Let’s Defuse Nuclear War, Together

Sixty years ago this week, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, I was in my mother’s womb. My young, sweet mom was terrified she’d never get to see me be born, as the world teetered on the brink of unimaginable calamity. It’s bewildering to me that nuclear crises bookend...

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The Militarism of the ‘Jacksonians’

Jordan Michael Smith has written a long essay on the changes in Republican and conservative foreign policy thinking. The entire piece is worth reading, but I want to focus on the discussion of “Jacksonian” foreign policy. Smith describes the bulk of the GOP as...

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Unhappy 20th Anniversary Iraq War AUMF

October 16, 2002 was a sorrowful day in American history. Twenty years ago today Congress voted an AUMF (Authorization for Use of Military Force) greenlighting the immoral, illegal and criminal Iraq war, begun five months later.Besides a couple hundred thousand Iraqis...

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Little Amal

I was completely taken in by her as she gently tried to turn the great cube at Astor Place on her way to Washington Square park. Surrounded by many others, she had all of us mesmerized by her big eyes, expressive gestures, bending toward and, somehow, embracing each...

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A Most Unconstitutional Military

At 19 years old I, like many other young men, raised my right hand and swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. This was 1999, I was still too young to understand the full gravity of the oath I swore and thanks to a government...

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