Author: William Astore

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission.

Yesterday, the Merchants of Death Tribunal concluded with a verdict of “guilty” for all those U.S. dealers and exporters of weapons globally. Yes, the merchants of death are guilty as sin, even as they account for 40% of the global trade in deadly weaponry. Who says nothing is made in America today? We make plenty of things that go “bang.”

In our culture today, it’s considered “patriotic” to make loads of money, especially by selling guns. Just look at the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its enablers in Congress and all the gun companies domestically.

Continue reading “America’s Merchants of Death Are Making a Killing”

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission.

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission.

Attacks on Iran are already being explored by the incoming Trump administration, which put me to mind of this article I wrote in 2016. Collectively, the U.S. government and its apparatus is the world’s biggest and noisiest busybody. We just can’t leave well enough alone. It’s time for a new approach: not isolationism, because that’ll never happen, but an MYOB approach, as in minding your own business. (Quick Note: the $700 billion for national “defense” mentioned below in 2016 is now $900 billion for 2024-25. And the U.S. has even more military bases overseas: 750-800 of them. Looks like MYOB is even more of a long shot as we approach 2025.)

Continue reading “Can We Ever Just Mind Our Own Business?”

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission.

Is the U.S. military becoming a paper tiger whose sole remaining power move is a mighty nuclear roar? It’s a disturbing thought, given the extent to which U.S. military power is overstretched, recruiting shortfalls, and the usual waste, fraud, and abuse at the Pentagon, exacerbated by imperial megalomania.

Meanwhile, that same Pentagon still seeks a huge “investment” in new nukes. America surely needs to launch a “first strike” against the absurdity of spending $1.7 trillion (or more) on “modernizing” the nuclear triad. Aren’t you tired of Presidents and Congress diverting your hard-earned tax dollars from Main Street USA to MAD Street, as in mutually assured destruction via nuclear war?

Continue reading “Daniel Ellsberg on Nuclear Weapons”

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission.

Like too many people, I sometimes make the mistake of talking about nuclear war, when it’s really annihilation and genocide we’re talking about.

Wars have winners and losers. In nuclear “war,” everyone loses. The planet loses. Life loses and death triumphs on a scale we simply can’t imagine.

Language is so important here. I grew up learning about nuclear exchanges. EXCHANGES! The U.S. military talks of nuclear modernization and “investing” in nukes when the only dividend of this “investment” is mass death.

Continue reading “How About a Winnable Nuclear Exchange, America?”

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission.

In 2018, the Pentagon failed its first audit. In 2024, it failed its seventh audit in a row. The Pentagon has been “punished” for failing seven audits – and losing track of roughly $2 trillion in gear, weapons, and similar “assets” – with more money. Whether under Presidents Trump or Biden, the Pentagon budget has continued to soar toward a trillion dollars. That is the reward for total fiscal incompetence.

Congress says the Pentagon must achieve “a clean audit” by 2028. Imagine telling the IRS that you can’t account for your financials for seven straight years – and probably at least three more – but you hope to have a “clean” tax return after a decade of effort. And the IRS responds by giving you ever higher tax refunds that you haven’t earned. Nonsensical, isn’t it?

Continue reading “The Trillion-Dollar Blob”