Month: August 2014

In some respects, the recent admission by CIA Director John Brennan that his agents and his lawyers have been spying on the senators whose job it is to monitor the agency should come as no surprise. The agency’s job is to steal and keep secrets, and implicit in those tasks, Brennan would no doubt argue, … Continue reading “Spying, Lying, and Torture”

One hundred years ago, along came the long-predicted slide into the First World War. Though it is perhaps second to Vietnam in terms of wars now considered to be a mistake, and in spite of the idea of the horrors of trench warfare, there is still this notion of WWI being an ancient, and even … Continue reading “War Against War! and the Necessity of Graphic War Photos”

The full extent of the troubles that have befallen the Yazidi people of northern Iraq has not yet come to light, but the fighting for their land continues. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to consider stepping aside for Iraq’s sake. At least 938 people were killed and 107 more were wounded.

Remember the Kosovo war? If you’re under 30, it’s just a blip on the historical screen, one that has far less impact on your consciousness than the subsequent wars of the post-9/11 era – and yet it was an important milestone on the road to where we are today. It was in Kosovo that the … Continue reading “Washington’s Alliance With Traffickers of Human Organs”

Think of it as the true end of the beginning. Last week, Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, the final member of the 12-man crew of the Enola Gay, the plane (named after its pilot’s supportive mother) that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died at age 93. When that first A-bomb left its bomb bay at … Continue reading “Hiroshima Day 2014”

The American foreign policy elite should learn something from the recent humiliating evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Tripoli, Libya – amid the chaos of tribal civil war in that country – but probably won’t. Since World War II, this bipartisan elite has thumbed its nose at the traditional US foreign policy of strategic independence … Continue reading “US Evacuation in Libya Shows Ill Effects of US Interventionism”

For most of the last five decades, it has been assumed that the Tonkin Gulf incident was a deception by Lyndon Johnson to justify war in Vietnam. But the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam on August 4, 1964 in retaliation for an alleged naval attack that never happened – and the Tonkin Gulf Resolution that … Continue reading “Robert S. McNamara and the Real Tonkin Gulf Deception”

Battles and airstrikes killed most of the 415 dead today. Few civilians were killed in fighting; however, at least 40 people from Sinjar have died from thirst or starvation while awaiting help. At least 178 were wounded.

Every commissioned officer in the US military has taken an oath as a condition of military service. But what does this mean? The text of the oath is very specific, but what about its practical application? What are the implications if those who take the oath are asked to violate its principles? These are incredibly … Continue reading “Dismantling the Oath of Office”

For a month now, the Palestinian territory of Gaza, one of the most densely populated places on the planet, has again come under heavy attack by Israel and its U.S-funded military might. According to Israel, the military operation, referred to as "Protective Edge," was launched in response to continuous rocket fire by Hamas, the controlling … Continue reading “Trapped, Bloodied, and Besieged in the Gaza Strip”