Although few attacks were reported today, a pair of bombings in Baghdad left dozens of casualties. At least eight Iraqis were killed in them and in an assassination in Yathrib. Another 35 Iraqis were wounded.
For the second year in a row, U.S. President Barack Obama has waived a congressionally mandated ban on military aid for four countries that use child soldiers. The four countries that will continue to receive military assistance despite the use of child soldiers in their armed forces include Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), …
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Many traditional conservatives, libertarians, and progressives who are no longer mesmerized by the Obama persona are beginning to realize that the 2012 elections might be the last chance to right the ship of state. Either we Americans can continue down a fear-driven path that will lead to our transformation into a police state with a …
Continue reading “What 2016 Might Look Like”
At least seven Iraqis were killed and 39 more were wounded in violence across the country. Five Iranian pilgrims were also wounded during one attack. Also, Turkey’s parliament voted to continue bombing suspected Kurdish rebel camps in northern Iraq.
When US special forces took aim at Anwar al-Awlaki, and pulled the trigger, they ruptured the very foundations of our political system – and paved the way for its future collapse. The skeptical reader is bound to ask: Really? Can it be true that the – no doubt well-deserved – death of a known terrorist, …
Continue reading “Anwar al-Awlaki and American Exceptionalism”
Now that the big kahuna — Osama bin Laden — has been killed, the “War on Terror” is much less exciting. Even before Osama’s demise, experts sent chills through the massive post-9/11 U.S. government anti-terrorism bureaucracies by concluding that the threat from al-Qaeda had been much weakened by the group’s own bloody excesses against civilians, …
Continue reading “The Government’s Illusory Terrorist Threat”
Usually it’s the giant stories that catch your eye. The wars, the uproars, the Arab Spring — the things you can’t miss. But every now and then, news stories about easily overlooked subjects somehow manage to shine the strongest light on a changing world. The Cohn sisters, Claribel and Etta, from a wealthy Baltimore family, …
Continue reading “The End of America’s Pacific Century”
On Sept. 30, 2011, I woke up and began my daily routine, preparing for another day of teaching history to high school students. In the course of an average school year, I literally teach the history of the world — ancient history, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and modernity. My 11th-grade students take …
Continue reading “I Am a History Teacher, and I Lie to My Students”
Despite 10 years of occupation and untold millions of dollars spent on rebuilding Afghanistan’s broken judicial and criminal justice system, the Afghan courts are “still too weak,” The Washington Post reported on Aug. 12, for the United States to relinquish its control over the Parwan Detention Center on Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. On Sept. …
Continue reading “Justice Obstructed at Bagram: 10 Years Is Too Long”
At least five Iraqis were killed and 16 more were wounded in attacks across central and northern Iraq.
