During January, at least 747 people were killed, and another 389 were wounded. Among the dead was a U.S. servicemember killed in a non-combat incident. Also, at least six members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.) were killed, as was a Turkish soldier. Three more Turkish soldiers were wounded. Among the Iraqis, at least 332 …
Continue reading “747 Killed in Iraq During January”
I have argued for a few weeks now that House Intelligence Committee members have committed misconduct in office by concealing evidence of spying abuses by the National Security Agency and the FBI. They did this by sitting on a four-page memo that summarizes the abuse of raw intelligence data while Congress was debating a massive …
Continue reading “Lying, Spying, and Hiding”
The mainstream media stories were straight out of a science fiction movie. Somebody in Cuba was aiming a super sophisticated “sonic weapon” at US diplomats here in Havana, causing them to experience hearing loss, dizziness, nausea, severe headaches and even brain damage similar to a concussion. From December 2016 through February 2017, according to the …
Continue reading “Cuba’s ‘Sonic Attack’ on Diplomats Is Pure Science Fiction”
There’s usually not a whole lot of foreign policy material in the President’s State of the Union address, at least not since the days of George W. Bush and his invocation of Doestoevskyian nihilists as a justification for world conquest. Oh, it gets mentioned, of course, but usually at the end, as the obligatory capstone …
Continue reading “The State of the Union: A Year in Trump’s America”
Although the genocide of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar has gathered greater media attention in recent months, there is no indication that the international community is prepared to act in any meaningful way, thus leaving hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees stranded in border camps between Myanmar and Bangladesh. While top United Nations officials are …
Continue reading “‘Whitewashing’ Genocide in Myanmar”
Though it received disturbingly little attention – perhaps a symptom of desensitization to news that we are constantly being surveilled – it was recently revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) destroyed data about some of its surveillance activity that it was under court order to preserve. The NSA was ordered to save the data …
Continue reading “Mass Surveillance and the Memory Hole”
With the House Intelligence Committee vote yesterday to release its four-page memorandum reportedly based on documentary evidence of possible crimes by top Justice Department and FBI leaders, the die is cast. Russia-gate and FBI-gate are now joined at the hip. The coming weeks will show whether the U.S. intelligence establishment (the FBI/CIA/NSA, AKA the “Deep …
Continue reading “Will Congress Face Down the Deep State?”
A militia group has threatened to attack U.S. troops over a friendly fire incident that occurred on Saturday.
If Turkey is not bluffing, U.S. troops in Manbij, Syria, could be under fire by week’s end, and NATO engulfed in the worst crisis in its history. Turkish President Erdogan said Friday his troops will cleanse Manbij of Kurdish fighters, alongside whom US troops are embedded. Erdogan’s foreign minister demanded concrete steps by the US …
Continue reading “Too Many Wars. Too Many Enemies.”
Poor Rex Tillerson. Secretary of State must have sounded like an awesome job to the former Chairman and CEO of Exxon/Mobil, it certainly would to most people. The massive pay cut must have given him at least some pause, as he made more than $25 million in 2016. Now he finds himself working for a …
Continue reading “Capitalize on the Olympic Truce, Formalize a Freeze With North Korea” 
