Israel and its supporters abroad have parried accusations of indiscriminate destruction and mass killing of civilians in Gaza by arguing that they were consequences of strikes aimed at protecting Israeli civilians from rockets that were being launched from very near civilian structures. That defense has already found its way into domestic U.S. politics. A possible …
Continue reading “Hamas Rocket Launches Don’t Explain Israel’s Gaza Destruction”
For 50 days in July and August Israel assaulted Gaza, slaughtering at least 2104 Palestinians, of whom 70 percent were civilians, including at least 504 children and 253 women. Israel’s aggression was condemned by a vast number of people, groups and governments (except, of course, by the Obama administration), including human rights advocates, and antiwar …
Continue reading “As Israel Assaulted Gaza, Its Supporters Pushed for Assaulting Iran”
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Is there nowhere on the face of the Earth where opinion polls aren’t taken? In the wake of the 50-day Israeli assault on Gaza, parts of that tiny strip of land now look, according to photographs, like a moonscape of destruction. At least 10,000 homes were obliterated and thousands more damaged; …
Continue reading “The Fate of the Gaza Ceasefire”
The NATO summit that took place at the end of last week in Wales was supposed to celebrate the end of a long, draining war in Afghanistan. But with the presidential election still up in the air in Kabul, NATO couldnt enjoy its mission accomplished moment. Instead, the assembled ministers took steps to accelerate two …
Continue reading “NATO Poised To Escalate Tensions Over Ukraine”
No major attacks were reported today; however, airstrikes against Islamic State militants continued. In one of those strikes, several policemen were accidentally killed. At least 65 people were killed and 13 more were wounded across the country.
On May 7, 2012, then Associated Press reporters Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo broke the story of a thwarted al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) underwear bomb plot. Within a day, several news outlets – including ABC News, Los Angeles Times, and New York Times – reported that the culprit was actually a Saudi …
Continue reading “Peter King Demanded an Investigation To Find Journalist’s Sources Like Peter King”
“I say to the people of Estonia and the people of the Baltics, today we are bound by our treaty alliance. … Article 5 is crystal clear: An attack on one is an attack on all. So if … you ever ask again, ‘who’ll come to help,’ you’ll know the answer – the NATO alliance, …
Continue reading “Bluster and Bluff in the Baltic”
Hawks of both parties have been taking swipes at the "overly cautious" Barack Obama over the many foreign policy "crises" he recently has been trying to juggle. The general line of their analysis is that the world is going to hell, and Obama is doing nothing about it. The denigration has had the effect of …
Continue reading “Obama Is No Wimp”
The new government was sworn in today. Meanwhile, at least 85 people were killed today, and 173 more were wounded. Also, a U.N. envoy stressed the dire circumstances of the Iraqi children. At least 55 people were kidnapped by militants.
A New York Times investigation into the influence of foreign money on American thinktanks is causing a Twitter-storm as I write this, and with good reason. In one particularly egregious example, the report details an explicit agreement, signed by the principals, between the Center for Global Development (CGD) and the government of Norway for the …
Continue reading “Corruption Is the Price of Empire”