Connect The Dots – Can We Withstand the Trump Administration’s Ongoing Attacks on Health? – 02.07.18

Can We Withstand the Trump Administration’s Ongoing Attacks on Health?: Listen to Ted Schettler, MD, MPH, and science director of the Science and Environmental Health Network and the Collaborative on Health and the Environment reveal how the longstanding pattern of refusal to study and regulate toxic chemicals (amplified in the current administration) can further undermine public health— in conversation with Alison Rose Levy.   Download this episode …

Nadia Zahel – Given Away as a Child Bride, Afghan Woman Describes 24 Years of Abuse

Spogmai was just 12 years old when she was separated from her parents and handed over to another family. But this was no ordinary arranged marriage. Instead, she was given to a man more than three times her age in order to settle a family feud. Her voice trembles as she recalls the day she entered a form of slavery. …

Donald Trump claims torture ‘works’ – but what does the science say?

The US president-elect Donald Trump has on several occasions insisted that torture is a good idea and that procedures such as water-boarding are not “tough enough” when dealing with terrorist groups like Islamic State. The view is clearly morally and ethically questionable. But if we put that aside, does he have a point? If we need to get information out …

Andrew J. Bacevich – Who Runs the Pentagon?

The crippling and pervasive defects in us national-security policy—costly exertions that, time and again, fail to yield the promised results—are patently obvious, consistently bemoaned, and yet effectively tolerated. To say that the apparatus principally responsible for implementing those policies is an underperforming behemoth qualifies as a considerable understatement. The kindest verdict one can offer regarding the Pentagon is that it …

Ralph Nader – Afghanistan and Iraq: Lessons for the Imperial

The photographs in the New York Times told contrasting stories last week. One showed two Taliban soldiers in civilian clothes and sandals, with their rifles, standing in front of a captured U.N. vehicle. The Taliban forces had taken the northern provincial capital of Kunduz. The other photograph showed Afghan army soldiers fully equipped with modern gear, weapons, and vehicles. Guess …