The Barack Obama administration appears to have rejected a deal-breaking demand by Israel for an Iranian confession to having had a covert nuclear weapons program as a condition for completing the comprehensive nuclear agreement. Pro-Israeli commentators have openly criticized the Obama administration for failing to explicitly demand that Iran confess to charges by the International …
Continue reading “US Rejected Israeli Demand for Iran Nuclear Confession”
Is the Republican Party’s Middle East policy up for bid? For four days ending Sunday, a quartet of presidential hopefuls trooped to Las Vegas to attend the annual gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Impresario: Sheldon Adelson, the Vegas-Macau casino mogul whose fortune is estimated at $39 billion – 8th richest man on the planet …
Continue reading “War Party Oligarch”
I am going to explain why Gareth Porter’s new book Manufactured Crisis: the Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare is possibly the most important expose of political corruption and government malfeasance to appear in the past ten years. Investigative reporter Porter’s meticulously documented account tells the tale of how the government lied again and …
Continue reading “Targeting Iran”
“The Secret Government is an interlocking network of official functionaries, spies, mercenaries, ex-generals, profiteers and superpatriots, who, for a variety of motives, operate outside the legitimate institutions of government. Presidents have turned to them when they can’t win the support of the Congress or the people, creating that unsupervised power so feared by the framers …
Continue reading “‘Just Salute and Follow Orders’: When Secrecy and Surveillance Trump the Rule of Law”
At least 55 people were killed and 50 more were wounded in attacks that targeted security personnel.
Originally posted at TomDispatch. "Up to a few months ago, Ben Suc was a prosperous village of some thirty-five hundred people." That is the initial line of The Village of Ben Suc, his first book, a copy of which I recently reread on a plane trip, knowing that he was soon to die. That book, …
Continue reading “Jonathan Schell and the Fate of the Earth”
The good news is that Secretary of State John Kerry is meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Paris – the bad news is that the negotiations will come to naught if the US insists on upholding its black-and-white narrative, which depicts Russia as the "aggressor" and Ukraine as the blameless helpless victim. What’s …
Continue reading “Transnistria Libre!”
As the Ukrainian crisis has unfolded over the past few weeks, it’s hard for Americans not to see Vladimir Putin as the big villain. But the history of the region is a history of competing villains vying against one another; and one school of villains – the Nazis – have a long history of engagement …
Continue reading “Seven Decades of Nazi Collaboration: America’s Dirty Little Ukraine Secret”
Last week Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill approving a billion dollars in aid to Ukraine and more sanctions on Russia. The bill will likely receive the president’s signature within days. If you think this is the last time US citizens will have their money sent to Ukraine, you should think again. This is only the …
Continue reading “Aid to Ukraine Is a Bad Deal for All”
At least 56 people were killed and 55 more were wounded in scattered attacks across Iraq today. In one attack, a major bridge fell into the Euphrates killing several people.
