight said Cheney’s opposition to withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, and other foreign civil wars “put her at odds with the overwhelming majority of Americans, a huge majority of Republicans, and with President Trump.”

Continue reading “Veterans Group Forewarns Republican Candidates Endorsed or Financed by ‘Chicken Hawk Cheney’”

Today, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the atomic attack on Hiroshima, should be a day for quiet introspection. I recall a summer morning following the U.S. 2003 "Shock and Awe" invasion of Iraq when the segment of the Chicago River flowing past the headquarters of the world’s second largest defense contractor, Boeing, turned the rich, red color of blood.At the water’s edge, Chicago activists, long accustomed to the river being dyed green on St. Patrick’s Day turned the river red to symbolize the bloodshed caused by Boeing products. On the bridge outside of Boeing’s entrance, activists held placards urging Boeing to stop making weapons.

This summer, orders for Boeing’s commercial jets have cratered during the pandemic, but the company’s revenue from weapon-making contracts remains steady. David Calhoun, Boeing’s CEO, recently expressed confidence the US government will support defense industries no matter who occupies the Oval Office. Both presidential candidates appear "globally oriented," he said, "and interested in the defense of our country."

Investors should ask how Boeing’s contract to deliver 1,000 SLAM- ER weapons (Standoff Land Attack Missiles-Expanded Response) to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia "defends" the United States.

Continue reading “Reversal: Boeing Needs To Stop Building Weapons”

Seventy five years ago this week, the world witnessed a cataclysm that was to change the nature of war forever: The atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and worse – while the Japanese argued among themselves about whether and how to surrender – a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki three days later on August 9th. Now there was no other rational choice, and the Japanese gave up.

If anything good ever came out of a war, it was the generous peace. The US helped in the reconstruction of the defeated nations. As a teenage student in London, I remember visiting Germany a dozen years after the war ended. Major centers had been flattened by the bombing. In Hamburg, one would see a few residential buildings and then ruins as far as the eye could see as if a massive earthquake had hit. A never ending horror across all major cities and a shortage of labor. So the Turks came … and stayed. Welcome then, not so much now.

The Germans were humble – a humility that would gradually diminish with the country’s resurgence as one observed over succeeding decades. Cleanliness and order are part of the national psyche, particularly the latter. Everything in order – Alles in ordnung. It even applies on a personal level as someone might ask exactly that if you appear disturbed. It then means, "Everything okay?"

Continue reading “Hiroshima and After – The Peace Bomb?”

From The American Conservative:

Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice is rumored to be near the top of Joe Biden’s short list for vice presidential candidates. A new letter attacking Rice’s “poor judgment” is being widely circulated among delegates to the Democratic National Convention, calling Biden’s inner circle of foreign policy advisors a “horror show” with track records supporting “disastrous” U.S. military interventions. The letter hasalready received more than 275 signatures from delegates, almost all of whom had been pledged to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

The letter highlights Biden’s long-time chief aide on foreign affairs Antony Blinken as well as several other prominent former members of the Obama Administration who would likely hold cabinet-level appointments in a Biden administration, HuffPost reports. Blinken co-founded a company called WestExec Advisors, that aided a Pentagon effort to enhance drone warfare.

The presumptive Democratic nominee is relying on former Obama aides and Libya war cheerleaders Samantha Power and Jake Sullivan, as well as a bevy of other military-industrial complex beneficiaries, including former Defense Department official Michèle Flournoy, who worked several years for the Boston Consulting Group, while the firm accrued multi-million dollar contracts with the military, and Avril Haines, a former CIA deputy director reviled on the left for her role in making redactions to a report on President George W. Bush’s use of torture and her assistance in President Barack Obama’s extra judicial drone strikes.

Read the rest of the article

75 years ago this week, the US upped the ante on the destructive power of war and the willingness to use it by dropping two atomic bombs on innocent civilians.

First use of nukes by the US is “on the table.” That is official government policy. Recent moves in Washington have made the threat of nuclear war much more real.

The Trump administration has pulled out of Cold War era arms control agreements. The last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia, the New START, is set to expire in February 2021 and prospects for renewing it look bleak.

The lack of arms control between the two largest nuclear powers makes the world a much more dangerous place.

Besides provocations towards Russia, the administration has taken a hawkish turn towards China in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic. Building more of a US military presence around China is lucrative for the weapons makers who run Washington, but it increases the risk of a military conflict with another nuclear power — a conflict that could be catastrophic to the entire world.

There is also a serious consideration within Congress and the administration to resume live nuclear tests, something that hasn’t been done since 1992.

A live nuclear test will jumpstart a new arms race, which would be an outright assault on US taxpayers. Besides the unnecessary financial costs, live tests do untold environmental damage. Just look at the case of the Marshall Islands, where US nuclear testing throughout the 1940s and 50s wiped out entire islands. The indigenous population suffers from illnesses caused by radiation to this day.

And we can never forget the devastating effect nuclear weapons had on the innocent people of Japan. That’s why today, on the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, most of Antiwar.com’s page is dedicated to one of the worst war crimes in the history of the world.

The US government must change course with its nuclear weapons policy to avoid future devastation. The only way this will happen is if the American people demand it. The only way the American people will demand it is if they’re properly informed. That’s where we come in.

Antiwar.com will always cover dangerous provocations that can lead nuclear war and we will never forget the inhumane bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Help us cover such an important, underreported aspect of the national security state.

Make a tax-deductible donation to Antiwar.com today, and help spread the word. We can’t do it without you.

From The American Conservative:

On Tuesday, there was a horrific explosion in the port of Beirut that ripped through the city and killed more than seventy people as well as injuring at least 4,000:

Lebanon’s health ministry said that at least 78 people had died and 4,000 suffered injuries in the explosions and fire that shook Beirut on Tuesday.

The numbers climbed steadily through the day, and with the wounded still streaming into hospitals and the search for missing people underway, they were likely to go higher still.

The blast appears to have been caused when a fire set off a huge store of ammonium nitrate that had been confiscated from a ship and kept at the port for the last six years. Such a huge quantity of explosive material was a disaster waiting to happen, and the citizens of Beirut have suffered a devastating blow as a result. The Lebanese prime minister has vowed that there will be accountability for those responsible for keeping this material there. Initial reports and video show that the city’s port has been wrecked, and it is not known at this time how long it will take to repair and resume operations there.

Lebanon was already suffering from a severe economic and financial crisis exacerbated by U.S. sanctions on Iran and Syria, and the country was also coping with a serious coronavirus outbreak. Lebanon’s hospitals were already under strain because of the pandemic, and now they are being overwhelmed by the huge number of people injured in the blast. The port explosion affected the entire city and was felt as far away as Cyprus. The damage from the blast was massive and far-reaching.

Read the rest of the article