Month: April 2015

Originally posted at TomDispatch. The SUV slows as it approaches a military kiosk at a break in a dull gray wall. Inside, Ramzi Aburedwan, a Palestinian musician, prepares his documents for the Israeli soldier standing guard. On the other side of this West Bank military checkpoint lies the young man’s destination, the ancient Palestinian town … Continue reading “The One-State Conundrum”

Forty years after the fall of Saigon, Washington is still pursuing the same policies that led to the worst defeat in American military history. We never acknowledged, let alone learned, the lessons of that misconceived campaign to “roll back Communism” in Southeast Asia, thus setting ourselves up for endless repeats – in Iraq, Afghanistan, and … Continue reading “Lessons of the Vietnam War”

At least 4,811 people were killed in Iraq during April, and 1,358 were wounded. Of those 168 were killed in the last day or so. Meanwhile, the U.S. and Iraq are at odds over the arming of Sunnis and Kurds. All this comes as the European Union publicly acknowledges that the situation in Iraq is just getting worse.

When it comes to taking credit for social movements and changing minds, Fox Business Network’s John Stossel said it best about those in power, “Government is like the person who gets in front of a parade and pretends to lead it.” Meaning when the people start to change their mind on an issue, either a … Continue reading “Can We Ever Make Anti-War Fashionable?”

Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened to attack U.S. interests in Iraq should the U.S. Congress vote to send arms directly to Sunnis and Kurds. The Iraqi government rejected the notion that the U.S. could deal directly with either group. At least 69 were killed and 19 were wounded in fresh violence.

Originally posted at TomDispatch. No one can claim that plotting assassination is new to Washington or that, in the past, American leaders and the CIA didn’t aim high: the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, the Dominican Republic’s Rafael Trujillo. The difference was that, in those days, the idea of assassinating a foreign leader, or … Continue reading “How Assassination Sold Drugs and Promoted Terrorism”

The devastating earthquake that hit Nepal, killing over 5,000 people – that we know of at this moment – and injuring many more, has many wondering: why hasn’t the Nepalese government been much help? The answer is that Nepal has barely had a government, lo these many years: the country has been mired in political … Continue reading “Will Maoists Arise Out Of Nepal’s Ruins?”

The troubling return of dumped bodies belonging to Sunni Iraqis startled two neighborhoods in Baghdad on Tuesday. At least 48 people were killed and 30 were wounded, there and elsewhere.

Apparently, Dick Cheney is not the only one who thinks the president has ceded too much of his power since the 1970s and has become too week vis-à-vis the other two branches of American government. Now on the other end of the political spectrum, Steven Rattner, a Wall Street executive and former Obama Treasury Department … Continue reading “Congress’s Pathetic Charade on the Iranian Nuclear Agreement”