Portside

The White House’s withering racist attacks on a grieving widow, and her friend and elected representative, are just a particularly shameful part of an expanding story about the four U.S. Green Berets killed and the four others wounded in Niger four weeks ago. Why were they there, what were they doing, and how does this fit in with the expanding role of the U.S. military in Africa. Are the U.S. people also viewed as “empty barrels,” with no right to an answer?

A scholar shares the true story of two men who stood up and spoke out against the murder of American Indians, and how they are celebrated today. Native American tribal members pay their respects at the headstone of Union Officer, Capt. Silas Soule, at the Riverside Cemetery Dec. 03, 2014 in honor of the 150th Anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre.

The military is one of the country’s largest polluters, with an inventory of toxic sites on American soil that once topped 39,000. At many locations, the Pentagon has relied on contractors like U.S. Technology to assist in cleaning and restoring land, removing waste, clearing unexploded bombs, and decontaminating buildings, streams and soil.

The capability upgrade has happened outside the attention of most government officials, who have been preoccupied with reducing nuclear warhead numbers. The result is a nuclear arsenal that is being transformed into a force that has the unambiguous characteristics of being optimized for surprise attacks against Russia and for fighting and winning nuclear wars.

Social movements ought to place private military contractors at the center of a broader critique of authoritarian neoliberalism and America’s permanent war economy.

After decades of atrocities, the warlords were finally being held to account. Then the Americans stepped in.

The attempted military coup in Turkey and the possibility of a President Trump may have more Americans considering the military option. It's tempting to conclude that the same folks who approve of a military intervention into politics support Donald Trump's intervention into politics. Trump is, in a way, a one-man coup. He is an outsider. He has contempt for the normal workings of democracy.

In June the Japanese island of Okinawa saw one of the biggest demonstrations in two decades, involving at least 50,000 people who protest against heavy US military presence after a local woman was murdered by an ex-Marine and a string of other incidents.

Located in the center of Okinawa Island, Kadena Air Base is the largest United States Air Force installation in Asia. Documents obtained under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act reveal how years of accidents and neglect have polluted local land and water with hazardous chemicals including arsenic, lead, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), asbestos and dioxin.

How many US military bases are there in Africa? For years, US Africa Command gave a stock response: one. Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti was America's only acknowledged "base" on the continent. Research by TomDispatch indicates that in recent years the US military has, in fact, developed a remarkably extensive network of more than 60 outposts and access points in Africa. These bases, camps, compounds, port facilities, fuel bunkers, and other sites are in at least 34 countries