William Astore
AlterNet
United States
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Past articles by William:
The paranoid nature of American foreign and domestic policy
The paranoid nature of American foreign and domestic policy → Read More
Militarizing Schools Isn’t the Answer to Gun Violence
We’ll soon graduate a generation of young people who may have trouble reading and writing and adding but will be experts at ducking and covering. → Read More
'Hardening' schools is conceding defeat to violence and death
'Hardening' schools is conceding defeat to violence and death → Read More
An open speech to Air Force Academy graduates
William Astore, A Graduation Speech to Air Force Cadets → Read More
Why Can’t Washington Break Its War Addiction?
American narcissism is only part of the answer. → Read More
Five reasons why Washington refuses to break its war addiction
William Astore, Must the U.S. Be Involved in Every War? → Read More
What Will It Take to Shrink the Pentagon’s Budget?
We have now reached the point in our collective history where we face three certainties: death, taxes, and ever-soaring spending on weaponry and war. → Read More
'What would it take for the Pentagon budget to shrink?': former Air Force colonel
In the spirit of this prolonged moment from hell, let me offer you a homemade conspiracy theory that will hopefully compete with the most vivid — or do I mean livid? — QAnon-ish ones around. Imagine this (even though it’s not true) as an explanation for the origins of the disastrous war in Ukraine: → Read More
Russia's war on Ukraine is God's gift to the American military-industrial complex
When it comes to bravery in relation to the war in Ukraine, let me just tip my cap to all the antiwar protesters in Russia who have taken to the streets across that ever more autocratic land. They’ve risked arrest to say “no to war” and “shame on you!” to the next global disaster. Thousands of them → Read More
America’s Disastrous 60-Year War
Most Americans simply take it for granted that war, or threats of war, having defined our immediate past, will define our future as well. → Read More
Is democracy going down? Breaking down 3 generations of conspicuous destruction by the military-industrial complex
In my lifetime of nearly 60 years, America has waged five major wars, winning one decisively, then throwing that victory away, while losing the other four disastrously. Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, as well as the Global War on Terror, were the losses, of course; the Cold War being the solitary wi → Read More
We Don’t Need Better Missiles—We Need Disarmament
Our generals know one word, and it’s not “win”—it’s more. → Read More
What I learned from watching the end of the world
In the early 1960s, at the height of America’s original Cold War with the Soviet Union, my old service branch, the Air Force, sought to build 10,000 land-based nuclear missiles. These were intended to augment the hundreds of nuclear bombers it already had, like the B-52s featured so memorably in the → Read More
There’s Always More Money for the Pentagon
Meanwhile, we’re told to do more with less. → Read More
The real reason Congress can't stop the madness of the Pentagon's ever-expanding budget
Where are you going to get the money? That question haunts congressional proposals to help the poor, the unhoused, and those struggling to pay the mortgage or rent or medical bills, among so many other critical domestic matters. And yet — big surprise! — there’s always plenty of money for the Pentag → Read More
Our Blind Faith in the Military Will Destroy Us
Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you worship. → Read More
Uniting Against the American War Machine
Twenty years and trillions of dollars later, the US counterinsurgency in Afghanistan failed—so when will we stop rewarding the military-industrial complex? → Read More
America has a runaway empire — and we dismantle it before it destroys us
Yoda, the Jedi Master in the Star Wars films, once pointed out that the future is all too difficult to see and it's hard to deny his insight. Yet I'd argue that, when it comes to the U.S. military and its wars, Yoda was just plain wrong. That part of the future is all too easy to imagine. It involve → Read More
America has a runaway empire — and we must dismantle it before it destroys us
Yoda, the Jedi Master in the Star Wars films, once pointed out that the future is all too difficult to see and it's hard to deny his insight. Yet I'd argue that, when it comes to the U.S. military and its wars, Yoda was just plain wrong. That part of the future is all too easy to imagine. It involve → Read More
We Need to Scale Back America’s War Machine
Sixty years after Eisenhower warned the nation against the threat of the military-industrial complex, America continues to maintain a bloated, imperialistic military presence at home and abroad. → Read More