Month: January 2017

Security forces captured the destroyed shrine to the Biblical figure of Jonah.

Martin Luther King "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam" April 30, 1967, Riverside Church, New York The sermon which I am preaching this morning in a sense is not the usual kind of sermon, but it is a sermon and an important subject, nevertheless, because the issue that I will be discussing … Continue reading “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam”

Is the Obama administration out to provoke a military conflict with Russia in the days before Donald J. Trump takes the oath of office? In July of 2014, the US announced the start of “Operation Atlantic Resolve” in response to the vote by Crimea – which took place nearly three years ago — to rejoin … Continue reading “An Inauguration Day Surprise?”

In the middle of a major domestic crisis over the U.S. charge that Russia had interfered with the US election, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) triggered a brief national media hysteria by creating and spreading a bogus story of Russian hacking into US power infrastructure. DHS had initiated the now-discredited tale of a hacked … Continue reading “Mainstream Media’s Russian Bogeymen”

Militants attacked at least two checkpoints in Diyala province.

Daesh executed a family of family, including four children, for attempting to escape their control in Hawija.

The Arab taxi driver who brought me to Ramallah had no trouble with the Israeli border posts. He just evaded them. Saves a lot of trouble. I was invited by Mahmood Abbas, the President of the Palestinian National Authority (as well as of the PLO and the Fatah movement) to take part in joint Palestinian-Israeli … Continue reading “The Two-State Solution Still the Only Game in Town”

Will Donald Trump keep his campaign promise to end America’s wasteful wars overseas? Since he’s stated he knows more than America’s generals, will he rein them in? Will he bring major reforms to the military-industrial complex, or will he be nothing but talk and tweets? At Trump’s first news conference as president-elect, he had little … Continue reading “Can Trump Tame the Pentagon?”

This column will soon be out of date. There are only a few days of Barack Obama’s presidential pardon powers left. He will either offer clemency to whistleblower Chelsea Manning, thereby ending her sentence three decades sooner than officially mandated, or he will not. And the chances of her gaining freedom under a Republican-dominated Washington … Continue reading “The Foolish Optimism of Hoping for Chelsea Manning’s Freedom”

Iraqi Forces took control of Mosul University, government buildings, and at least one bridge during Friday’s advancements.