Originally posted at TomDispatch. Our major post-9/11 wars are goners and the imagery of American war-making is heading downhill. The Iraq War was long ago left in the trash heap of history, while in Afghanistan the talk is now about “the zero option”...
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Washington and Kabul have, for endless months, been performing a strange pas de deux over the issue of American withdrawal. Initially, the Obama administration insisted that if, by December 31, 2013, Afghan President Hamid Karzai...
Who can keep up? The revelations – mainly thanks to the documents Edward Snowden took from the National Security Agency – are never-ending. Just this week, we learned that GCHQ, the British intelligence agency whose activities are interwoven with the NSA’s, used...
Originally posted at TomDispatch. There is, it seems, something new under the sun. Geopolitically speaking, when it comes to war and the imperial principle, we may be in uncharted territory. Take a look around and you’ll see a world at the boiling point. From Ukraine...
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Think of us as having two presidents. One, a fellow named Barack Obama, cuts a distinctly Clark Kent-ish figure. In presiding over domestic policy, he is regularly thwarted in his desires by the Republicans in Congress and...
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Here, at least, is a place to start: intelligence officials have weighed in with an estimate of just how many secret files National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden took with him when he headed for Hong Kong last June. Brace...
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Call me human. It turns out that I’m no better at predicting the future than the rest of humanity. If as a species we were any good at it, right now I would undoubtedly be zipping through the gloriously spired skies over my...
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Imagine this: a president and his top officials as self-professed assassins – and proud of it, even attempting to gain political capital from it. It’s not that American presidents have never been associated with assassination attempts...
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Last year, Secretary of State John Kerry condemned Russia’s pledge to sell advanced antiaircraft weapons to Syria, noting that it would have "a profoundly negative impact on the balance of interests and the stability of the...
Originally posted at TomDispatch. The question Senator Ron Wyden asked on March 12th of last year was straightforward enough and no surprise for Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. He had been given it a day in advance of his testimony before the Senate...
