Column: A well-founded pessimism about our future
Will Lange. Copyright (c) Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com.
Modified: 5/19/2021 9:35:47 AM
Years ago I had a fishing buddy who was also a history professor. We usually cast our flies from opposite ends of a large aluminum scow; and when fishing was slow, we just trolled around the pond and talked. I learned more during those sessions about the details of building the Panama Canal than I ever gleaned from David McCullough’s excellent book
The Path Between the Seas, and more about the United States’ bullying of Peru over about $40 million worth of bird guano, than the average citizen needs to know.
Israel-Gaza: What the law says about the fighting
By Guglielmo Verdirame
Published
International law regulates the use of military force by states and the conduct of hostilities.
As in virtually every modern conflict, there is intense debate on the legality of the actions of the two main sides involved here - Israel and Hamas.
Self-defence
As in previous operations in Gaza, Israel is likely to argue that its actions are justified under the right of self-defence.
Enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter, the right of self-defence is a fundamental principle of international law. While aspects of this principle are disputed, it is universally agreed that a state can defend itself against an armed attack.
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Why don’t America’s wars ever end?
I know, I know: President Joe Biden has announced that our combat troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by 9/11 of this year, marking the 20th anniversary of the colossal failure of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to defend America.
Of course, that other 9/11 in 2001 shocked us all. I was teaching history at the U.S. Air Force Academy and I still recall hushed discussions of whether the day’s body count would exceed that of the Battle of Antietam, the single bloodiest day of the Civil War. (Fortunately, bad as it was, it didn’t.)
War Is Strictly Business in Twenty-First Century America
Here’s the strange thing: almost 20 years into a series of chaotic, staggeringly expensive, failing wars across significant parts of the planet, the U.S. military – the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known (George W. Bush), aka the finest fighting force that the world has ever known (Barack Obama) – continues to eat taxpayer dollars as if they were nothing at all. According to the Costs of War Project, the US has sunk almost $2.3 trillion dollars into the failed Afghan War from which it’s now retreating and a minimum of $6.4
NationofChange
Endless war is a feature of our national programming
Do we have the collective courage to make a better fate for ourselves by pulling the plug on the war machine?
Why don’t America’s wars ever end?
I know, I know: President Joe Biden has announced that our combat troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by 9/11 of
this year, marking the 20th anniversary of the colossal failure of
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to defend America.
Of course, that other 9/11 in 2001 shocked us all. I was
teaching history at the U.S. Air Force Academy and I still recall hushed