Month: September 2014

Six months into West Africa’s Ebola crisis, the international community is finally heeding calls for substantial intervention in the region. On September 16, President Obama announced a multimillion-dollar U.S. response to the spreading contagion. The crisis, which began in March 2014, has killed over 2,600 people, an alarming figure that experts say will rise quickly … Continue reading “Militarizing the Ebola Crisis”

Now that U.S. bombs are falling in Syria, will Islamic extremism be stopped in its tracks? Such a question is an insult to the intellect, yet it’s the dominant theory in Washington D.C., where years of Middle East war have taught politicians nothing. Bombing yet another Middle East country will create yet more extremists, while … Continue reading “The Unspoken Consequences of Bombing Syria”

At least 102 people and 40 were wounded. Most of the dead were killed in today’s airstrikes, but some of them were killed during a concentrated attack on soldiers in Anbar province last week. Details about that multi-faceted attack have been slow to leak out.

Did Senator John McCain, a leading advocate of arming Syria’s Islamist revolutionaries, meet with members or allies of the Islamic State in al-Sham [the Levant] (ISIS) during his trip to Syria on May 27 of last year? McCain and his defenders deny it, and McCain’s longtime advisor, Mark Salter, is accusing Sen. Rand Paul – … Continue reading “How John McCain Wound Up Canoodling With Terrorists”

As American hysteria over events in the Middle East rises, news about whatever grim video the Islamic State (IS) has just released jostles for attention with U.S. bombing runs in Iraq, prospective ones in Syria, and endless confusing statements out of Washington about what the next seat-of-the-pants version of its strategy might be. These days, … Continue reading “American ‘Success’ and the Rise of West African Piracy”

At least 164 people were killed, but some of them died over the weekend during an assault on an army base in Anbar. Another 133 were wounded. Also, there are unconfirmed reports that an underling to Grand Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri has been kidnapped.

On Monday, the US, with the help of five other countries, began bombing Syria at last. Officially, they were bombing the Islamic State (ISIS) but it still felt like the long-predicted attack on Syria had come. Whether the target was President Assad, or ISIS, the US was eventually going to find a reason to intervene … Continue reading “The Blank Check for War”

Airstrikes continued across Iraq and Syria, killing scores of Islamic State and other militants. Overall, at least 271 people were killed and 63 more were wounded.

Editorial Note: This is the text of a speech given at the Casey Research Summit, 2014, “Thriving in a Crisis Economy.” Part I was posted here on Monday: the second and final part is published here today. Ticking at the heart of American society all through the 1920s was the mechanism of false prosperity, which … Continue reading “A Murderous ‘Modernity’”

Originally posted at TomDispatch. On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King delivered a speech at Riverside Church in New York City titled “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.” In it, he went after the war of that moment and the money that the U.S. was pouring into it as symptoms of a societal disaster. … Continue reading “Fighting in Iraq Until Hell Freezes Over”