Tom Dispatch https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/WhctKJVRQMhMCccVGRgzjtbVwlhDdncrhCDjPrJlXWrfxDXXLTcNxxGTpcCpxRDSTLKZvvv[

Editorial note: This remnant of a manuscript, discovered in a vault near the coastal town of Walpole, Massachusetts, appears to have been part of a larger project, probably envisioned as an interpretive history of the United States since the year 2000. Only a single chapter, probably written near the midpoint of the twenty-first century, has survived. Whether the remainder of the manuscript has been lost or the author abandoned it before its completion is unknown.] 

 

Chapter 1

The Launch

 

From our present vantage point, it seems clear that, by 2019, the United States had passed a point of no return. In retrospect, this was the moment when indications of things gone fundamentally awry should have become unmistakable. Although at the time much remained hidden in shadows, the historic pivot now commonly referred to as the Great Reckoning had commenced.

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Tomgram: Allegra Harpootlian, Ending the Forever Wars?

Posted by Allegra Harpootlian at 3:15pm, June 23, 2019.
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I remember well the antiwar movement of the Vietnam era. I was in it and it was distinctly in the streets, big time. I was typical, for instance, in traveling to Washington in October 1967 for a march on the Pentagon, which proved to be the largest antiwar protest ever staged to that point -- a crowd so vast I had never seen the likes of it before. And I returned to the capital a year or two later for a far more chaotic antiwar demonstration in which I remember having to choose between staying with a bold friend eager to rush further into the tear-gas-laced streets around the Washington Mall or run for it -- alone. (I reluctantly chose to stay.) And then there were all the little moments of work and opposition over so many years, the moments when you weren’t with crowds of people in those streets, but you were still focused on opposing that American war from hell.

And then, of course,

Originally Published on Tuesday, May 14, 2019 by Common Dreams

The Al Marzoqah oil tanker on Monday, a day after it was attacked outside the Fujairah port in the United Arab Emirates. (Photo: EPA-EFE)

Is the Trump administration attempting to concoct a false pretext to justify launching a war against Iran?

Gareth Porter without citing any concrete evidence blamed Iran for reported attacks on Saudi and UAE oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend.

Commentators quickly likened the accusations to the Gulf of Tonkin incident, referring to the "fabricated" event that President Lyndon Johnson used to massively escalate America's war in Vietnam.