Originally posted at TomDispatch. Slaughter is all too human. Killing fields or mass burial grounds are in the archeological record from the Neolithic period (6,000 to 7,000 years ago) on. Nonetheless, with the advent of modern weaponry and industrial processes, the killing fields of the world have grown to levels that can stagger the imagination. …
Continue reading “The Perpetual Killing Field”
Adam Curtis’ new, near three-hour documentary HyperNormalisation, showing on BBC iplayer, is being garlanded with predictable praise from liberal commentators. As ever, Curtis joins the dots in interesting, and sometimes compelling, ways. But HyperNormalisation also continues a trend by Curtis of using his insights to present a deeply conservative, disempowering and ultimately false impression of …
Continue reading “Adam Curtis: Another Manager of Perceptions”
Is the Iraqi city of Mosul on the border with Syria, as Mrs. Clinton averred during the third presidential debate? No way. Exactly no one has called her out on this. I guess you have to be Gary Johnson, rather than a former Secretary of State, for the mainstream media to start mocking you over …
Continue reading “President Strangelove?”
A bomb killed a U.S. soldier near Mosul on Thursday.
“The United States has the power to decree the death of nations,” wrote Stephen Kinzer in the Boston Globe. Kinzer’s article was entitled: “The media are misleading the public on Syria.” In his piece, the scholar at a Brown University Institute contested that his country’s media misinformation on Syria is leading to the kind of …
Continue reading “Why Is the Truth on Syria Difficult To Decipher?”
America’s "exceptionalism" is alive and well. It’s resurfaced wearing a wig in current presidential politics. Clinton speaks about America the "indispensable" nation. It’s high sounding fluff. What does it mean? Shall we take a stab? A crutch might be "indispensable" for a crippled man. Does Hillary Clinton have a cripple in mind? Who’s crippled? A …
Continue reading “Lament for an Indispensable America”
Shi’ite militias are still trying to muscle in on Mosul.
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Okay, here’s your quiz of the day: What country, according to the Congressional Research Service, has been the “largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II,” to the tune of $124.3 billion, and most of it military in nature? Great Britain, Germany, Japan, the Philippines? The answer: none …
Continue reading “The Death of the Two-State Solution”
The saga of Julian Assange seems to be drawing to a climax – one that will decide the fate of this historic whistleblower who, for years, has been a giant thorn in the side of governments everywhere. His role in exposing the machinations of the US government over the years earned him the plaudits of …
Continue reading “Assange’s Fate”
In any critical study of US foreign policy, one question is bound to arise: Are they really this stupid? By “they” I am of course referring to the politicians and advisers that have set and implemented the disastrous course of foreign intervention. The question is aimed at trying to explain these repetitive failures. Depending on …
Continue reading “Hillary Clinton and Syria: Stupidity or Something Worse?” 
