Obama and Throwing Money at Nukes

Throwing Money at Nukes - NYTimes.com
The United States has about 180 B61 gravity nuclear bombs based in Europe... tactical weapons deployed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey to protect NATO allies from the once-feared Soviet advantage in conventional arms. But the cold war is long over, and no American military commander can conceive of their ever being used. Even so, President Obama has put $537 million in his 2014 budget proposal to upgrade these bombs. When all is said and done, experts say, the cost of the rebuilding program is expected to total around $10 billion — $4 billion more than an earlier projection.

How the U.S. Government Became the Largest Federally Licensed Weapons Dealer on the Planet

A Global NRA: Our Government Is the Largest Federally Licensed Weapons Dealer on the Planet | Alternet
The White House and the Pentagon -- with a helping hand from the State Department -- ensure that the U.S. remains by far the leading purveyor of the “right to bear arms” globally. 

Disaster on Autopilot: The New Limits of U.S. Military's Tic Response

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Disaster on Autopilot | TomDispatch

Think of it as the American imperial paradox: everywhere there are now “threats” against our well-being which seem to demand action and yet nowhere are there commensurate enemies to go with them.  Everywhere the U.S. military still reigns supreme by almost any measure you might care to apply; and yet -- in case the paradox has escaped you -- nowhere can it achieve its goals, however modest.

... the more dominant the U.S. military becomes in its ability to destroy and the more its forces are spread across the globe, the more the defeats and semi-defeats pile up, the more the missteps and mistakes grow, the more the strains show, the more the suicides rise, the more the nation’s treasure disappears down a black hole -- and in response to all of this, the more moves the Pentagon makes.

5 Countries the U.S. Is Royally Screwing Over

 5 Countries the U.S. Is Royally Screwing Over | Alternet

From the drug war to the war on terror, the United States is wreaking havoc around the globe.

Obama’s Scramble for Africa

Nick Turse: Obama’s Scramble for Africa

They call it the New Spice Route, an homage to the medieval trade network that connected Europe, Africa, and Asia, even if today’s “spice road” has nothing to do with cinnamon, cloves, or silks.  Instead, it’s a superpower’s superhighway, on which trucks and ships shuttle fuel, food, and military equipment through a growing maritime and ground transportation infrastructure to a network of supply depots, tiny camps, and airfields meant to service a fast-growing U.S. military presence in Africa.

All the President’s Privileges - NYTimes.com

All the President’s Privileges - NYTimes.com
Obama campaigned as a consistent critic of the Bush administration’s understanding of executive power — and a critic with a background in constitutional law, no less. But apart from his disavowal of waterboarding (an interrogation practice the Bush White House had already abandoned), almost the entire Bush-era wartime architecture has endured: rendition is still with us, the Guantánamo detention center is still open, drone strikes have escalated dramatically, and the Obama White House has claimed the right — and, in the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, followed through on it — to assassinate American citizens without trial.

The Lethal Presidency of Barack Obama, by Tom Junod - Esquire

The Lethal Presidency of Barack Obama, by Tom Junod - Esquire
Sure, we as a nation have always killed people. A lot of people. But no president has ever waged war by killing enemies one by one, targeting them individually for execution, wherever they are. The Obama administration has taken pains to tell us, over and over again, that they are careful, scrupulous of our laws, and determined to avoid the loss of collateral, innocent lives. They're careful because when it comes to waging war on individuals, the distinction between war and murder becomes a fine one. Especially when, on occasion, the individuals we target are Americans and when, in one instance, the collateral damage was an American boy.

Chomsky: America's Rank Hypocrisy -- Why Is it Only an "Atrocity" When Other Countries Do It? | World | AlterNet

Chomsky: America's Rank Hypocrisy -- Why Is it Only an "Atrocity" When Other Countries Do It? | World | AlterNet

Sibel Edmonds: US government needs to keep the fear factor alive

Drowning people in fear is the key to power: 'threat inflation' and the process of hyping terror threats

Noam Chomsky on WikiLeaks, Obama’s Targeted Assassinations and Latin America’s Break from the U.S.

Noam Chomsky on WikiLeaks, Obama’s Targeted Assassinations and Latin America’s Break from the U.S.