Iraq Daily Roundup: Four Killed
Freedom for Me But Not for Assange (or Thee): The Breathtaking Hypocrisy of CNN’s Christiane Amanpour
CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour has some strange ideas about democracy and journalism, believing her colleagues to be above elected officials – but only if they have the correct politics and serve the right masters, obviously. “We need to guard against leaders...
Nine Years After Bahrain’s Uprising, Its Human Rights Crisis Has Only Worsened
It’s been nine years since Bahrain’s February 2011 uprising. Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched in cities and towns across the country to protest the ruling Al Khalifa family’s tight grip on power, discrimination against the country’s majority Shia population,...
Beyond Israeli Elections: Israel at the Cusp of a Bleak Era
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, must be channeling the spirit of Houdini as he continues to plot his escape from one of the most convoluted political dilemmas in Israel’s history. It is no secret that Netanyahu’s political behavior is almost entirely...
First They Came for Assange…
"WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks." ~ Donald Trump, October 10 2016, Wilkes-Barre, PA "This WikiLeaks is like a treasure trove." ~ Donald Trump, October 31, 2016 in Warren, MI Back in the day, not so long ago, The Donald loved him some WikiLeaks. He said so on at...
Punishing the Free Speech of Julian Assange
"Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech." ~ First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution In the oral argument of the famous US Supreme Court cases known collectively as the Pentagon Papers Case, the late Justice William O. Douglas asked a...
Men Who Live With the Illusion of Danger: Pete Buttigieg and the US Military
“America deserves a Commander-in-Chief who knows what that sacrifice means and who will honor the sacred promise we make to our veterans.” ~ Pete Buttigieg January 6, 2020 #CIAPete has been trending on social media this past month as stories...
Trump’s Taliban Peace Deal: The Kabuki Theater Continues
I was one of the last civilian advisors to leave Afghanistan at the end of 2014, having worked in the country for six year including three in the Taliban strongholds in Kandahar and the surrounding Pashtun provinces. From this experience, I came to understand how...
Lies, Missile Strikes and a Whole Lot of History
Recently, two stories have been in the news – though not enough in the news. They have been in the news because they are both stories of American missile strikes that importantly changed events and because they are both stories of missile strikes that were justified...
