The Senate Drone Report of 2019

Originally posted at TomDispatch. It was December 6, 2019, three years into a sagging Clinton presidency and a bitterly divided Congress. That day, the 500-page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s long fought-over, much-delayed, heavily...

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Beyond the Senate Torture Report

Originally posted at TomDispatch. It came from the top and that’s never been a secret.  The president authorized the building of those CIA "black sites" and the use of what came to be known as "enhanced interrogation techniques" and has spoken...

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Thank You for Making War!

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Often enough when something goes missing, it takes a while to realize that it’s gone. An example that came to me recently is the once-commonplace word “peace.” It’s not just that, in a time of public...

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One Family, Two Doors, Nowhere to Run

Originally posted at TomDispatch. During the Israeli attacks on Gaza this past summer, U.S. officials were unusually vocal. After shelling killed four young Palestinians on a beach, for example, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called it "horrifying." "The...

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The War Party Ascendant

Originally posted at TomDispatch. It was the end of the road for Chuck Hagel last week and the Washington press corps couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about writing his obituary. In terms of pure coverage, it may not have been Ferguson or the seven-foot...

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Iraq War 4.0?

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Let’s play a game, the kind that makes no sense on this single-superpower planet of ours. For a moment, do your best to suspend disbelief and imagine that there’s another superpower, great power, or even regional power...

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A Permanent Infrastructure for Permanent War

Originally posted at TomDispatch. In a September address to the United Nations General Assembly, President Barack Obama spoke forcefully about the “cycle of conflict” in the Middle East, about “violence within Muslim communities that has become the...

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