The U.S. Constitution can reasonably be seen as a massive tax and mercantilist trade-promotion program. However, there's a third leg to this stool. It was a national-security program as well – almost a proto-PATRIOT Act. Indeed, these three elements formed an...
Knowing even a little of James Comey’s post 9/11 background, it becomes rather hard to believe the FBI Director is sincerely leveling with the American public in his latest quest to compel Apple (and other encrypted communication companies) to create a mechanism...
There is a familiar aphorism that says “violence begets violence”; from the origin of one destructive act stems more and different forms of brutality, provoking an unremitting cycle of suffering. The phrase is rooted in biblical scripture – the Gospel of Matthew, to...
Hillary Clinton has spent much of her presidential campaign running away from her responsibility for the United States’ disastrous 2011 intervention in Libya. The February 19 release of more emails from her private server may make it harder for her to do so. In...
It is no secret that Saudi Arabia, along with its Gulf and Western allies, has played a direct role in fueling the fires of grinding sectarian conflict that has kept Syria burning for the past five years. It is also no secret that Russian intervention has radically...
Originally posted at TomDispatch. It may be hard to believe now, but in 1970 the protest song “War,” sung by Edwin Starr, hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. That was at the height of the Vietnam antiwar movement and the song, written by Norman...
The Syria "cessation of hostilities" agreement seems all the stranger as huge unanswered questions regarding signatories, partners, monitoring, reporting, adjudication, and enforcement are raised. It seems more and more like something cobbled together without much...
I woke up at 3:30 this morning,, and leapt out of bed – or, rather, off the couch, where I’d dozed off a few hours earlier – and went immediately to my computer. After checking the news to see if World War III had started yet, I wondered if I should try to get more...
