Military and Defense Policy

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Repeal of military's gay ban moves forward
A deal between the Obama administration, congressional Democrats, and the Pentagon that will repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law banning homosexuals from serving openly in the US military was approved last week by the House and the Senate Armed Services Committee, though action by the full Senate may not come for months.
By KEGAN ZEMA | June 02, 2010

Keep streets safe and children in school

Letters to the Boston editor, February 19, 2010
Thank you for your very insightful "War Over Peace" article.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | February 17, 2010

Interview: Daniel Ellsberg

"The Most Dangerous Man in America" talks on the documentary about him and his time at the Pentagon
"By ordinary standards of presidents, Obama is a decent man. But those standards aren't good enough."
By CHRIS FARAONE | February 16, 2010

Review: The Most Dangerous Man in America

Hail to Daniel Ellsberg
At age 79, Daniel Ellsberg is getting the last guffaw.
By GERALD PEARY | February 16, 2010

Robert McNamara, RIP

Memories of Vietnam should speed Obama's exit plans for Iraq and Afghanistan
As secretary of defense under President Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert McNamara prosecuted the Vietnam War on a day-to-day basis, just as Donald Rumsfeld orchestrated the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for George W. Bush.
By EDITORIAL | July 08, 2009

Soldiers committing suicide

US troops are killing themselves in record numbers
On July 22, 2004, unable to handle the intensity anymore — the daily vomiting, the feeling that he was a murderer — Lucey wrapped a garden hose around his neck and hanged himself.
By JASON NOTTE | March 17, 2009

The Quiet Power of Jack Reed

Without seeking the spotlight, the senator and his star continue to rise
As he closes out his second six-year term in the Senate, perhaps the most elite club in politics, Reed is the subject of ongoing speculation about his future.
By IAN DONNIS | August 13, 2008

A night in Guantánamo

Staying in a replica cell, with no waterboarding included
I’d volunteered to spend the night in the replica cell (which is modeled on the ones at Gitmo) because we’ve all heard stories about unlivable conditions at Gitmo but can’t come close to imagining what it must be like.
By JEFF INGLIS | June 18, 2008

March to war

Why isn’t the press paying more attention to a possible attack on Iran?
During the course of two weeks in May, America’s top-ranking military officer went from warning that war with Iran could cripple the US military to rattling his saber at Tehran.
By ADAM REILLY | June 04, 2008

Twenty years pass, RI stays the same

Acclaim for dubious deeds is an Ocean State mainstay
Phillipe + Jorge were graciously asked to recall Rhode Island’s Monthly’s first dubious achievement-style Rhode Island Red Awards, as chosen in 1988 by your superior correspondents, during the mag’s 20th anniversary gala last week.
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | May 07, 2008

Reignite your rage

Bush’s War almost tells the whole story
It’s tempting, five years into the Iraq War, to regard that conflict with fatalistic resignation.
By ADAM REILLY | March 18, 2008

Cutting off your taxes to spite Uncle Sam

W-4 Peace
Take Larry Dansinger, who lives in Monroe, and who has withheld some or all of his owed taxes for years in opposition to US military action and policy.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | October 31, 2007

Enjoy the air show — you paid for it

Sky-high taxes
Let’s move beyond the $320 million in aircraft you have bought that will be performing at this weekend’s Great State of Maine Air Show at Brunswick Naval Air Station.
By JEFF INGLIS | September 12, 2007

Weird science

Could be verse: poetry ripped straight from the headlines
Lines in Anticipation of the Final Installment of the Harry Potter Series, After Reading About the “Fringe Research” Being Conducted by the Pentagon.
By JAMES PARKER | June 27, 2007

Ducking the question

Snowe and Collins don’t discriminate against gays, so why are they letting the military get away with it?
Maine senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are — relatively speaking — gay friendly.
By TONY GIAMPETRUZZI | May 09, 2007

Bush's secret army

Meet the American mercenaries of Blackwater, who fight outside of the law and take direction from the radical Christian right
The 9/11 attacks provided a catalyst: an unprecedented justification to forge ahead with a radical agenda molded by a small cadre of neoconservative operatives.
By JEREMY SCAHILL | March 21, 2007

The song remains the same

Did last weekend’s march on Washington mark a new surge in street activism or the waning of an old-school protest style?
At one point early on in last weekend’s anti-war rally in Washington, DC, a speaker instructed the crowd, which was facing en masse toward the Capitol Building, to turn around and look in the other direction — toward the White House, the State Department, the Justice Department, and the Pentagon — and then to turn back around. Slideshow: Images from the January 27th march on Washington, DC. Photos by Matthew Craig
By DEIRDRE FULTON | January 31, 2007

The Host

A monster movie with a splash of muckraking
Running a rubber-gloved finger across gallons of dust-covered bottles of formaldehyde, a US military official orders a Korean morgue attendant at a US Army base in Seoul to “empty every bottle to the very last drop.
By BRETT MICHEL | January 17, 2007

Observing Global Orgasm Day

Show you care
Sure, everyone looks forward to winter solstice because we know that after weeks of dreary darkness, they days will get longer and brighter.
By MICHAEL BRONSKI | December 20, 2006

From Vietnam to Iraq

Corrosive wars that destroy the social fabric of democracy and the institutional integrity of political life
Getting rid of defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld was relatively easy compared with how painfully difficult it is going to be to get the United States out of Iraq.
By EDITORIAL | November 15, 2006

Obliging our readers

Letters to the Boston editor: September 8, 2006
I wanted to thank the Phoenix for running the stirring letter from Nathan Ahlers last week.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | September 06, 2006

Dark side of the military legend continues in Iraq

Casualties of war
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell once dismissed the infamous My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1968, saying, “In war, these sorts of horrible things happen every now and again, but they are still to be deplored.”
By MARY ANN SORRENTINO | September 06, 2006

The JonBenet factor

The shame of monopoly media
Five summers ago, in the weeks before terrorists slammed fully loaded passenger planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, national television was obsessed with what? The Taliban? Osama bin Laden? Nope. Sharks.
By EDITORIAL | August 25, 2006

Pardons are forever

To get his friends and allies out of the mess he created, George W. Bush is going to have to issue a slew of pardons
Prediction: Before leaving office, President Bush will issue a shockingly large number of presidential pardons to operatives who, with the administration’s blessing, ventured far outside the law to wage Bush’s “war on terror.” Who might need - and get - a pardon?: Legal advisers, high-level officials, covert operatives. By Harvey Silverglate
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | August 22, 2006

The Ninth Annual Muzzle Awards

Our annual New England roundup of those who undermined freedom of speech and civil liberties. But first, a word about George W. Bush.
Nearly five years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, our political culture has been warped beyond recognition.
By DAN KENNEDY | July 04, 2006

Pentagon withholds details of spying on anti-war groups

Surveillance Society
Given growing attempts at government surveillance, Alden Eagle, a coordinator for the Rhode Island Community Coalition for Peace (RICCP), seems right on target when he says, “Anybody is a potential terrorist.”
By ANDREW FOX | June 21, 2006

Exit Zarqawi

Bush's best Iraq excuse
Without the Bush Administration’s negligent management of post-Saddam Iraq, Zarqawi couldn’t have been as brutally effective as he was. Pentagon briefing
By ADAM REILLY | June 08, 2006

The constitutional crisis no one seems to understand

Freedom watch does freezergate
The dolts in Congress let the imperial presidency get so out of hand that we are now faced with a truly nasty constitutional crisis.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | June 02, 2006

Stop whining and do your job

The White House and the media are not supposed to get along, stupid
A president with a history of antipathy toward the media complains openly about the “knee-jerk liberal press.”
By MARK JURKOWITZ | May 28, 2006

Silence kills

Maine’s senators don’t know about Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell
The effort to overturn the Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell policy needs more than just the support of the 120 House members who have signed on to the bill to replace it with a non-discrimination law.
By TONY GIAMPETRUZZI | May 25, 2006