Bob Herbert of the New York Times has it right:

…we are still left with a disaster of a war in Afghanistan that cannot be won and that the country as a whole will not support.

Winning in Afghanistan & Pakistan will require that Saudia Arabia stop using our oil dollars to fund the Taliban, their Wahhbi [...]

If we cannot provide public educational excellence to our own citizens, nor universal healthcare, nor rebuild cities such as Detroit, nor sustain a robust Main Street, nor provide meaningful, well paying jobs to all who want them, how can we be expected to provide any of these basics foundations of a civil society to anyone [...]

By: DR FAROOQ HASSAN
During this past week, disturbing news about where Pakistan is currently headed have surfaced. The magnitude of mis-governance indulged in by Musharraf and the situation which has brought Zardari into the forefront of power in the “establishment” in the country is now squarely in focus of national and international media. On September [...]

Thomas Friedman’s essay in today’s NY Times, Anxious in America, is a good first step indictment of the failure of the Cold War world view to solve our 21st century problems. It should be no surprise that a world view that despises the role of government, except, curiously, when it comes to spying on [...]

By: George Kamburoff
Author’s preface:

After 40 years of retrospection, I decided it was time to question the hero worship we give most recently to those who join the military, so I started writing, driven by my own experiences in the war of my generation.
No newspaper would print the letter below, unless it was substantially changed. [...]

[Note: The author of the essay below, Thompson Buchanan, is a retired Foreign Service Officer who has been sickened by the sight of America squandering the great asset of global sympathy and cooperation following 9/11, and the lives and treasure of America through an unjustified “war of choice.” He served eight years in the Soviet [...]

Errol Morris’ new film is:
Standard Operating Procedure

Is it possible for a photograph to change the world? Photographs taken by soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison changed the war in Iraq and changed America’s image of itself. Yet, a central mystery remains. Did the notorious Abu Ghraib photographs constitute evidence of systematic abuse by the American military, [...]

A friend sent me this excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC. It’s been posted elsewhere online, but it’s a good fit for Greater Democracy. The intro in the email I received says “Smedley Butler was the one of the most decorated war heroes in U.S. history, and received [...]