The much admired American Western, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) contains an insightful scene. The main characters are trying to escape and are considering a very dangerous jump from the cliff: Butch Cassidy: They'll never follow us. Sundance Kid: How do...
Two Executed in Iraq; 52 Killed, 52 Wounded in Attacks
No-Fly-List America
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Here’s what the president said back in June 2013, while reassuring the American people about the National Security Agency’s collection of their phone metadata: “When it comes to telephone calls, nobody is listening...
The Dark Side of Lieber’s Code (or, Cheneyite Jurisprudence)
The 150th Anniversary of Lieber's Code was celebrated by the International Humanitarian Law (Law of War) community in 2013 for the embryonic role the Code played in the development of the law of war. But while issuing Lieber’s Code is often credited as the founding of...
Who Was Behind the Syrian Sarin ‘False Flag’ Attack?
It’s in somewhat dubious taste to start off a column by saying "I told you so," but in this case that’s the shortest and indeed only way to convey my reaction to Seymour Hersh’s piece in the London Review of Books revealing that the chemical attack which...
42 Killed, 74 Wounded As Battles Approach Baghdad
Iraq Soldiers Caught in Booby-Trap; 72 Killed, 82 Wounded
The CIAtanic Verses
The definition of torture has been in some dispute since ancient times. Julius Caesar had the Illyrian pirates who kidnapped him executed before they were crucified. "Caesar is merciful," he supposedly said, "you did not torture me and I will not...
Iraq Clashes Drive Tally To 71 Killed, 48 Wounded
Hijacking the American Plane of State
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Isn’t there something strangely reassuring when your eyeballs are gripped by a “mystery” on the news that has no greater meaning and yet sweeps all else away? This, of course, is the essence of the ongoing tale of...


