We’re #1!

At Needless Wars, Weapons Exports, and Threatening Annihilation

BILL ASTORE

OCT 01, 2026

Americans like to think we live in the best country in the world. It’s part of our culture, almost the air that we breathe. Perhaps it’s even in our DNA. We’re told from birth how lucky we are to be American. We’re so much better than everyone else that “they hate us because they ain’t us.”

It’s American mythology, of course, and it’s something I was reminded of as I saw this chart (below) this morning on Twitter/X:

Grim chart. I’m surprised that the chart didn’t include that America is indeed #1 at needless wars, colossal military spending, weapons exports, and militarized pageantry that extols the wonders of being an American as various combat jets roar overhead. We’re also #1 at the size of our national debt, now exceeding $40 trillion and rising.

The chart above suggests how America could close the gap by making health care better and more affordable, by improving education, by enhancing the quality of living for all, and so on, but politicians rarely address such issues. The political ads I’ve seen during this electoral season focus on which candidate is more corrupt or which candidate wants to raise your taxes or which candidate can lower the price of gasoline.

George Carlin famously said that you had to be asleep (or perhaps very rich) to believe in the “American dream,” but it seems today that the aspirational dream of a better, more enlightened, more democratic country is dead. The only people dreaming big are people like Trump, he of triumphant arches loaded with snipers and drones, of ballrooms with underground bunkers, of a new “Club Med” in Gaza once the Palestinians there are murdered or starved or forced out.

And maybe that’s a big legacy of MAGA: the death of the American dream, strangled by wars and militarism and corruption. Along with the redefinition of “greatness,” which is now defined by “warriors” kicking people when they’re down and threatening entire civilizations with annihilation.

Mordor in the USA

Deterring Our Way to Doomsday

Loving the Bomb Yet Again

BILL ASTORE

23 HOURS AGO

It’s amazing the enormous sums of money the U.S. government spends on destructive weaponry in the stated cause of deterring massive destruction. It’s MAD, of course, this notion that peace is only attainable via the promise of annihilating another people. And now we know that annihilation won’t be limited to Russia or China or Iran: that a “general” nuclear strike would likely produce a nuclear winter that would end most life on our planet. Yet the Pentagon persists in nuclear “modernization” and further “investments” in the Triad.

In the early 1960s, the Air Force wanted 10,000 ICBMs but “settled” for 1000 Minuteman missiles. To preserve “the American way,” they built a nuclear command center (Cheyenne Mountain) under 2000 feet of granite, which was rendered obsolete soon after it was built by more accurate Soviet ICBMs with warheads in the megatons.

As a young Air Force officer, I hunkered down in the 1980s in Cheyenne Mountain. I visited Los Alamos. I’ve walked the Trinity Test Site in Alamogordo, New Mexico, site of the first atomic test in 1945. Friends of mine have sat in ICBM silos, ready and able to unleash Armageddon. Imagine young lieutenants and captains in their twenties, sitting underground, waiting for the president’s command to launch missiles that will unleash a nuclear holocaust to kill millions, if not the planet itself.

All this fresh talk of “investment” in “modernized” nuclear weapons is sheer madness–a collective death wish–a “strange love” for world-destroying nukes. Yet again, we’ve come to love the bomb. 

Recently, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF) spoke of nuclear weapon “recapitalization”: truly an abomination of the English language. You don’t “recapitalize” genocidal weaponry. Both the Sentinel ICBM missile program and the B-21 bomber are unneeded weapons systems that will likely cost $500 billion or more over the next 20 years. Sadly, he isn’t the only general who’s positively gleeful about all the money being thrown at nuclear weapons, the Golden Dome, and weapons in space. 

This mad (MAD) glee for money in the cause of mass destruction and madcap militarism is destroying not just our democracy. It’s like our “leaders” are out of Mordor, searching for the One Ring of Power, with AI data centers and surveillance the equivalent to Sauron’s eye that sees all.

Maybe Mordor isn’t the best model for our future?

I wonder if Sauron spoke of “modernization” and “recapitalization” in Orcs and Nazgûl and Balrogs?

The current CSAF promises to “advocate relentlessly” for new weaponry like the Sentinel ICBM and B-21 Raider. He says “readiness” to fight is an airman’s “first responsibility.” Actually, that first responsibility is to support and defend the U.S. Constitution. We must be guided by the law of the land, not by the beauty of our weapons (Brian Williams) or a warrior’s urge to use them (Pete Hegseth)

America, stop the MADness. A policy of Mutually Assured Destruction means we’re all dead. As the Outlaw Josey Wales said: “Dyin’ ain’t much of a living.” Nor is deterring our way to Doomsday.

Total Failure of the U.S. Political System

Eternal Shame, Nothing But Shame

BILL ASTORE

SEP 24, 2026

Shame, and eternal shame, nothing but shame! (The Duke of Bourbon, Henry V)

Why isn’t President Trump being impeached and removed for cause?

This week he went before the United Nations and once again threatened a nation of 93 million people (Iran) with total annihilation. Defying Congress, he seeks to build a triumphant arch in DC complete with snipers, ammunition, and other weapons and surveillance equipment. He illegally bans news agencies from the White House. He’s doing everything possible to steal elections in November. He has embraced militarism and war while choosing himself as America’s greatest president in history. He dismisses climate change as “fake news” even as he accelerates fossil fuel production in the most sensitive environmental areas. He openly uses the office of the presidency to enrich himself and his family.

Trump has never had any desire to support and defend the U.S. Constitution. He has never been a public servant. Like Richard Nixon before him, Trump believes he is above the law, or as Nixon infamously put it, When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.

There is no more serious threat to America than a lawless president. A president who refuses to support and defend the U.S. Constitution is one that must be removed from office. This is not about being a Republican or Democrat. This is not about partisanship. This is about serving one’s country and upholding the law of the land.

Tolerating a U.S. president who wages illegal wars, who threatens genocide against another people, brings nothing but shame. Trump has threatened the equivalent of 15 Holocausts against Iran—more than 90 million dead, an ancient civilization obliterated because it refuses to bend the knee to Trump’s will.

How can any constitutional republic tolerate such a dangerously unhinged leader? 

Weapons In Space

Yet More Madness from the Pentagon

BILL ASTORE

SEP 21, 2026

Last week, the Secretary of the Air Force announced the U.S. has weapons in space. As Ken Klippenstein has noted, the announcement was in effect a bid for more mega-billions for the U.S. Space Force. Here’s a helpful chart, courtesy of Klippenstein:

Aerospace Center for Space Policy and Strategy

Greater than 120%: now that’s a budget increase!

Zealots and opportunists are ruling us. The zealots actually believe that America’s security is best attained through full-spectrum dominance, including space dominance. The opportunists don’t care one way or the other–they’re just pursuing the golden flow of money emanating in a steady stream from the Trump administration in the cause of that dominance.

Greed and bellicosity are the fundamental problems. These men (I’d wager they’re all men) define everything in terms of conflict and dominance. They are Klingons, proudly so, without a Klingon sense of honor. To mix movie references, they are imperial stormtroopers seeking their own Death Star wonder weapons.

Space should be a realm for exploration and inspiration, a place for humans to grow further in knowledge and wisdom. These morally impoverished souls are ruining space even as they poison the earth. 

Again, it’s not just about space weapons. It’s a major money- and power play by America’s youngest service, the U.S. Space Force, complete with proposed fascistic uniforms for its “guardians” based on the movie “Starship Troopers.”

Love the jackboots

There just wasn’t enough money/influence for U.S. Space Force in its primary mission of defense and deterrence, so now it’s all about war fighting and weapons. That’s where the real money is at, and the Space Force wants a bigger slice of the fiscal pie, irrespective of the risk of a war in space.

We’re clearly entering a new “space race,” not a quest as in the 1960s to put a man on the Moon to upstage the Soviets, but one where the U.S. attempts to occupy and dominate space while projecting power, i.e. killing people, from orbit. U.S. weapons in space will provoke other countries like Russia and China to respond in kind; the proliferation of weapons, some likely controlled by AI, will greatly increase the likelihood of major disruptions in vital satellite communications here on earth–and that may be the least of our problems if satellites monitoring nuclear forces are disrupted.

Pete Hegseth’s “Department of War” is creating an escalatory dynamic that makes a war in space much more likely and the U.S. far less safe–yet another “war of choice” inflicted on the world. As the saying goes, it’s worse than a crime, it’s a mistake, a most grievous one for humanity.

Air Force Academy Football Team Honors New Nuclear Bomber

The Ultimate Fusion of Sports and Militarism 

BILL ASTORE

SEP 18, 2026

Incredibly, the Air Force Academy football program is honoring a weapon system, the new B-21 Raider bomber, which is surely music to the ears of Northrop Grumman, the lead contractor.

Here’s the announcement from the Air Force:

The Air Force football team will honor the B-21 Raider with the 2026 edition of the Air Power Legacy Series uniform. The Falcons will wear the special uniform for the Navy game scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 3, at 10 a.m. MT at Falcon Stadium on the campus of the United States Air Force Academy. The game will be nationally televised on CBS.

The idea of preventing conflict by maintaining a force so capable, ready, and credible that no adversary will ever risk war. It is the promise that peace is preserved through unmatched strength and readiness 24/7/365.

Power Projection is ability to rapidly fly, fight, and deliver decisive airpower anywhere on the globe, anytime, through any contested airspace. It ensures America’s reach has no limits.

Ah, “America’s reach” may have no limits, but recent events surely prove that our reach has greatly exceeded our grasp, whether in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or most recently in Iran.

And how is “preventing conflict” working for America’s massively steroidal military?

Perhaps one shouldn’t think too much about this. Focus on the cool uniforms and the sleek jets, am I right?

Here’s a slick Air Force PR image—if you can stand it.

Look at those gridiron warriors, embracing the new B-21 bomber! Truly inspiring.

The mixture of sports and militarism in America is increasingly deadly, especially for those people on the receiving end of America’s “projected” power. 

A special sports uniform for a plane that isn’t even fielded yet, let alone combat-proven. What insanity.

By the way, if you go to the Northrop Grumman website, you see this proud statement:

Air Power Legacy Series

Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Air Force Academy partnered on the 10th‑anniversary Air Power Legacy Series, unveiling a B‑21 Raider inspired football uniform that connects Air Force heritage to the future of American air power. The uniforms debut October 3 vs. Navy at Falcon Stadium.

No better illustration of Ike’s military-industrial complex can possibly exist.

P.S. The projected cost of each B-21 bomber is roughly $700 million, a “conservative” estimate. Given the usual cost overruns, it’s likely the B-21 will cost $1 billion per plane. Total program cost is just over $200 billion, but that’s in Fiscal Year 2019 dollars. Again, given the usual cost overruns, that cost will likely double over the next 10-20 years, assuming Congress continues to fund the plane. And, guess what? America doesn’t even need the B-21. The Air Force already has more than enough planes, bombs, and missiles to end most life on earth.

Talk about unlimited “reach”!

P.P.S. By happy coincidence, today is the Air Force’s 79th birthday. Why don’t you chip in a few hundred dollars for the new B-21? Not that you have any choice in the matter.

40 Kilotons of Bombs to Israel

Hiroshima Plus Nagasaki

BILL ASTORE

SEP 16, 2026

The Trump administration plans to give 40 kilotons of “conventional” bombs to Israel. Put differently, that’s 40,000 bombs, each with a ton of HE or high explosive. Naturally, it’s the American taxpayer who foots the bill as it’s labeled as aid to Israel.

Forty kilotons is a little more than the combined yield of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima (15 kilotons) and Nagasaki (21 kilotons) in 1945.

2000-pound bombs are not precision weapons. They flatten entire city blocks. Israel doesn’t need them for self-defense; it “needs” them to erase Gaza and its people from the map. (Or perhaps to attack Iran with in conjunction with U.S. forces. Or both.)

The other “Made in America” product that Israel orders in bulk is giant bulldozers. They’re in high demand to move the rubble around and entomb the bodies of the dead. A few of these bulldozers are now driverless or robodozers.

Mega-bombs and giant robodozers: all this death and destruction is explained away as “Israel’s right to exist.”

The world truly makes no sense anymore.

Photo from Jenin on the West Bank in 2024.

Proudly Embracing the Dark Side

The Many Legacies of 9/11

BILL ASTORE

SEP 14, 2026

I went on “Judging Freedom” today to discuss the many dark legacies of 9/11. This video is especially worth watching for Judge Napolitano’s summary of the PATRIOT Act and how it degraded our fourth amendment protections under the U.S. Constitution. Unlike him, I have not read all of the PATRIOT Act.

I had many thoughts both before and after my interview with the Judge. Perhaps the most disturbing to me is the sense of how much my country has embraced war as a creative act, as a force for good, as equivalent to freedom. Hence names like “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and “Operation Enduring Freedom” for the Iraqi and Afghan Wars. Barack Obama had his “good” war (Afghanistan) and his “bad” one (Iraq), even as Hillary Clinton chortled and gloated over the death of Gaddafi in Libya when she was Obama’s Secretary of State.

There was a time when Americans saw war as corruption—as the most insidious threat to democracy (James Madison), as brutal, stupid, and often futile (General Dwight D. Eisenhower). Ever since 9/11, if not before, too many Americans (especially those who don’t have to fight) have come to embrace war as positive, even “good.” This is among the most worrisome signs of creeping fascism—the identification of war with freedom, with patriotism, openly adopted and supported by both political parties in America.

Militarized madness, if left uncorrected and unopposed, will destroy freedom and liberty. 

The Judge and I also briefly discussed Islamophobia and the death toll in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria. The harsh reality of hundreds of thousands killed, and millions displaced, during the War on Terror is rarely mentioned in the mainstream media here, and usually goes unacknowledged in 9/11 memorial ceremonies.

The Chief Legacy of 9/11

25 Years Later, A War of Terror Persists with No End in Sight

BILL ASTORE

SEP 09, 2026

The chief legacy of 9/11 is as obvious as it is tragic: a state of permanent warfare in the United States, both abroad and in the “homeland” (a term not used in normal discourse before the 9/11 attacks), with millions dead and displaced for no defensible reason.

If you’re 25 years old or younger in America, you’ve never known a time when your country wasn’t at war. “Peace” is no longer seen as desirable, let alone possible. War is seen as America’s natural state; a land of warriors are we, imbued with a “warrior ethos” that applauds kicking other countries when their down and beating the snot out of them just because we can.

Meanwhile, in the “homeland,” surveillance grows ever more intrusive by the day as agents of ICE kick down doors and haul people away to detention centers that are being rapidly expanded. Personal privacy is increasingly a thing of the past as the government wraps itself in a shroud of secrecy that makes oversight and accountability well-nigh impossible. 

The global war on terror has become a war of terror. War begets more war, with no end in sight.

Re-reading the Atlantic Monthly 150th anniversary issue from November 2007, I came across this gem of a quote from America’s 9/11 mayor, Rudolph Giuliani:

We’ve got to be patient and committed [in Iraq], but we’ve got to multitask … We’ve got to talk about Iran—Iran is more dangerous than Iraq—and we have got to get the job done in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.

That was Giuliani in July of 2007 when he ran as a Republican presidential candidate. In America, that’s how you get treated as a “serious” candidate for the presidency—by urging for war not just with Iraq and Afghanistan but with Pakistan and Iran as well. We can “multitask” our wars! Truly a sign of American greatness.

Well, Giuliani’s dream has come true—we are talking a lot about Iran today.

Back in 2007, Ron Paul had a different take on 9/11 and America’s state of forever war, but he was roundly booed for asking Americans to exercise just a bit of empathy by asking why “they” hate us:

That “crazy” Ron Paul, talking about blowback for America’s wars in the Middle East. He obviously didn’t know about America’s peace-making bombs and freedom-bringing missiles. Didn’t he know as well that “they” hate us for our freedoms?

“The Late Great John McCain”

Democrats Should Stop Praising Republican Warmongers

BILL ASTORE

SEP 03, 2026

I know: this is old news. But I was going through my notes from September of 2024 on the Harris/Trump presidential debate and came across Kamala Harris’s gushing praise of the “late great John McCain,” American hero. And I thought again to myself: this is how the Democrats run for office, by praising Republican warmongers like McCain?

I get it: Harris was trying to rattle Trump, who had no love of McCain. But as I wrote in my notes at the time, Harris came across as a moderate Republican against a madcap one in Trump. And when you offer voters a “choice” between a moderate rightist and a more extreme one, they tend to go for the extreme one. 

A few reasons why Harris struck me as a moderate Republican in that debate:

  1. Her high praise for McCain.
  2. Her tight embrace of military lethality.
  3. Her rejection of Medicare for All and her support for private health insurers.
  4. Her willingness to quote Goldman Sachs with approval.
  5. Her boasting of personal endorsements from Dick and Liz Cheney.
  6. Her strong support of NATO and Ukraine in its war with Russia.
  7. Her unchecked support for Israel despite the genocide in Gaza.

My Democrat friends will likely respond that she was “moving to the center” to win more votes. How did that work out for her?

Yes, I know Kamala wasn’t as crazy as Trump. If she’d been elected in 2024, we wouldn’t have been subjected to the DOGE, or absurdly high tariffs, or ICE goons, or the idiocy of Pete Hegseth. I get that.

But Harris did support “military lethality,” so the Pentagon budget would have increased (though not nearly as much as under Trump). She said Iran was America’s greatest threat, so her foreign policy vis-a-vis that country may have been as bellicose (though whether she would have started a disastrous and illegal war with Iran is unknowable but I think unlikely).

Looking through my old notes from that debate, I’m struck again by the grim vision Trump offered of America. Our country has gone to hell, he said. The nation is in decline, or dying. Other countries are laughing at us, Trump said. They don’t respect us. Migrant crime is killing America. Immigrants are eating your pet dogs and cats. Babies are being aborted (“executed”) at nine months. Biden doesn’t know he’s alive and Harris hates Israel. Or so Trump claimed.

Trump wasn’t wrong about America’s decline. What he fails to see is how rapidly he has accelerated that decline since he was reelected in 2024.

Trump is America’s first declinist president, as Tom Engelhardt has noted. Hence the whole MAGA ideal of a national revival, which resonated with so many people. The problem of course is how Trump is worsening that decline even as he uses the office of the presidency to enrich himself, his family, and his cronies.

It shouldn’t be that difficult for Democrats to beat a corrupt and venal blowhard like Trump, except the Democratic establishment thinks the way to do that is to praise John McCain and to hug the Cheneys. And even while Democrats today criticize Trump for the Iran War, they rarely do so on moral terms, even as they typically put forth their own preferred military action plan against Russia or China or both. Trump actually makes occasional antiwar noises, which is more than can be said for many Democrats.

If Democrats really want to gain the upper hand on Trump, they had best stop praising the McCains and Cheneys of America and reject constant warmongering. And they should be much stronger in their criticism of Trump and Company as WMD, as weapons of mass destruction to democracy, for that is exactly what they are proving to be.

The DSA candidates in 2026 get it: American voters really want alternatives rather than Democrats wearing John McCain and Liz Cheney masks.

Scary Democratic Socialists!

Empty the Prisons, Fire the Police, Be Afraid

BILL ASTORE

SEP 02, 2026

I had to laugh as I saw this definitional alchemy in the New York Times this morning:

What is the difference between the agenda of the Democratic Socialists and the agenda of the Democratic Party? | Marilyn McIntyre | Huntley, Illinois

The Democratic Socialists of America (D.S.A.) is an activist organization, not a political party, so its members typically run as Democrats. This has prompted confusion about the two groups. Many mainstream Democrats and D.S.A. members want to move in the same economic direction — raising taxes on wealthy Americans, increasing the minimum wage and expanding health care access. But while most Democrats consider themselves capitalists, D.S.A. members envision ultimately accomplishing those goals by establishing public ownership of the largest corporations. The D.S.A. agenda is also further to the left than most Democrats on social and foreign policy issues. It includes policies like ending all aid to Israel, closing overseas military bases and fully abolishing the police and prison systems. — Lisa Lerer, national politics correspondent

Now, I must admit I’m not an expert on the DSA. But in this “great” land of ours, how likely are we to see “the public ownership of the largest corporations”? How likely is a complete cessation of aid to Israel, the closing of all military bases overseas, and the total abolition of police forces and prisons? Is the DSA really calling for this?

Those scary Democratic Socialists! Radical leftists are they! Vote for them and all prisoners will be unleashed—even the most violent murderers and rapists. And they’ll be no police to protect you because they’re being abolished too. 

I like the line about “most Democrats consider themselves capitalists”: WTF? I’ve never defined myself as a “capitalist” as if it’s some kind of religion and money is something to be worshipped. Capitalism is an economic system that favors people with, well, capital. I’d wager the more capital you have, the more you identify as a capitalist. In short, working- and middle-class Democrats, even “mainstream” ones, don’t go around thinking they’re “capitalists” like Thurston Howell III on “Gilligan’s Island.”

“Mainstream” Democrats?

Also, so-called mainstream Democratic leaders like Schumer, Pelosi, and Jeffries have been singularly unsuccessful in raising taxes on the wealthy or in providing a higher federal minimum wage and Medicare for All (M4A). I like the way M4A isn’t even mentioned: the much more benign formula of “expanding health care access” is used. For most people access isn’t the biggest problem, affordability is.

I saw recently where, assuming the Democrats regain the House and Senate this November, the stated policy goal of Schumer and Jeffries is a return to the status quo under Joe Biden, meaning a fight for restoration of Obamacare subsidies, restoring funding for Medicaid, and the like. Nothing about M4A, nothing about a higher federal minimum wage, nothing about major cuts to Pentagon spending, and nothing about impeachment of Trump for waging an unconstitutional war against Iran.

As usual, establishment Democrats are protecting the establishment and especially “capitalists.” Compared to them, I’ll eagerly vote for and support just about any “scary” DSA member running for office.