The question of the legitimacy of drone strikes has occasionally bubbled up in media over the years. As with most international news, the media and the public have a short attention span for the issue. On September 30, the BBC published a survey on whether drone...
Rouhani’s Dual Messages and Iran’s Security Strategy
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s address at the UN General Assembly and a talk the previous night to about 150 Americans touted the recent nuclear breakthrough as a precedent for further diplomatic accommodation with the United States. But both speeches also...
3,974 Killed in Iraq during September
The Superpower as Victim
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Three Exceptional Facts About America It's Safe to Be Paranoid in the US Given the cluttered landscape of the last 14 years, can you even faintly remember the moment when the Berlin Wall came down, the Cold War ended in a stunned...
Showdown at the UN Corral
If there was any doubt that Washington has learned absolutely nothing since George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, then President Obama’s address to the United Nations has confirmed the world’s worst fears. It was an oration that combined the most egregious lies with the...
The US Is Neck-Deep in Yemeni Blood
The death toll from the Saudi strike on a wedding in Yemen has now risen to 130. The wedding took place near Mocha, a port city on the Red Sea. The groom was tied to the Houthi rebels somehow, which apparently assuaged whatever moral qualms remained within the...
Airstrikes Kill Civilians in North; 107 Dead across Iraq
Let’s Not Get Into It With China
Much of the media buzz surrounding Chinese leader Xi Jinping's regal visit to the United States centered around a limited agreement to prevent cyber hacking. Although that pact is needed, perhaps more attention in U.S.-China relations should be given to dangerous...
Battles Continue in Anbar; 93 Killed across Iraq
Henry of Arabia
Why do I always seem to be writing about Henry Kissinger? I once listened to the man who helped prolong the Vietnam War for half a decade declare that its “tragedy” lay in the fact “that the faith of Americans in each other became destroyed in the process.” I later...