Since the attacks of September 11, protection from terrorism has become the United States’ national obsession. Demands for security from the terrorists that seemingly menace the country at every turn have led the U.S. military to occupy two countries and expand the hundreds of bases that it maintains in dozens of foreign nations.
Reflection on why [...]

Barack Obama came into the office of the presidency proclaiming hope and change and a personal adherence to the teachings of Jesus Christ, who preached a message of peace, love and nonviolence. Yet any hope that Obama’s professed religious beliefs might lead him to put an end to the endless wars was short-lived. Indeed, rather [...]

As we enter our ninth year of the War in Afghanistan with an escalated force, and continue to occupy Iraq indefinitely, and feed an endlessly growing Surveillance State, reports are emerging of the Deficit Commission hard at work planning how to cut Social Security, Medicare, and now even to freeze military pay.  But a new [...]

Written by Juan Cole

We pay tribute to the late historian, writer and activist Howard Zinn who died suddenly on Wednesday of a heart attack at the age of 87. Howard Zinn?s classic work A People?s History of the United States changed the way we look at history in America. …

Nonviolent Resistance Is the Most Powerful Tactic Against Oppressive Regimes
On the outskirts of a desert town in the Moroccan-occupied territory of Western Sahara, about a dozen young activists are gathered. They are involved in their country?s long struggle for freedom. A group of foreigners?veterans of protracted resistance movements?is conducting a training session in the optimal [...]

But, yet, the mass movement that we were a part of ten years ago really isn?t present in the streets. And I think a lot of that has to do with, perhaps, the ?Obama effect? in the United States where everyone is still in this waiting pattern, hoping that he?s going to save the day.

By Walden Bello*(This paper was delivered at the plenary session of the 2009 National Conference of the Philippine Sociological Society held at the PSSC Building, on Oct. 16, 2009.)

By Chalmers Johnson
However ambitious United States President Barack Obama’s domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch. Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous [...]

The global reach of the US military today is unprecedented and unparalleled. Officially, more than 190,000 troops and 115,000 civilian employees are massed in approximately 900 military facilities in 46 countries and territories (the unofficial figure is far greater). The US military owns or rents 795,000 acres of land, with 26,000 buildings and structures, valued at $146bn (