Imagine if protesters – supported by Russia – established an encampment in front of the US Capitol, threw Molotov cocktails into government buildings, fired guns at the police, and demanded that the US government relinquish power. Obviously, the response from the US government would not be peaceful and there would be a loud call for …
Continue reading “Look Who the US Is Siding With in Ukraine, Egypt, and Syria”
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is still one of the most powerful lobby organizations in the country, but fortunately, it is starting to lose its iron-clad grip on our policymakers. AIPAC lost the fight to stop Chuck Hagel from being confirmed as Secretary of Defense; it lost the push for the US military …
Continue reading “Israel Lobby AIPAC Down, But Not Out – Yet”
At least 34 were killed and 40 more were wounded across Iraq. Residents are apparently returning to Ramadi even though clashes and shelling continued in the city.
The fall of Yanukovych, welcomed by virtually everyone in Ukraine including his own party, means that Ukraine is out of the frying pan. Now the challenge facing Ukrainians – and the country’s neighbors – is to prevent a tumble into the fire. (Photo: Sasha Maksymenko / Flickr) In the end, the street triumphed over the …
Continue reading “Ukraine: Out of the Frying Pan”
Whether saber rattling or not, word is out that the White House is “rethinking its options” on intervening in the Syrian war. The collapse of John Kerry’s Geneva 2 talks between the rebels and regime, the lengthening casualty lists from barrel-bomb attacks, and a death toll approaching 150,000, are apparently causing second thoughts. All the …
Continue reading “Intervene? Or End Syrian War?”
WASHINGTON – "The budget is an announcement of American retreat." Thus begins the rending of clothing and the gnashing of teeth that one would generally expect from the editors of National Review, who typically only weigh in (quite clumsily) on foreign policy/military issues when it concerns defending a war or proposing one. A preview of …
Continue reading “The Wailing Cassandras Return”
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Think of us as having two presidents. One, a fellow named Barack Obama, cuts a distinctly Clark Kent-ish figure. In presiding over domestic policy, he is regularly thwarted in his desires by the Republicans in Congress and couldn’t until recently get his most basic choices for government positions or the judiciary …
Continue reading “The Five Commandments of Barack Obama”
One common reaction to Edward Snowden’s exposure of the National Security Agency’s pervasive surveillance of Americans and people around the world has been: Well, at least they aren’t doing what US government agents did in the 1960s and 1970s – targeting dissident political activists, spying on and disrupting their constitutionally-protected activities, and seeking to discredit …
Continue reading “The Worst Snowden Revelation of Them All”
At least 87 people were killed and 122 more were wounded as bombs once again took a heavy toll in and around Baghdad.
In the months since Edward Snowden revealed the nature and extent of the spying that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been perpetrating upon Americans and foreigners, some of the NSA’s most troublesome behavior has not been a part of the public debate. This behavior constitutes the government’s assaults on the American legal system. Those …
Continue reading “New Assaults on American Law” 
