A simple twist of fate has set President Obama’s second Inaugural Address for January 21, the same day as the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday. Obama made no mention of King during the Inauguration four years ago — but since then, in word and deed, the president has done much to distinguish himself from the [...]

Remember the 20 children who died in Newtown, Connecticut. Remember the 35 children who died in Gaza this month from Israeli bombardments.

History, Farce, and David Petraeus History, it is said, arrives first as tragedy, then as farce.  First as Karl Marx, then as the Marx Brothers.  In the case of twenty-first century America, history arrived first as George W. Bush (and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith and the Project for a [...]

Aquí en Kabul, el coordinador de Voices Buddy Bell y yo somos visitantes en el hogar de los Voluntarios Afganos por la Paz (APV), donde hemos llegado a conocer a cuatro niños que reciben clases de los Voluntarios por la tarde, después de “retirarse” de su antiguo trabajo como vendedores callejeros a cambio de una [...]

Here in Kabul, Voices co-coordinator Buddy Bell and I are guests at the home of the Afghan Peace Volunteers, (APV), where we’ve gotten to know four young boys who are being tutored by the Volunteers in the afternoons, having “retired” from their former work as street vendors in exchange for a chance to enter a [...]

The war in Afghanistan—where the enemy is elusive and rarely seen, where the cultural and linguistic disconnect makes every trip outside the wire a visit to hostile territory, where it is clear that you are losing despite the vast industrial killing machine at your disposal—feeds the culture of atrocity. The fear and stress, the anger [...]

Killing at least sixteen Afghan civilians as they slept. Urinating on dead Afghan bodies while laughing about it. Setting fire to their Korans. Day after day, a tired American public hears that these are just “isolated acts” and that these incidents “cast shadows” and “complicate” Washington’s plan for a gradual withdrawal of troops over the [...]

Han muerto más empleados de la empresa L-3 Communications que soldados de casi todos los países “aliados” en Irak y Afganistán, con la excepción de Estados Unidos y Reino Unido. L-3 ocupa el noveno puesto mundial de empresas que más dinero se embolsan como proveedores de armas y de servicios militares: más de 13.000 millones de [...]

 Media smears suggest Swedish complicity in a Washington-driven push to punish Julian Assange War by media, says current military doctrine, is as important as the battlefield. This is because the real enemy is the public at home, whose manipulation and deception is essential for starting an unpopular colonial war. Like the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, attacks on Iran [...]

Is it all over but the (anti-American) shouting — and the killing?  Are the exits finally coming into view? Sometimes, in a moment, the fog lifts, the clouds shift, and you can finally see the landscape ahead with startling clarity.  In Afghanistan, Washington may be reaching that moment in a state of panic, horror, and confusion.  [...]