Laurie Calhoun's Blog, page 10
September 25, 2017
The Lethal Foreign Policy of Military Experts
Libya was bombed by the US government yesterday, but you wouldn’t know it because the media have been obsessed with the #TakeAKnee dispute between the president and the NFL. Trump may not even be aware that Libya was bombed under his authority, because he has put his trusty “Mad Dog” on a very long leash, […]
September 16, 2017
Obama’s Gift to Trump: Monarchic War Powers
Senator Rand Paul is to be commended for forcing his colleagues to address the endless wars in the Middle East and proposing that they sunset the 2001 and 2002 AUMF (Authorization for Use of Military Force). This past week, Senator Paul incisively observed in multiple addresses before the Senate body that lawmakers have not debated […]
August 16, 2017
War and Delusion on sale at Palgrave Macmillan…
At this time in history, people are understandably more worried about the spectre of nuclear war than about drone assassination. Palgrave Macmillan is having a sale, so the ebook of War and Delusion: A Critical Examination, can be purchased today for 40% off. (use promo code PB2S17). In War and Delusion, first published in 2013 and […]
March 15, 2017
Is Trump’s Delegation of Drone Killing Capacity to the CIA New?
In this short interview, Laurie Calhoun takes issue with the recent report in the Wall Street Journal to the effect that Trump has turned the CIA into a killing machine. No, that is Obama’s legacy. https://sputniknews.com/us/2017031510...
February 28, 2017
Eye in the Sky: Where Nihilism and Hegemony Coincide
Eye in the Sky (2015) is the first feature-length film about drone warfare to have received a decent amount of mainstream attention. This no doubt has something to do with the high-caliber cast, including lead roles by Helen Mirren as Colonel Katherine Powell, and Alan Rickman as Lieutenant General Frank Benson. Big names imply big […]
February 4, 2017
Level Talk. Have Drones Put an End to ‘Just Wars’?
In this 28-minute interview on Sputnik Radio Edinburgh, guests Laurie Calhoun and Peter Lee (a Reader in Politics & Ethics at the University of Portsmouth) discuss with host John Harrison whether lethal drones have fundamentally changed the conduct of warfare, to the point where international protocols grounded in the “just war” tradition are now […]
January 30, 2017
“You Cannot Kill Your Way Out of This”: The CIA’s Lethal Lack of Imagination
The Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs (2015) is an engaging Showtime documentary in the spirit of Errol Morris’ The Fog of War (2003) and Dror Moreh’s The Gatekeepers (2012). Directors Jules Naudet and Gedeot Naudet use the same technique of interviewing former government officials to determine what they take themselves to have been doing as […]
January 26, 2017
Level Talk. We Kill Because We Can: The Advancement of Drones
In this 27-minute interview on Sputnik Radio Edinburgh, author Laurie Calhoun, Professor David Stupples of the City University of London, and host John Harrison discuss current and future problems with the use of lethal drones: http://sptnkne.ws/dvJK
January 23, 2017
US Drone Killing Machine Now on Autopilot
For years now I have been pointing out that Obama’s lasting legacy would be his ill-advised decision back in 2009 to normalize assassination, which his administration successfully rebranded as “targeted killing”. This was supposed to be the latest and greatest form of “smart war”: the use of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs), or lethal drones, to […]
January 17, 2017
Whistleblower Chelsea Manning will be freed. Watch Collateral Murder now.
Anyone who has never watched “Collateral Murder”, video footage of a ghastly incident in 2007 when Reuters journalists and other civilians in New Baghdad, Iraq, were mistaken for terrorists and slaughtered by US forces, should do so immediately. Celebrate the courage of Private Manning, thanks to whom we have this insight into US war crimes […]
