It was impossible not to be moved as Khizr and Ghazala Khan, two Muslim immigrants from Pakistan, stood before the Democratic National Convention and mourned their son Humayan, a U.S. soldier who’d been killed in Iraq. Humayan, his grieving father recalled, was “the best of America.” Yet if it were up to Donald Trump, Khan …
Continue reading “The Sacrifice Captain Khan Shouldn’t Have Had To Make”
An official from the Anbar provincial council claimed that civilians were killed in a Coalition airstrike.
Again Trump has it backwards. According to NATO’s internal logic, the US should pay the members – not the other way around – for providing services to the empire and a tripwire for war. The empire doesn’t protect; it provokes and endangers. Who would willingly pay for that? As Andrew Levine, drawing on Andrew Bacevich, …
Continue reading “NATO and Trump’s Misconceptions”
Washington is preparing to increase US aid to Israel by billions of dollars, with a ten-year ironclad agreement that couldn’t be altered by President Obama’s successor. But that isn’t good enough for Bibi Netanyahu. He wants more. Much more. Unlike the case with other countries, the US engages in protracted and often difficult negotiations with …
Continue reading “Israel to US: ‘Give Us More!’”
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Someday, someone will write a history of the U.S. national security state in the twenty-first century and, if the first decade and a half are any yardstick, it will be called something like State of Failure. After all, almost 15 years after the U.S. invaded the Taliban’s Afghanistan, launching the second …
Continue reading “US Military Pivots to Africa and the News Is Grim”
Among the 57 latest fatalities in Iraq was a pregnant woman who was executed for trying to escape Daesh territory.
The Pentagon has announced today that the US has begun conducting military airstrikes against Libya with the stated intent of defeating ISIS in that country. According to the Pentagon spokesman, the Libyan “Government of National Accord” requested that the US begin airstrikes against what they claim is an ISIS stronghold in the Libyan town of …
Continue reading “US Airstrikes Hit Libya To Bolster UN-Created Government”
With Democrats howling that Vladimir Putin hacked into and leaked those 19,000 DNC emails to help Trump, the Donald had a brainstorm: Maybe the Russians can retrieve Hillary Clinton’s lost emails. Not funny, and close to "treasonous," came the shocked cry. Trump then told The New York Times that a Russian incursion into Estonia need …
Continue reading “Past Time To Rethink NATO”
Now that Donald Trump has won the Republican nomination, capitalizing on his image as a nationalist tough guy, he needs to fill in some of the details on his strategic vision for a proper American role in the world. By correctly declaring the NATO alliance obsolete and urging U.S. East Asian allies, such as Japan …
Continue reading “Trump Needs To Flesh Out a Strategic Vision for U.S. Foreign Policy”
Operations in the Khalidiya area, near Fallujah, appear to be winding down.
