How the Iraq War Began in Panama

Originally posted at TomDispatch. So many years and wars later, it’s easy to forget what a total television hit the first Gulf War of 1991 was. Just in case you no longer remember – and why should you? – that was the war that was to bury America’s defeat in Vietnam...

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Torture’s Time for Accountability

I trust I was not alone in seeing irony in President Barack Obama’s public chiding of Sony on Friday for caving in to hacker demands to cancel distribution of its comedy “The Interview” – about a fictional CIA plot to assassinate North Korea’s real-life leader Kim...

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Why We Fight

A hundred years since what everyone thought would be a short, victorious war left Europe broken and ruined, statesmen and policymakers of the West have demonstrated they have learned nothing - and regretted nothing - since. While the shooting remains localized so far,...

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Splendid Isolation

Almost a thousand Israeli personalities have already signed an appeal to European parliaments for their governments to recognize the State of Palestine. I am honored to be among the signatories, which include former ministers and members of the Knesset, diplomats and...

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Why Did They Torture?

The Senate Intelligence Committee's report on how the US government tortured detainees at Guantanamo and at secret "black sites" all over the world has focused on how they did it: rectal feeding, hanging detainees by their arms, "stress positions,"...

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The Senate Drone Report of 2019

Originally posted at TomDispatch. It was December 6, 2019, three years into a sagging Clinton presidency and a bitterly divided Congress. That day, the 500-page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s long fought-over, much-delayed, heavily...

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