afghanistan war
Photo by Kimiya Oveisi via Unsplash.
Whenever I am writing, editing, or reading, it feels wrong to be without a cup of coffee (black, no sugar). I know I am not the only editor who feels this way. [Editor’s note: Can confirm] Also, I feel confident in speaking for the editorial team when I say the 10 stories we have picked for you this week are best enjoyed with a piping-hot cup of joe.
An Afghan boy stands at the site of an attack in a U.S. military air base in Bagram, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Dec. 11, 2019. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail
An explosive report was published on Monday afternoon in the Washington Post, based on the Post’s review of thousands of pages of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, all previously unreleased until the paper recently won a multi-year court case on Freedom of Information Act grounds. And the report only gets more damning as it goes on.
If we remember the morally injured on this Memorial Day, then perhaps we should also take a moment to critically examine the values that shape our collective ideas about goodness.
Christian ethicist Jean Bethke Elshtain. Photo courtesy University of Chicago
Christian ethicist Jean Bethke Elshtain, a scholar who shaped national conversations on war and peace from her perch at the University of Chicago, died Sunday at age 72.
She had two heart attacks in 2012 and, according to the school, she had another “cardiac incident” earlier this summer that led to her death.
The widely admired political philosopher regularly wrote and lectured on ethics, politics, and religion. She defended American military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan using “just war theory,” a position that suggests there are times when it is necessary and perhaps right to go to war.
When a hundred scholars and ethicists signed a petition that read, “As Christian ethicists, we share a common moral presumption against a preemptive war on Iraq by the United States,” Elshtain argued the opposite, publishing the book Just War Against Terror in 2003.
The Psychological Toll Of War (OPINION); Mike Huckabee: 2012 GOP Candidates Must Stop Trying To 'Shred Each Other'; Obama And Cameron Must Strike A Balance Over Afghanistan Withdrawal; Syria Laying Landmines Along Border: Human Rights Watch; Have We Gone From A Mancession To A Shecovery? Not Quite. The Spectacular Triumph Of Working Women Around The World; The Reproduction Of Privilege; Obama Warns Opponents Against 'Using Religion As A Bludgeon In Politics'; Can Progressives Ride The Occupy Train To Congress?; Defining The Occupy Movement: It's Not Just About The Money (OPINION); Where Have You Gone, Mister Rogers?
The United States has already spent $3 trillion on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.