At least 285 people were killed and 43 more were wounded across Iraq. The Badr Brigades warned they would not leave newly recaptured Saidiya a couple days after Peshmerga troops asked them to.
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Let’s play a game, the kind that makes no sense on this single-superpower planet of ours. For a moment, do your best to suspend disbelief and imagine that there’s another superpower, great power, or even regional power somewhere that, between 2001 and 2003, launched two major wars in the Greater Middle …
Continue reading “Iraq War 4.0?”
If you dress police officers up as soldiers and you put them in military vehicles and you give them military weapons, they adopt a warrior mentality. We fight wars against enemies, and the enemies are the people who live in our cities – particularly in communities of color. – Thomas Nolan, criminology professor and former …
Continue reading “We Are the Enemy: Is This the Lesson of Ferguson?”
Justin’s column will return Monday.I was always made a little bit nervous every time I heard Ron Paul – and other libertarians – inveigh against the modern practice of going to war without a formal declaration of war. Well, yes, it’s unconstitutional, and, yes, process is important, but what made me uneasy is that I …
Continue reading “Rand Paul Sorta Goes to War”
At least 229 people were killed, mostly in airstrikes. The Australian forces reported killed 100 alone on a mountain near Kirkuk. Another 50 were wounded.
One reason that Barack Obama is slumping in the polls is that Republicans have successfully painted him as weak on foreign policy. Yet, during his tenure so far, Obama has used air power to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, surged American forces in Afghanistan to satisfy the U.S. military, re-entered the civil war in Iraq, …
Continue reading “Is Obama Weak on Foreign Policy?”
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam war veteran and the lone Republican on Obama’s national security team, has been fired. And John McCain’s assessment is dead on. Hagel, he said, “was never really brought into that real tight circle inside the White House that makes all the decisions which has put us into the incredible …
Continue reading “Hagel Didn’t Start the Fire”
At least 83 people were killed and 40 more were wounded in the latest Iraq violence. Also, a new battle could be brewing between Iraq security forces.
Today [November 24, 2014] is the deadline for the closing of a deal with Iran regarding their nuclear program. No one should be surprised that Israel is marking this deadline with a threat to attack Iran regardless of the outcome of the negotiations. As the Jerusalem Post is reporting on its front page: "Israel has …
Continue reading “Israel – America’s Biggest Frenemy”
It will not shock readers to hear that quite often legislation on Capitol Hill is not as advertised. When Congress wants to do something particularly objectionable, they tend give it a fine-sounding name. The PATRIOT Act is perhaps the best-known example. The legislation had been drafted well before 9/11 but was going nowhere. Then the …
Continue reading “Defeat of USA FREEDOM Act Is a Victory for Freedom” 
