Tomgram: Karen Greenberg, On Board the USS Detention
[Note for TomDispatch Readers: Consider this the penultimate 2018 note from me on the subject of donations. Despite an improving end of the year when it comes to contributions, life at a website like TomDispatch means always needing more. In a note above the last piece I posted, I included a set of books that any TD reader could request, signed and personalized, for a donation of $100 ($125 if you live outside the U.S.). Now, let me add two more amid an impressive list of books still available at our donation page: former New York Times sports columnist Robert Lipsyte’s just reissued classic, SportsWorld: An American Dreamland, and Rory Fanning’s Worth Fighting For: An Army Ranger’s Journey Out of the Military and Across America. Check it all out at the donation page and help this website prepare for a fantastic 2019! Tom]
After six all-American decades in business, Toys "R" Us crashed in 2018, closing its 735 U.S. stores and filing for bankruptcy. As it happens, however, the Washington-branded outfit, Mistreatment and Misconduct "R" Us (or M&M "R" Us), continues to thrive, as it has this century so far. In case the holiday season has swept your memories away, let me just remind you that, over the last 18 years, it has specialized in torture (with a particular emphasis on waterboarding); the abuse of prisoners in offshore jails and black sites; high-tech global assassinations (oops... sorry, “targeted killings”) across large swaths of the planet (their numbers up againin the Trump years); well-organized kidnappings from the streets of major global cities as well as the backlands of the planet; the deaths of civilians in a striking range of countries; the displacementof startling numbers of people, thanks to its never-ending wars and conflicts (refugees who have, in turn, helped spark right-wing populist movements in Europe and the U.S.); the aiding and abettingof the Saudi war in Yemen and so helping to create what could become the worst famine and starvation crisis in memory; and, most recently, border horrors of all sorts, especially focused on the mistreatment of children. And all of that is just to start down a list of its twenty-first-century “successes.”
When it comes to M&M "R" Us, bankruptcy is not an option. If anything, the behavior is only spreading as TomDispatch regularKaren Greenberg has long been documenting. Today, she takes us onto the high seas to show us how that enterprise continues to thrive in the Trump era with -- and you hardly need a New Year’s prediction for this one -- more to come in 2019. Tom
After six all-American decades in business, Toys "R" Us crashed in 2018, closing its 735 U.S. stores and filing for bankruptcy. As it happens, however, the Washington-branded outfit, Mistreatment and Misconduct "R" Us (or M&M "R" Us), continues to thrive, as it has this century so far. In case the holiday season has swept your memories away, let me just remind you that, over the last 18 years, it has specialized in torture (with a particular emphasis on waterboarding); the abuse of prisoners in offshore jails and black sites; high-tech global assassinations (oops... sorry, “targeted killings”) across large swaths of the planet (their numbers up againin the Trump years); well-organized kidnappings from the streets of major global cities as well as the backlands of the planet; the deaths of civilians in a striking range of countries; the displacementof startling numbers of people, thanks to its never-ending wars and conflicts (refugees who have, in turn, helped spark right-wing populist movements in Europe and the U.S.); the aiding and abettingof the Saudi war in Yemen and so helping to create what could become the worst famine and starvation crisis in memory; and, most recently, border horrors of all sorts, especially focused on the mistreatment of children. And all of that is just to start down a list of its twenty-first-century “successes.”
When it comes to M&M "R" Us, bankruptcy is not an option. If anything, the behavior is only spreading as TomDispatch regularKaren Greenberg has long been documenting. Today, she takes us onto the high seas to show us how that enterprise continues to thrive in the Trump era with -- and you hardly need a New Year’s prediction for this one -- more to come in 2019. Tom
America’s Mixed Messages
This Time at Sea
By Karen J. Greenberg
I grew up in New London, Connecticut, watching many a military ship float by my window. New London was home to the Coast Guard Academy and sat across the river from a U.S. Navy submarine base. Uniformed guardsmen, sailors in training, and sub crews leaving port would regularly wave to my friends and me from the decks of their ships. It never occurred to me that, 50 years later, such ships would come to my attention again, this time because of the confusing messages they’re sending overseas, a reflection of the conflicting images embedded in Washington’s latest version of diplomacy and foreign policy.
We still want populations around the world to admire, appreciate, and respect this country as a democracy and a powerful protector. Some ships are used to make exactly that point. And yet, in the twenty-first-century version of war American-style, other ships have become the very image and essence of hardship and harm in ways that violate the most basic tenets of democracy and justice.
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