Secession is a dirty word in the Lincoln-worshipping ultra-nationalistic United States, where both left and right worship at the altar of the centralized state. To support secession in any way, shape, or form is to be labeled “neo-Confederate” by our logic-challenged pundits, who eagerly swoop down on anyone who challenges Washington’s supremacy. These geniuses forget …
Continue reading “Catalunya Serà lliure!”
Hundreds were killed over the last few days in military operations mostly in Anbar province.
At least 61 were killed across Iraq in recent violence.
Pope Francis’ address to Congress was almost certainly not what John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and other congressional leaders had in mind when they invited the pope to speak. It probably wasn’t what they were all thinking about during the last standing ovations. But here was Pope Francis, revered as the People’s Pope, calling out war …
Continue reading “Standing Before Congress, Pope Francis Calls Out the ‘Industry of Death’”
Amnesty international has called the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp the “gulag of our time.” Since President Obama’s order to close the camp within one year on January 23, 2009, it has remained open because the president decided to amass political capital to use for his domestic agenda instead. On January 7, 2011, Obama signed the …
Continue reading “It’s Time To Close Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp”
On the Cato Institute’s blog, the results from a Chicago Council Survey which includes data on partisan differences in hawkishness is headlined under the pessimistic “The Interventionist Itch.” Fundamentally, though Republicans lead the pack in terms of pro-intervention, Democrats are not very far behind, and Independents are at their best half hawkish. Every type of …
Continue reading “The Ebb and Flow of Interventionist Feelings”
I’m a bit under the weather so there is no column today, but I’ll be back on Monday – so stay turned to this space. NOTES IN THE MARGIN You can check out my Twitter feed by going here. But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely …
Continue reading “A Note”
Originally posted at TomDispatch. It was an impressive effort: a front-page New York Times story about a “new way of war” with the bylines of six reporters, and two more and a team of researchers cited at the end of the piece. “They have plotted deadly missions from secret bases in the badlands of Somalia. …
Continue reading “A Secret War in 135 Countries”
As if they weren’t Machiavellian enough, spy agencies are evidently waiting for the next terrorist attack to change public opinion on the need for encryption backdoors, reports The Washington Post. The intelligence community’s top lawyer, Robert S. Litt, lamented in a leaked email that “the legislative environment is very hostile today … [but] it could …
Continue reading “Government Spies See Opportunity in Terrorist Attack”
At least 38 were killed in the latest battles and bombing.
