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...

read more

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...

read more

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...

read more

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...

read more

World War One Made Adolf Hitler

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. World War I made Adolf Hitler. Before the war, Hitler was aimless, a failed artist, essentially a nobody with little chance of rising in society.  The war gave him purpose as well as a respectable identity as...

read more

War Is the Enemy

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. America has two war parties, Republican and Democratic, ensuring the death of democracy since war is the most insidious enemy of freedom and liberty. When I wrote recently about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a...

read more

Cheerleaders of the Military-Industrial Complex

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have something in common.  They both embrace colossal Pentagon budgets and both celebrate the “lethality” of the U.S. military, which, they agree, must be the strongest, bestest,...

read more

A Lesson From the Death of Phil Donahue

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. I remember watching The Phil Donahue Show with my dad. Informative and willing to tackle controversial issues, the show proved remarkably popular, a tribute to its host, Phil Donahue, who recently died at the...

read more

Reflections on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission. Originally written in 2015 for the 70th anniversary; updated in 2020 for the 75th anniversary; reposted below along with a podcast for the 79th anniversary. It Should Never Be Done Again: Hiroshima, 75 Years...

read more