Articles by: Nan Levinson

Hunting the Military Extremist – How Disturbed Is the U.S. Military?

Hunting the Military Extremist – How Disturbed Is the U.S. Military?

In April, when Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman with a top-secret clearance, was arrested for posting a trove of classified documents about the Russia-Ukraine war online, the question most often asked was: How did such a young, inexperienced, low-level technician have access to such sensitive material? What I wanted to know was: How did he ever get[Read More…]

by 17/07/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Recruiting Children

Recruiting Children

After more than 20 years of losing wars, recruiting for the U.S. Army is now officially a mess. Last year, that service fell short of its goal by 15,000 recruits, or a quarter of its target. Despite reports of better numbers in the first months of this year, Army officials doubt they will achieve their objective this time around either. The commanding general at Fort Jackson,[Read More…]

by 14/04/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Give Peace a Chance – Is There a World Beyond War?

Give Peace a Chance – Is There a World Beyond War?

I like to sing and what I like best is to do so at the top of my lungs when I’m all alone. Last summer, taking a walk through the corn fields in New York’s Hudson River Valley with no one around but the barn swallows, I found myself belting out a medley of tunes about peace from my long-ago,[Read More…]

by 20/01/2023 Comments are Disabled World
The Far Right in Uniform

The Far Right in Uniform

It was around noon and I was texting a friend about who-knows-what when I added, almost as an afterthought: “tho they seem to be invading the Capitol at the mo.” I wasn’t faintly as blasé as that may sound on January 6th, especially when it became ever clearer who “they” were and what they were doing. Five people would die[Read More…]

by 08/04/2021 Comments are Disabled World
 The Vet Conundrum and America’s Wars

 The Vet Conundrum and America’s Wars

If you still follow the mainstream media, you’re probably part of the 38% of registered voters who knew something about the op-ed Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) published in the New York Times early in June, exhorting the president to use the Insurrection Act to “restore order to our streets.” This was in response to what he called “anarchy” but others saw as peaceful Black Lives Matter[Read More…]

by 13/07/2020 Comments are Disabled World
 Would a Draft Matter? The Nature of the Military That Fights America’s Forever Wars

 Would a Draft Matter? The Nature of the Military That Fights America’s Forever Wars

Bizarrely enough, the spate of phone calls from recruiters began a couple of years ago. The first ones came from the Army, next the Marines, and then other branches of the military. I’m decades past enlistment age. I’ve been publicly antiwar for most of that time and come from a family that was last involved with a military when my[Read More…]

by 10/03/2020 Comments are Disabled World
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