The anti-communist crusade

  A central feature of the Cold War racket was the anti-communist crusade. At the behest of the U.S. national-security establishment, the entire nation became obsessed with the commies, both foreign and domestic. The Reds were coming to get us. They were everywhere. They were in Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Russia, China, Guatemala, Chile, Indonesia, Brazil, and most everywhere else. They were in Congress, the military, the executive branch, the political system, the universities, and  Hollywood. In the 1950s, people were even being exhorted to look under their beds for communists. 

  In the foreign realm, the anti-communist crusade led the U.S. national-security establishment to sacrifice almost 100,000 U.S. soldiers in U.S. interventions in civil wars in Korea and Vietnam. More than 250,000 U.S. soldiers were wounded in those conflicts.

An old soldier’s denial on Afghanistan

  In a letter to the Los Angeles Times regarding the Afghanistan debacle, Stephen Sloane, a retired captain in the U.S. Navy who served in the Vietnam War, is a perfect demonstration of how so many people, especially in the military, live lives of denial when it comes to foreign interventionism.  

What is moral injury in veterans?

  On Nov. 11 each year, Americans honor military veterans who have transitioned to civilian status from active duty.

  The cultural transition back to civilian life goes smoothly for some, but for others, it is a challenging and sometimes lengthy process. Those who have deployed overseas or spent a substantial amount of time in the military may even deal with “reverse culture shock” – that is, upon return, their home culture can feel distant and disorienting.

Trump continues the never-ending war on Cuba

  If it’s presidential election time, then, like clockwork, it’s time for Republicans to continue the U.S. national-security establishment’s 60-year-long attack on Cuba. That’s because Republican presidential candidates feel the need to pander to Cuban-American voters in Florida as a way to show how “tough” they are on communism.

  Well, not all communism. The U.S. government, especially the Pentagon, loves the communist regime in Vietnam, the one that killed some 58,000 American men in the Vietnam War. Today, the U.S. and Vietnamese regimes are living in peaceful and friendly co-existence, exactly what the national-security establishment said was impossible during the Cold War.

Can the Constitution stop the government from lying to the public?

  When regular people lie, sometimes their lies are detected, sometimes they’re not. Legally speaking, sometimes they’re protected by the First Amendment – and sometimes not, like when they commit fraud or perjury.

  But what about when government officials lie?

Health care workers wanted: A veteran needs you to work at a VA hospital

  Flying home from Florida recently, I was seated across the aisle from an elderly man wearing a hat identifying himself as a Marine. His wife sat next to him and helped him store his cane in the overhead bin.

  I noticed that at least five of the boarding passengers thanked him for his service when they walked past him in the bulkhead row. Most were women who appeared middle-aged and all appeared sincere. One passenger shook his hand while asking him when he served; his wife answered for him saying: “He doesn’t hear so good anymore … he served in Korea.” He and his wife held hands during the take-off and landing.

Trump’s bad Nixon imitation may cost him the presidency

  Whatever Donald Trump does, Richard Nixon usually did it first and better.

  Nixon got a foreign government’s help to win a presidential election over 50 years ago. Trump’s imitation of the master has proven far from perfect, and that may cost him the presidency.

  Trump’s first mistake was soliciting foreign interference personally. As a result, he cannot deny that he urged Ukraine’s president to investigate Joe Biden. The proof is in his own White House’s record of their telephone call.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - The Summer of 1969

  As we say goodbye to the summer of 2019, allow me to reminisce with you and commemorate a summer exactly 50 years ago that was undoubtedly the most momentous summer in American history – the summer of 1969.

  It is amazing what all occurred in America during the last six weeks of the summer of 1969. Richard Nixon was in his first year as president. He had escalated the never-ending Vietnam War, and he had heightened the Tet offensive. The war was finally heading in our direction. A July assault on North Vietnam caused heavy casualties to the Viet Cong. Ho Chi Minh would die in Hanoi on September 2.

Ruler of the world

  Recently released secret documents from Chinese company Huawei provide insights into how the U.S. Empire rules the world. According to the Washington Post, the documents reveal that Huawei secretly helped North Korea “build and maintain the country’s commercial wireless network.”

  What’s wrong with that? you ask.

  It violates U.S. sanctions against North Korea!

America, love it or leave it!

  President Trump’s rant against four members of Congress, all of whom are American citizens, in which he told them to return to their “crime-infested” countries, brings to mind the rant that conservatives have long used against anyone who disagrees with the policies or programs of the U.S. government: “America, love it or leave it!”

  Anyone who lived during the Vietnam War era will recall that this was a favorite refrain of conservatives against anyone who opposed the war. The opponents of the war were accused of hating America and were often told that since they obviously didn’t love their country, they should move to North Vietnam or some other communist country.

More U.S. dictatorship against Cuba

  Lamenting dictatorship in Cuba, the U.S. government has decided to tighten restrictions on the freedom of Americans to travel to Cuba. Never mind that the restrictions were not enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Trump. When it comes to fighting totalitarian dictatorship, the reasoning goes, it’s necessary to adopt dictatorial policies here at home.

  Freedom of travel has long been considered a fundamental, natural, God-given right with which no government, not even the U.S. government, can legitimately infringe upon. Recall the Declaration of Independence, which Americans will be celebrating on the Fourth of July. It holds that liberty is among the rights with which all people have been endowed by their Creator. When God endows people with certain rights, including the right of freedom of travel, it goes without saying that Caesar behaves illegitimately when he infringes on such rights.

Please don’t forget Memorial Day’s meaning

  America has undergone a lot of maturing between the Vietnam War and the conflicts of the 21st century. I know, I wore a uniform during both periods.

  On Memorial Day, let’s not regress in that maturity.

  When I was still a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, I watched our instructors (all multi-tour Vietnam veterans) deal with the end of the war.

Jacob G. Hornberger: Military spouses: Lead us out of the quagmire!

  For the life of me, I just can’t figure out why the American people do not rise up en masse against the forever wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan in which the United States has been embroiled for more than 15 years.

  After all, by now everyone must surely realize, despite the superficial rhetoric to the contrary, that U.S. soldiers are not over there killing and dying to defend our country or protect our freedoms here at home. They are over there killing and dying to protect the regimes the U.S. invasions and occupations put into power. That’s killing and dying for the sake of empire and interventionism, which, to belabor the obvious, is different from killing and dying for our country or to defend our freedoms.

Jacob G. Hornberger: The Cuban embargo destroyed Americans’ freedom

  Amidst increasing speculation that President-elect Trump is going to reverse the Obama administration’s attempts to normalize relations with Cuba, this would be a good time for Americans to start pushing back against any further destruction of their rights and liberties at the hands of their own government. A good place to start pushing back is by standing firm in favor of a lifting of the decades-long failed, deadly, and destructive U.S. economic embargo against Cuba.

  In the Declaration of Independence, a document whose principles Americans celebrate every Fourth of July, Thomas Jefferson observed that everyone has fundamental, God-given rights with which no government can legitimately interfere.

Charles C. Haynes: ‘I am America’

  “I am America,” Muhammad Ali famously declared. “I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me – black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own. Get used to me.”

  And get used to him we did. So much so that when Ali is memorialized this week, millions of people throughout the United States and millions more across the globe will join in honoring the man known simply as “The Greatest.”

Gene Policinski: Julian Bond — A voice of reason, a call for change

  In a nation beset for more than 50 years by racism, divided by war, and brimming with confrontation, anger and violence — there was the voice of Julian Bond: soft spoken and serious, reasoned but no less passionate, and always, always, challenging.

  Bond, 75, was a renowned civil rights activist, vocal anti-Vietnam War protester, a former board chairman of the NAACP and a former Georgia legislator and university professor. He died Aug. 15 after a brief illness.

Jacob G. Hornberger: Draft registration and America's serf society

  With the start of baseball season, fans will once again be exhorted to stand up and glorify the troops. Among those fans will be teenagers who will be proudly singing some variation of “I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free.”

  But neither American teenagers nor any other American is able to reconcile the freedom he is so proud of with the fact that the federal government forces every man to register for the draft when he reaches the age of 18.