It was sad last week to wake up to news of the passing of former New York Democratic congressman Otis G. Pike. During the fierce debates of 1975, known as the “Year of Intelligence” (because the controversies of the day led to the first significant investigations of...
Is Syrian ‘Peace’ Conference Laying the Foundation for War?
The Geneva II conference which claims to be seeking to end the war in Syria seems designed to fail and instead to provide an excuse for military intervention by the United States and its allies. Human rights activist, Ajamu Baraka, describes the negotiations as an...
63 Killed Across Iraq, Mostly in Anbar Province
Obama, the Reluctant Realist
Individuals make history, but sometimes the process reverses itself and history makes individuals. President Barack Obama may have wanted to bomb Syria, and he certainly did want to meddle in Libya – where the results of his disastrous "humanitarian"...
A Nameless Hurt
Orders to kill from military superiors and the command not to kill that we receive growing up are a contradiction that confounds the understanding of the value of life. This mutual negation is a prime factor in the mental disorders suffered by returning soldiers. It...
Carnage in Anbar and Baghdad: 93 Killed, 101 Wounded
45 Killed, 71 Wounded, Mostly in Baghdad Bombings
The Empire’s New Asian Clothes
Originally posted at TomDispatch. You want ominous? Then offer a deep bow to conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a man eager to turn the Japanese military into an ever less defensive force, fully breach his country’s “peace constitution,” and...
It’s Always World War II
They call it the "Good War," one supposes, in order to differentiate it from all the really bad wars we’ve been fighting – and losing – lately: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and all the future wars our political class has up its collective sleeve. I call it...
When Foreign Leaders Feelings Matter More than Constitutional Rights
President Obama cares more about the feelings of foreign leaders than he does about the constitutional rights of Americans. In his attempt to stanch the political bleeding from Edward’s Snowden’s revelations on National Security Agency (NSA) spying, Obama made a...