Tom Engelhardt, Author at Toward Freedom

Why Won’t the Media Criticize US Interventionism?

Tom Engelhardt July 8, 2019 Tom Engelhardt

Headlined “United States Seeks Other Ways to Stop Iran Shy of War,” the article was tucked away on page A9 of a recent New York Times. Still, it caught my attention. Here’s the first paragraph:

“American intelligence and military officers are working on additional clandestine plans to counter Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf, pushed by the White House to develop new options that could help deter Tehran without escalating tensions into a full-out conventional war, according to current and former officials.” read more

American War Is Off the Charts

Tom Engelhardt April 16, 2019 Tom Engelhardt

As the 2020 elections approach, watch out. There’s one possible American war still to come in the Greater Middle East. I’m thinking, of course, about a potential war with Iran.

Living on a Quagmire Planet: Trump, Global Wars, and Climate Change

Tom Engelhardt January 7, 2019 Tom Engelhardt

When it comes to this planet in the era of climate change, quagmire seems like an appropriate image, as long as we keep in mind that we are the aggressors.

Three Failing Experiments? Mine, America’s, and Humanity’s

Tom Engelhardt July 30, 2018 Tom Engelhardt

Each of us might, sooner or later, be thought of as a kind of failed experiment that ends in the ultimate failure: death. And in some ways, the same thing might be said of states and empires.

The US Military is a Staggeringly Well-Funded Blowback Machine

Tom Engelhardt May 21, 2018 Tom Engelhardt

America’s never-ending twenty-first-century conflicts were triggered by the decision of George W. Bush and his top officials to instantly define their response to attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center by a tiny group of jihadis as a “war”; then to proclaim it nothing short of a “Global War on Terror”; and finally to invade and occupy first Afghanistan and then Iraq, with dreams of dominating the Greater Middle East — and ultimately the planet — as no other imperial power had ever done.

US Imperial ‘Blowback’ Is Real, and We’re Living Through It

Tom Engelhardt March 6, 2018 Tom Engelhardt

When it comes to unintended consequences of American policy, Donald Trump is just the tip of the iceberg.