President Donald Trump inexplicably took his first foreign trip to Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy with neither religious nor political freedom. On that trip in March 2017 he began to subcontract U.S. Mideast policy to a trio of self-serving regional leaders....
Peace Group Warns Against Making NDAA Fight All About Trump
President Donald Trump has sparked considerable controversy by threatening to veto the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act – a behemoth bill authorizing $740 billion in U.S. military expenditures – for the first time in its nearly 60-year history....
The Futility and Cruelty of Washington’s Economic Sanctions
A perennial favorite tactic for officials running U.S. foreign policy has been to impose economic sanctions on countries whose governments defy Washington’s wishes. Sanctions enjoy a reputation among the policy elite of being the responsible "middle option"...
Will Biden’s America Stop Creating Terrorists?
Joe Biden will take command of the White House at a time when the American public is more concerned about battling coronavirus than fighting overseas wars. But America’s wars rage on regardless, and the militarized counterterrorism policy Biden has supported in the...
Iraq Daily Roundup: 53 Killed; Anti-ISIS Operation near Mosul
Why Michael Morell Cannot Be CIA Director
As President-elect Joe Biden names his cabinet and other chief advisers, what has escaped wide attention is the fact that none of his hawkish national security advisers – except for his nominee for defense secretary, Gen. Lloyd Austin – has served in the...
Iraq Daily Roundup: Three Killed in Attacks
Chuck Yeager on War Crimes
Chuck Yeager, a great American hero, died this week at age 97. He resided in Grass Valley, California. Yeager is best known for being the first person to break the sound barrier. He was a major character in Tom Wolfe’s 1979 classic, The Right Stuff. Indeed, Wolfe...
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin: A Certain Kind of Diversity
Originally appeared at ScheerPost America’s first black presumptive secretary of defense grew up in the same town – Thomasville, GA – as the first black West Point graduate, Henry O. Flipper. I actually took select cadets from my civil rights history class to visit...
‘Long Live the (Dead) Peace Process’: Abbas Prioritizes US Ties over Palestinian National Unity
No one seemed as excited about the election of Joe Biden being the next President of the United States as Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas. When all hope seemed lost, where Abbas found himself desperate for political validation and funds, Biden arrived...


