Earlier this week, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres gave a monologue justifying the time she spent with George W. Bush at a football game. In response to some outrage and annoyance over their friendly association, DeGeneres said a lot of very nice, very hollow words about disagreements not ruining friendships. All of this was fit …
Continue reading “George W. Bush Is Not Your Republican Friend With Whom You Respectfully Disagree”
The backstage struggle between the Bush interventionists and the America-firsters who first backed Donald Trump for president just exploded into open warfare, which could sunder the Republican Party. At issue is Trump’s decision to let the Turkish army enter Northern Syria, to create a corridor between Syrian Kurds and the Turkish Kurds of the PKK, …
Continue reading “Is Trump At Last Ending Our ‘Endless Wars’?”
First, the (mostly) good news: President Trump appears poised, finally, to end the US military mission in Northeast Syria. The move would constitute the first actual follow-through on the promises of candidate Trump to avoid "stupid" and terminate "endless" Mideast wars. That’s no small thing. Furthermore, while the outcome in Syria is likely to be …
Continue reading “The United States of Betrayal”
Reports of violence tapered off on Monday.
Dear Editors at Science and Global Security, “Science and Global Security” (SGS) has been publishing technical articles on arms control and related issues since 1989. I urge you not to succumb to political censorship. Recently it was announced you are withholding publication of an article titled “Computational Forensic Analysis for the Chemical Weapons Attack at …
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Edward Snowden’s recently published autobiography Permanent Record became a bestseller instantly, before any critical reviews in major media, thanks to the author’s notoriety. The reviews followed and they make for curious reading as I look over The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker. Though the reviewers …
Continue reading “Who Is Edward Snowden? A Review of His Autobiography, Permanent Record“
The Iraqi government released official casualty figures. The total now exceed 100 dead and 6,000 wounded.
The curfew ended in Baghdad, but not the killing.
Protests continued. So did live fire from security personnel.
ISTANBUL – The Turkish government plans to use Syrian refugees to displace the local Kurdish population in northern Syria. But so far, the scheme isn’t working so well. Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayep Erdogan announced his intention to settle up to two million refugees now living in Turkey into northern Syria. "We aim to …
Continue reading “Turkey Plans Attack on Syrian Kurds” 
