Originally posted at TomDispatch. The carnage in the Gaza Strip has been horrendous: more than 1,900 dead, mainly civilians; its sole power plant destroyed (and so electricity and water denied and a sewage disaster looming); 30,000 to 40,000 homes and buildings damaged or destroyed; hundreds of thousands of residents put to flight with nowhere to …
Continue reading “Going Wild in the Gaza War”
At least 241 were killed today and 74 more were wounded. Another 20 Peshmerga troops are missing and possibly dead. Baghdad saw a number of bombings today, but in Kirkuk civilians were killed in airstrikes.
Now that Hillary the hawk has been fully un-caged, thanks to her interview with former Israeli prison guard Jeffrey Goldberg, the flak is flying. Moveon.org is trying to clip her wings and the Obama fan club is outraged. Of course, if she were running for Prime Minister of Israel – Peter Beinart dubbed her "the …
Continue reading “Hillary the Hawk Is Out of Her Cage”
Regional and local leaders have signaled their acceptance of Haider al-Abadi as the primary candidate for prime minister. Also, the U.S. military is sending 130 more troops to Iraq. At least 268 people were killed, mostly militants, and 83 were wounded.
The stark admission by the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) Inspector General that the agency had broken into a classified computer network used by its overseers at the Senate Intelligence Committee violates the core principle of separation of powers of governmental branches enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Along with the CIA’s illegal rendition, detention, and torture …
Continue reading “An Even Worse Constitutional Scandal Than Iran-Contra and Watergate”
U.S. air strikes since Friday have opened a corridor through which tens of thousands of Yazidis, trapped and starving on a mountain in Iraq, have escaped to safety in Kurdistan. The Kurds, whose peshmerga fighters were sent reeling by the Islamic State last week, bolstered now by the arrival of U.S. air power, recaptured two …
Continue reading “Is ISIS ‘An Existential Threat’?”
United Nations officials and human rights organizations have characterized Israeli attacks on civilian targets during the IDF war on Gaza as violations of the laws of war. During the war, Israeli bombardment leveled whole urban neighborhoods, leaving more than 10,000 houses destroyed and 30,000 damaged and killing 1,300 civilians, according to U.N. data. Israeli forces …
Continue reading “US Avoided Threat to Act on Israel’s Civilian Targeting”
Iraq has a new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi; however, the outgoing premier, Nouri al-Maliki is putting up a fight instead of handing over the reins. Meanwhile, 247 people were killed and 22 were wounded. One of the dead was a well-respected Kurdish journalist from Turkey.
If we want to understand why President Obama has broken yet another major campaign promise and ordered America’s return to Iraq, the key question to ask is: Why now? After all, the Islamic State in Syria/al-Sham (ISIS) has been scoring dramatic military gains for months, and yet in spite of that the President stubbornly resisted …
Continue reading “Iraq: Why Bomb Now?”
The US government’s decision to apply more sanctions on Russia is a grave mistake and will only escalate an already tense situation, ultimately harming the US economy itself. While the effect of sanctions on the dollar may not be appreciated in the short term, in the long run these sanctions are just another step toward …
Continue reading “US Sanctions on Russia May Sink the Dollar” 
