War Archives - Keeping Democracy Alive: Recent Episodes
Burt Cohen
After an assassination attempt, Ngo Dinh Diem saw proof that he was God’s agent. In some ways he did try to do well for his people, but in others he and his family were ruthless against the majority Buddhist population
The post Think You Knew The Story of Vietnam? Give a Listen. appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
We all know what terrorism is. We’ve seen it on the ground in Israel. That’s terrorism on the cheap. Is the answer the most modern ultra high tech bombers to decimate the enemy? For centuries, a key measure of modernity
The post Are High Tech Weapons The Answer to Low Budget Terrorism? appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
Innumerable people have tried over many years to stop the forever wars between Israel and Palestine. With the world now horrified by the use of starvation as a weapon, the urgency of a resolution has never been greater. Even if
The post A Blueprint for A Future Israel/Palestine appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
You’ve probably heard of the famous Christmas Truce of 1914 between the trenches of the British and German soldiers. These were indeed brave men. But that was not the only such event: there were desertions, mutinies, and fraternizations.
The post Christmas Truce of WWI: Not So Isolated, Really appeared first on KDA Keeping Democracy Alive Podcast & Radio Show.
Can we ever learn from history? November 11 is celebrated as the end of “the war to end all wars.” But in reality it was a peace that ended peace. Listen in as eminent historian Adam Hochschild cuts through the
The post 11/11 Armistice: The Germans Were Ambushed, A Peace That Ended Peace appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
In light of the Israeli state’s massive assault on Gaza, and now Lebanon, the question comes up: What does it mean to be a Jew? Our guest veteran New York Times sportswriter Robert Lipsyte says being a Jew entails certain
The post On Rosh Hashanah: Netanyahu, The Israeli Right, and Jewish Identity appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Make America great “again?” What does that phrase assume? Our guest today, retired Lt Col. William Astore served 20 years in the military. No, he’s not a stereotypical macho militarist, far from it. He says our “full spectrum global empire”
The post The Term “MAGA” Acknowledges US Empire is Over appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
What do we mean by the word “hero?” Is it not a person of extraordinary courage, putting the good of the country above his or her own safety? That’s Daniel Ellsberg, most famous for the Pentagon Papers which he released
The post Dan Ellsberg Died One Year Ago. Long May He Live. appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It’s gotta be eye catching. Journalism works by way of fear and anxiety. How it gets presented affects how we understand the news. On this show Tufts University lecturer and author Nan Levinson and your host discuss questions about the
The post Is There Journalism That Doesn’t Love A War? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
In light of the Israeli state’s massive assault on Gaza, the question comes up: what does it mean to be a Jew? Our guest veteran New York Times sportswriter Robert Lipsyte says being a Jew entails certain responsibilities and obligations;
The post Netanyahu and Jewish Identity appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
We’re in wars all over the globe; is America more secure now? It’s basically been one war party in Washington for decades. The idea of restraint has been anathema to any member of congress, as every one seeks re-election and
The post Conservatives Emerging Against Perpetual War appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Large transfers of population, meaning massive destruction of living areas. Racist colonialism; the intent to eliminate. Total domination through force. On this show Franklin and Marshall College History professor Van Gosse talks about similarities and differences between the American War
The post Israel’s Vietnam? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
The big fish love the UN Security Council. It keeps them able to make wars. But the UN was not always toothless nor must it always remain so. Two badly behaved little boys really can’t be the only option for
The post With Courage In The UN, Peace is Possible in Ukraine appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
History moves in many different directions at the same time. On this show author and independent journalist Patrick Lawrence explains how as we begin a new year there is optimism beneath the pessimism. The failure of our many imperial policies
The post 2024: The Positive Breakdown of “Rules Based Order.” appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
The Republican led Congress declared antiZionism to be one in the same as antiSemitism. But is that accurate? Judaism has been around for thousands of years, Zionism only 150 or so. Does the Israeli state get to define my Jewishness?
The post Who Defines the Jewish Self? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
The unquestioned backing by Jewish Americans for the State of Israel started to fade about ten years ago, well before the current war. This keepingdemocracyalive is from 2016, in which Allan C. Brownfield reveals the relatively short shelf life of
The post From 2016: Israel Conflates Religion with Nationalism appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Violence in the West Bank has ramped up markedly in recent days. Jewish settlers there see the barbaric and evil acts of October 7th as a green light. They’re not just vigilantes, they are subsidized by the Israeli government and
The post Rabbi in The West Bank Calls for Torat Tzedek, An End to Settler Brutality appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
The Republicans in power are set against themselves: on one hand there’s the revved up old Cold Warriors targeting China. On the other hand there’s the strength of the big business powers who see their futures tied to China. On
The post US Powers Split on China Policy appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
If it was only about achieving national security! But our foreign policy is like driving while self-blinded and that undermines both stability and democracy. Our decades old War on Terror only damages America; real national security is weakened. The damage
The post War Policy: Keeping the Fog on Our Windshield appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
He served 20 years in the military. No, he’s not the macho militarists; our guest today retired Lt Col. William Astore says empire is killing the America he served to protect. Our insane war budget, our “full spectrum global dominance”
The post The Term “MAGA” Admits Empire is Over appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Is it heresy to support a cease fire; can we both support Ukraine and diplomacy? Our guest on this informative show wonders if the Biden Administration is “trapped in its own stifling, peace-averse domestic political climate.” Jacobin Magazine staff writer
The post Pressure Starting for Cease Fire in Ukraine? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Bush’s lies gave Trump moral scaffolding; today Americans believe big lies. On this show Thanassis Cambanis, a reporter who was in Iraq at the invasion, details the harm Bush and Cheney did to America. Even Russia gained power from our
The post In Breaking Iraq, America Broke Itself appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Shock and Awe was launched on this date by then President George W Bush. Over a hundred thousand Iraqis died along with 4,000 Americans. But what about the veterans today? On this rebroadcast, author Kelly Denton-Borhaug talks about her book
The post Twenty Years Ago Today 3/20/03: The Price Veterans Still Pay appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Authoritarians that they are, it’s not a huge surprise today’s Trump/DeSantis Republicans are pro-Putin. But as noted historian Michael Kazin points out, some alleged leftists are linking up with the far right on the war in Ukraine. Though there’s a
The post A Left-Right Pro-Putin Alliance? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Despite current assumptions, “protests can win even as they appear to lose.” So says Notre Dame professor emeritus David Cortright in his new essay in The Nation. On this show, we show how there are two superpowers on the planet:
The post 20 Years After Iraq Protests: They Actually Worked appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Private Security Firms; just part of doing business, right? Blackwater was America’s version in Iraq; The Wagner Group is Russia’s today in Ukraine and Africa. Atrocities in the Donbass region of Ukraine? Russia cynically said, that’s not us, it’s “little
The post Outsourcing War: Making Atrocities Invisible By The Wagner Group appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
All refugees lives are threatened equally, so why are Ukrainians handed the welcome mat as it is denied to most others? On this show, Columbia University Professor and co-author Helen Benedict shares what she’s found in the new book Map
The post Only Refugees Who Look Like Us Are Welcomed. appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
You’ve heard of the famous Christmas Truce of 1914 between the trenches of the British and German soldiers. These were indeed brave men. But that was not the only such event: there were desertions, mutinies, and fraternizations. Today it seems
The post The Christmas Truce of 1914: Not So Isolated appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Of all the motivations for war, nostalgia is at the top. Restoring lost glory. We see it not only in Putin’s Russia but in many former empires. Nostalgia is a factor in racist nationalist bloodletting everywhere. On this show History
The post The Danger of Nostalgia appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
With renewed interest in the first world war, November 11 is celebrated as the end of “the war to end all wars.” But in reality it was a peace that ended peace. The German negotiators at that famous train car
The post 11/11 Armistice? Germans Ambushed, A Peace That Ended Peace appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Like all bad habits, war is a tough one to break. On this show, Professor Emeritus Lawrence Wittner explains that respecting, listening, and helping people in other countries is a lot more economically conservative and accomplishes security much more effectively.
The post Are Alternatives to War Really Realistic? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Private Security Firms; just part of doing business, right? Blackwater was America’s version in Iraq; The Wagner Group is Russia’s today in Ukraine and Africa. Atrocities in the Donbass region of Ukraine? Russia cynically said, that’s not us, it’s “little
The post Outsourcing War: Making Atrocities Invisible appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Of all the motivations for war, nostalgia is at the top. Longing for an imagined glorious past. We see it not only in Ukraine but in many former empires, like France. And this nostalgia plays itself out in racist nationalist
The post The Murderous Power of Imperial Nostalgia appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
There are concentric circles: innermost being the destruction of Ukraine. But the increased insecurity of so many essential factors as a result of the war is starting to disrupt and bring increased misery to the poor of the world. On
The post The Worldwide Effects of the Ukraine War appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Why does it have to be us or them? Bush II tried to use Iraq to force nonaligned nations to choose; it failed. And it’s not working today on Ukraine. Why do so many nations still insist on not choosing
The post Ukraine War: Trying to Bifurcate a Non-Aligned World appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
One generation held the book and the author in reverence. And with Tom Roston’s new book The Writer’s Crusade and the Many Lives of Slaughterhouse Five a new generation is discovering the unique importance of Vonnegut’s vision or war and
The post Horror and Absurdity: Revisiting Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Clearly not his intention, but with his assault on Ukraine might Putin actually be decapitating his worldwide far right? Guest John Feffer director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies in an article titled “Will Ukraine
The post Is Putin Writing the Far Right’s Epitaph? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Breaking the mold of powerlessness happens, in the US Senate and in our neighborhoods. On the first segment Political Science professor and author Ron Feinman points to six little known US Senators who courageously stood up against war and injustice.
The post Courageous Movement for Change That Works appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Both establishment parties are competing to be toughest on the Ukraine crisis. But the fact is America’s founders were solidly non-interventionist. Our constant search for new monsters to destroy; where has that gotten us? More peace and justice? Our republic
The post Ukraine: A Conservative Take appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
A dangerous addiction to war is a result of what our guest retired Lt Col. William Astore calls victory disease. He actually served at the nuclear trigger under 2000 feet of granite. Reagan fired up the desire for conquest, but
The post New Cold War Same as the Old One appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
He voted against one thing that can actually address what he says is the problem. Where once men felt pride in what they contributed to family and community as sole breadwinners, that is gone. The anxiety is real. In her
The post Josh Hawley And The Republican Obsession with Manliness appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
You’ve heard of the famous Christmas Truce of 1914 between the trenches of the British and German soldiers. These were indeed brave men. But that was not the only such event: there were desertions, mutinies, and fraternizations. Today it seems
The post The 1914 Christmas Truce: Powerful, Brave, and Not So Isolated appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
You’ve heard of the famous Christmas Truce of 1914 between the trenches of the British and German soldiers. These were indeed brave men. But that was not the only such event: there were desertions, mutinies, and fraternizations. Today it seems
The post The Christmas Truce of 1914: Powerful, Brave, Not So Isolated appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It’s easy to be all for cutting “waste” in the Pentagon budget but that enables continuing plans to spend 7.5 trillion over ten years. And on what? Could shoveling money to the military make us less secure? On this show
The post Slice A Trillion From Defense: Bring Greater Security? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Great stone monuments to the glory of war serve to silence the pain. Currently four times as many troops and veterans die by suicide as in combat. Our guest on today’s show is religion professor Kelly Denton-Borhaug whose new book is
The post On Veterans Day: Suicide and the Moral Injury We Look Away From appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
They’ve save countless human lives in many wars. Military working dogs have a new monument at the Navy Memorial in Washington DC and it’s about time. Dogs are an essential asset deserving recognition. On this show first up is 20
The post Remembering the Dogs on Veterans Day appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It’s not like displaying a large red cross protects doctors from attack anymore. Yesterday’s Covid heroes are today vilified by some. Across the globe, health care workers have become routinely targeted. For example in Myanmar, since it is not an
The post From Heroes to Targets: Medical Workers Under Attack appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
With violence so deeply embedded into America’s foreign policy, it’s become invisible. But who does it harm more; us of them? On this show global religion teacher and author Kelly Denton-Borhaug says it is time to grow up and face
The post The Harmful Naivete of A Foreign Policy of Violence appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
They’re doing it again. Remember the Peace Dividend after Vietnam? Right, it never happened. Now with another war finally ended, here we are again. On this show, retired USAF Lieutenant Colonel William Astore says the amount of money shoveled to
The post Even When It Loses, the Pentagon Wins appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It’s so easy for the national security state to just paint the same old picture for Americans: Russia and China are military threats. But in truth they are not. They are rising economically in large part because we have wasted
The post Must We Do the Cold War Again? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Have we learned that the military is not necessarily the best tool for the job? On this show New Republic journalist Jordan Michael Smith talks about the self imposed failures, squandering America’s power. Right after the attack, the world was
The post 20 Years after 9/11: Are We Any Smarter? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Anything but monolithic, the newly victorious Taliban have internal divisions and are desperately seeking stability. Many confuse the Taliban with Al Qaeda and even ISIS, but the truth is ISIS was the Taliban’s enemy, and the country of Afghanistan is
The post Now They Must Govern: Prospects for the Taliban appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Here we are well into the 21st century and we’re stuck on imperialism, a 19th century western idea. Meanwhile a new non-western, non-American, nonaligned world is emerging. And perhaps it’s a very good thing. On this show international journalist Patrick
The post The Emerging Post-American Non-West Order appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Great stone monuments to the glory of war serve to silence the pain. Currently four times as many troops and veterans die by suicide as in combat. Our guest on today’s show is Moravian University professor of religion Kelly Denton-Borhaug.
The post Veterans and Suicide: The “Moral Injury” We Don’t Want to See appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Regime change in Iraq was on Bush’s agenda since 1998, September 11 merely enabled it. On this show is historian Larry Hartenian whose new book is titled George W Bush Administration Propaganda for an Invasion of Iraq, subtitled Absence of
The post 9/11 At 20: So, Why Did We Attack Iraq? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
We hold their debt, they hold ours. Yet both countries are openly preparing for all out high intensity war. Flashpoints in the South China Sea. Nationalism here and in China. But as US Foreign Policy historian Lawrence Wittner explains, though
The post Does it Have to be Militaristic Competition With China? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
President Biden is doing what presidents rarely do: seeing reality and making a change. At no small political risk. Are we abandoning the women to Taliban brutality? Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the conservative Cato Institute, former assistant to President
The post Afghanistan: We’re Outta There, Now What? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
The world sees the “flare up” but not the ongoing banal policies that are at cause. The State of Israel is copying the successful “settling” of the American west, so what options for resistance are open to Palestinians being evicted,
The post People Refusing to be Erased appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
So many awful 20th century roads lead back to the First World War. And despite conventional wisdom, there could have been peace two years before it came to an official (but not really) end. Through a process of detective work,
The post Peace Was On The Floor in 1916-17, but Wilson Failed to Pick It Up appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Traditional liberals argued we’d alienate some by civil disobedience in the streets of Washington. The idea was to stop the center of the war machine to stop the war, which went on an on despite marches and speeches and everyone
The post The Remarkable Success of MayDay 1971 appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Self-professed “patriots” stormed the US Capitol Building January 6th, but it was Vietnam Veterans Against the War in late April 1971 who were the real patriots. They came for what they considered another tour of duty, after serving in the
The post In Military Gear, Patriots Invade the Capital: 50 Years Ago appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
The monuments to Confederate leaders are all about altering the realities of history to empower and enforce old mythic beliefs. They are there on courthouse lawns to remind black southerners of their place. One this show, Southern historian Karen Cox
The post No Common Ground for Confederate Monuments appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
He came in as a macho Cold War president but after the reality of near nuclear war, John Kennedy became a changed man. He gave an important speech about peace in June 1963. Now the Cold War is back and
The post Can Biden Complete JFK’s Start at Peace? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It’s so easy for the national security state to just paint the same old picture for Americans: Russia and China are military threats. But in truth they are not. They are rising economically in large part because we have wasted
The post The Cold War Again? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Jefferson saw America as sovereign independent states, only unified for defensive foreign policy. But today both left and right recognize the costs of empire are too high. And we are really too big to govern. Splitting into more natural bio-regions
The post What Happens to the Nukes if The US Splits Up? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Are America’s perpetual wars having the desired effect of enhancing national security? As USAF retired lieutenant colonel William Astore says “Terrorist acts are mostly the recourse of the weak when taking on the strong. The United States isn’t going to
The post Can it Happen Now: Real National Security, an End to Endless Wars? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
What is this powerful hold the Pentagon has over our “civilian” government? Since Clinton’s presidency both parties have felt a need to look tough on defense; Biden and Trump competed for military support. That may be changing as America sees
The post Demilitarizing Our Democracy appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
On part one: By strict legal standards, Donald Trump is obviously guilty. But the impeachment trial is a political not a legal proceeding, the Republican majority senate is the jury. And according to Marjorie Cohn, former president of the National
The post Two-fer: Senate Trial Realities and Biden’s China Conundrum appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Sure, the south was defeated militarily, but their attitudes remained, as we saw in the January 6th insurrection. What we saw is not a fringe, in fact it has deep roots. Disunity is traditional in American history. People in the
The post One Nation Indivisible: Really? Forever? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
No one likes an outside power coming in and having control over them. But that’s exactly what has pervaded the Middle East for over a hundred years. Some of the effects of America’s recent wars there include epidemics of birth
The post New President: New Better Mideast Policy? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Why do we keep investing our national treasure in policies which make us much less secure? Part of the reason is what our guest calls the “fire-hose of content” from the 24/7 news cycle. Our foreign policy affects us all
The post Stop American War Billions Marching Us To Disaster appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Even in a minority, fighting back carries a number of positives. On issues that matter to average Americans, Democrats have been pushed off course. Some thought the way to attract independents was timidity. As our guest Eleanor Eagan of the
The post What A Defiant and Bold Democratic Party Looks Like appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
It’s all about bragging. Trump said his “deal” between the UAE and Israel would create a half million new jobs. The true number is less than a tenth of that. On this show Pentagon arms expert William Hartung explains how
The post Trump Floods the Mid-East with US Weapons appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
In normal times, it’s the the military making war elsewhere in the world, allegedly to protect our peace at home. But with armed white gangs afraid their dominance of America may be slipping away, and with a president egging them
The post Could the Military Save Us From Civil War? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
The president calls it a “previously unthinkable regional transformation.” But perhaps it both solidifies the power of medieval monarchies masquerading as modern states, as it ramps up sales of US weapons systems to them. Retired US Army Major Danny Sjursen
The post Trump and Netanyahu’s “Peace Deal” appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
If the word conservative means anything, it means conserving and not wasting money. Especially public money. How long can politicians claim to be conservative when they studiously avoid looking at obvious waste? Billions, hundreds of billions, trillions. On the first
The post Worshiping Waste As Long as It’s Military Waste appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
The public is way ahead of politicians on this. Frightened of looking “soft on defense,” elected members of both parties duck and cover when polls show wide support for giving a serious haircut to the wild and woolly lands of
The post “How Ya Gonna Pay for Medicare for All?” Here’s How appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
Myths of glory and young men achieving manliness through combat serve to obscure the inherent moral injury. Especially in this period of a perpetual state of war. Without clear good guys and greater good clearly accomplished, today’s soldiers, and the
The post War Myths and Moral Injury appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.
For nearly 20 years, the goal of America’s perpetual war has been about dominating the world. It has been largely out of sight, but now it’s on our streets. Our president has turned the weapons on us; again the goal
The post Are We The Enemy Now? appeared first on Keeping Democracy Alive.