President Joe Biden spoke to the American people after a fashion. He, or whoever writes his material, sought to calm rising fears about the consequences of intervening ever deeper in the Russo-Ukraine war. Early popular enthusiasm for the victims of Russian aggression...
Gina Haspel Watched the Waterboarding at CIA ‘Black Site’
It still makes me sick to my stomach – this time the sworn testimony of CIA contract psychologist/torturer James Mitchell that Gina Haspel was watching as he and psychologist/torturer colleague John Bruce Jessen waterboarded Saudi captive Ab al-Rahim al-Nashiri...
Iraq Daily Roundup: 13 Killed
The Ethnic Cleansing of Masafer Yatta: Israel’s New Annexation Strategy in Palestine
The Israeli Supreme Court has decided that the Palestinian region of Masafer Yatta, located in the southern hills of Hebron, is to be entirely appropriated by the Israeli military and that a population of over 1,000 Palestinians is to be expelled. The Israeli Court...
Supreme Court Expands Government Secrecy Powers in Torture-Related Case
The US Supreme Court ruled recently on the government’s use of the state secrets doctrine in an opinion that will make it easier for intelligence agencies to evade accountability in future individual rights cases. In US v. Zubaydah, government torture policy and state...
Iraq Daily Roundup: 18 Killed
A Graduation Speech to Air Force Cadets
Originally posted at TomDispatch. It’s that moment again. Graduation time in high schools and colleges across the country. Because I’ve always thought that graduation speeches had a certain je ne sais quoi, I’ve given a number of them at TomDispatch...
Biden’s New China Policy
On May 26, Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a major speech defining the Biden administration’s China policy. Though the US is pouring tens of billions of dollars of weapons into Ukraine, the training on how to use them, and the intelligence to target them...
US and Ukraine, Goals in Conflict
Among the nations aiding Ukraine in its resistance to the Russian invasion, America has been foremost. Yet the war interests of our two nations are not identical. To the U.S., the imperative is that the war be contained, not expanded, and that we not be drawn into a...


