August 22, 2008

More From the Experts

Additional articles on the Pentagon’s overseas strategy, plus a series of related dispatches from more than a dozen US military thinkers and authors.

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More on overseas bases, US global strategy, and the war in Iraq:

Mission Creep: Expert Dispatches
We asked Robert Kaplan and other top military thinkers to give their two cents on topics related to global Pentagon strategy. Here were their responses.

Is Perpetual War Our Future?
Drawing the wrong lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan.

By Andrew Bacevich

Iraq Base Makeover: “The Numbers Are Staggering”
As most of the media snoozed, the US spent billions building and upgrading its wartime megabases.

By Tom Engelhardt

The Colossus of Baghdad
The US embassy in Iraq is among the wonders of the imperial world.
By Tom Engelhardt

U.S. Out Now! How?
It started as Bush’s war, but we all own it now—and it’s time we took a hard look at what that means.

IRAQ 101
Deconstructing the war, and what it’s costing us.

Digging In
If the US government doesn’t plan to occupy Iraq for the long term, why is it spending billions of dollars to build “enduring” bases?

By Joshua Hammer

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“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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