In his new book “Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War,” scholar Samuel Moyn argues that post-9/11 efforts to reform the conduct of US military operations have ultimately sanitized and prolonged the underlying illegal warfare. Moyn discusses the Obama administration’s key role in sanitizing warfare and how it undermined the US anti-war movement. He also addresses criticism of how the legendary human rights attorney Michael Ratner factors into his book’s arguments. Guest: Samuel Moyn. Professor at Yale Law School and a professor of history at Yale University. His new book is “Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War.
US GOVERNMENT CRIMES
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Jimmy Dore calls it by its name: Colin Powell, War Criminal Loved By The Establishment
7 minutes readAs usual, Jimmy and his crew do an excellent job of educating the audience about the ugly truth behind all the official praise. If there’s one who proves that lies in foreign policy can mean tragedy and death wholesale, is Colin Powell, and his all too common ilk throughout the US “national security” apparatus.
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ANDREI MARTYANOV—Today, America’s actions represent increasingly pronounced symptoms of a declining power, one which cannot face reality without going mad. And she is going mad, domestically, as well as internationally, and the only force which is capable of keeping this increasingly irrational and dangerous power from committing suicide while taking everyone else with her is the threat of a massive military defeat. Russia has this force to do so, and so far it works. But I do have my own question: do orderlies in the asylum get offended when overpowering the violent patient and restraining it to the bed, by the patient’s insults and resistance?
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Europe’s U.S. Lackey Parliament in Unhinged Attack on Russia
13 minutes readSCF—A few other choice hostile declarations in the European parliamentary report are calls for the EU to curb energy imports from Russia so as to “end dependence on Russian oil and gas”; calls for the EU to cut Russia off from international banking systems, and calls for the EU to strengthen cooperation with the United States and other like-minded partners to “defend democracy globally”.
The latter is particularly laughable coming after the United States left European so-called allies high and dry by its unilateral pullout from Afghanistan. Also this week, the U.S. move to form a new military alliance with Australia, providing the latter with nuclear-powered submarines, caused France to howl about being “stabbed in the back” by Washington owing to Paris losing out on a $50 billion naval contract with Canberra. European lawmakers are voting like pathetic lackeys of the United States despite Europe being treated over and over again as a mere vassal.
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The Military and Conformity — and Democracy
34 minutes readMilitaries, again you won’t be surprised to learn, are not known to embrace criticism and non-conformity, which is why they should be kept as small as possible within a democracy that is supposed to celebrate or at least tolerate critiques and eccentrics. But here’s the rub: The more America celebrates its military and feeds it with money. the more it reinforces anti-democratic forces and tendencies within our larger society. And that’s not a good thing in a country where money is speech, i.e. where the richest already rule. (Which is no surprise to military members, as we all know the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.)