Month: August 2018

At least 494 people were reported killed in Iraq during August.

The day after John McCain died, I happened to visit a memorial to Confederate prisoners of war at Point Lookout, Maryland. Flying a Confederate flag overhead, the monument seemly ironically features a quote at the base from Maya Angelou. I realized there the way I felt about the soldiers commemorated there was decidedly similar how … Continue reading “McCain as Confederate”

“Boxing the compass” is an old nautical term for locating the points on a magnetic compass in order to set a course. With the erratic winds blowing out of Washington these days, countries all over Asia and the Middle East are boxing the compass and reevaluating traditional foes and old alliances. India and Pakistan have … Continue reading “As Washington Vacillates, Asia’s Alliances Are Shifting”

If the US were to follow the rules of warfare written into US military law and treaties to which the US is a party, the US must immediately end its support for the Saudi Arabia-led war in Yemen. We should also marshal all of its diplomatic tools to end the conflict. Since 2015, Saudi Arabia, … Continue reading “No More Forgotten Wars: End US Support for Saudi Coalition War Crimes in Yemen”

On August 24 what is in effect the social media warfare division of the Atlantic Council published an article accusing the Russian television and print news outlet RT of running a one-sided attack against the Democratic Party and several leaders thereof ahead of this November’s politically pivotal Senate and House of Representatives elections. (Thirty-five Senate … Continue reading “NATO Think Tank Continues US Pre-Election Interference”

A militia leader was killed with seven members of his family.

The media continues to get the President’s North Korean peace initiative all wrong: in some cases this is due to laziness, Washington-centric group-think, and just plain ignorance. In other cases, it is quite deliberate. Take, for example, the recent “news” that Trump canceled Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s scheduled trip to Pyongyang due to a … Continue reading “Korea, Fake News, and What’s Really Going On”

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was ordered to register as an Israeli foreign agent on November 21, 1962 when it was part of the American Zionist Council. AIPAC has never complied with the order, and the Department of Justice has never enforced it. AIPAC’s associated think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East … Continue reading “Treasury Sanctions Foreigners for Israel”

ISIS/Daesh claimed responsibility for a bombing near the Syrian border.

Hanan al-Khoudari resorted to Facebook in a cry for help when Israeli authorities rejected her request to accompany her three-year-old son, Louay, to his chemotherapy treatment in East Jerusalem. The boy is suffering from an "aggressive soft tissue sarcoma". Israeli authorities then justified their decision based on a vague claim that one of Hannan’s relatives … Continue reading “When Illness Is a ‘Death Sentence’: The Victimization of Gaza Women”