( Tomdispatch.com) – In these first 100-plus days of the nation’s 47th presidency, President Donald Trump and his sidekick Elon Musk have cast a frightful spell over the country. As if brandishing wands from inside their capes — poof! — offices and their employees, responsibilities and aims, norms and policies have simply disappeared. The two […]
The “War on Terror” Comes Home in the Trump Era
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Four years ago, I published Subtle Tools, a book on the erosion of American democratic norms in the face of what came to be known as the Global War on Terror. Both what had been done in the name of “national security” in response to the 9/11 attacks and how it […]
The Forever Charade: Gitmo, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
( Tomdispatch.com ) – On January 10th, one day before the 23rd anniversary of its opening, a much-anticipated hearing was set to take place at the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility on the island of Cuba. After nearly 17 years of pretrial litigation, the prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the “mastermind” of the devastating attacks […]
Once Upon a Time, a Nation of Laws: From the Global War on Terror to Donald Trump’s Second Term
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Post-election America finds itself in a panic. Voices from across a wide political spectrum warn that the country stands on the precipice of a potentially unprecedented and chaotic disregard for the laws, norms, and policies upon which its stability and security have traditionally relied. Some fear that the “new” president, Donald […]
A New Age of Presidential Unilaterism?
( Tomdispatch.com ) – As the dust settles over election day, it’s worth reflecting that it’s not only the election results that have been at stake, but the future of the presidency and its powers. Over the course of the first quarter of this century, the American presidency has accumulated ever more power, rendering the […]
Will the Forever Wars Ever End? The War on Terror 23 Years Later
( Tomdispatch.com ) – September marked the 23rd anniversary of al-Qaeda’s 2001 attacks on the United States, which left nearly 3,000 people dead. For the two decades since then, I’ve been writing, often for TomDispatch, about the ways the American response to 9/11, which quickly came to be known as the Global War on Terror, […]
Just how Traumatizing will Election 2024 Be?
( Tomdispatch.com) – Imagine my surprise when, nearly eight months ago, commenting on the state of the country as it approached the 2024 presidential election, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg noted that “Biden has set himself the task of trying to jolt the country out of its learned helplessness in the face of Trump’s […]
The Peril of Forgetting Guantánamo
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Last weekend my father, Larry Greenberg, passed away at the age of 93. Several days later, I received an email from the French film director Phillippe Diaz who sent me a link to his soon-to-be-released I am Gitmo, a feature movie about the now-infamous Guantánamo Bay detention facility. As I was […]
When it Comes to Trump, Justice Delayed is Democracy Denied.
( Tomdispatch.com ) – In 1868, British Prime Minister William Gladstone famously said, “Justice delayed is justice denied.” The phrase has often been repeated here in the United States, most famously by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., who echoed it in his 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”: “Justice too long delayed is justice […]
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