As Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip rages on, ceasefires come and go. Most last just long enough for Palestinians to dig out the dead from beneath their collapsed houses, get the injured to overcrowded and under-resourced hospitals, and seek enough food and water to last through the next round of airstrikes. “There is nothing …
Continue reading “In Gaza, International Law Is Up in Flames”
Wars should be a tough sell, what with the fact that lots of people tend to die in them. Thankfully for warmongers, there are so many ways to downplay this uncomfortable reality. If you want to go to war, the resulting dead people bit can be downplayed with a few of the following helpful tips. …
Continue reading “Top Ways To Justify Civilian Casualties in War”
Originally posted at TomDispatch. For the last two years, TomDispatch Managing Editor Nick Turse has been following the Pentagon and the latest U.S. global command, AFRICOM, as they oversaw the expanding operations of the American military across that continent: drones, a special ops surge, interventions, training missions, bases (even if not called bases), proxy wars. …
Continue reading “An East-West Showdown in the Heart of Africa?”
Antiwar.com has determined that at least 5,698 people were killed and 2,018 more were wounded during the month of July. Our analysis of the figures is below. Also, the Kurdish government is asking the U.S. government for weaponry, and the Mosul Brigades appear to be quickly gathering strength. If both groups gain reinforcements, it could mean higher figures for August.
The past six months have seen an incredible ratcheting up of tensions in the East and South China Seas, where the world’s three largest economies – China, the United States, and Japan – are caught up in an increasingly tangled web of territorial disputes, competing alliances, and historical grievances. In February, U.S. Secretary of State …
Continue reading “Parsing the East Asian Powder Keg”
Pro-Israel activists assembled a huge crowd and a long list of congressional leaders and diplomats to declare their unconditional support for Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip on Monday, largely downplaying tensions between Jerusalem and Washington. Key congressional figures from both the Republican and Democratic Parties echoed similar views: that Israel was exercising its …
Continue reading “Israel Lobby Galvanizes Support for Gaza War”
At least 149 people were killed today, and another 104 were wounded. A pair of bombs in Baghdad added to the civilian casualties, while operations in Anbar and south of Baghdad killed scores of militants. Relatives of Saddam moved his body to protect it from both militants and government air strikes.
As the ambulance stopped in Iraq’s northern city of Kirkuk, people rushed in to help. They unloaded six children, from several months to 11 years old, all injured allegedly by an air attack in the neighboring town of Tuz Khurmatu. “The situation in Iraq is grave,” said Tirana Hassan, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights …
Continue reading “In Turbulent Iraq, Children Bear the Brunt of War”
Civilian and security forces suffered little today, but the Iraqi government reported that 147 militants were killed in various locations. Only one policeman was killed and 10 others were wounded. Meanwhile, ISIS released a video displaying part of their grim occupation.
Much finger pointing has occurred on the downing of Malaysia flight MH-17 over separatist-held territory in Ukraine. The American media – still reflexively anti-Russian even though the Cold War has been over for almost a quarter century and heaping blame on Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, since even before his annexation of Crimea – …
Continue reading “American Hypocrisy in Ukraine” 
