The death toll in Yemen has reached 102,000 according to data released by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project in October of 2019. Since the war started in 2015, the United States government has maintained one steadfast talking point. The Houthis are...
A Pattern of Passing Up Peace
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement with Iran was working. Iran was consistently in compliance, the US and Iran were talking and diplomacy was working. Then Trump turned his back on peace, shattered the diplomacy and resuscitated the...
Iraq Daily Roundup: Two Killed in Ongoing Protests
Adam Schiff’s Very Scary Warmongering Speech
All the usual suspects are praising Adam Schiff’s marathon two-and-a-half-hour Senate speech on Wednesday to the skies. Neocon columnist Jennifer Rubin calls it "a grand slam" in the Washington Post. Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin describes it as...
US Foreign Policy Goes Off the Rails
Originally posted at TomDispatch. What’s the value of an American life in the age of Donald Trump? If you were judging by the death of Nawres Hamid, an Iraqi-American contractor killed in late December after an American base in Iraq was mortared by a Shiite...
The War on Journalism: The Greenwald Persecution Mimics Assange
At the hearing on Thursday, at Westminster in London, the timetable for Julian Assange’s US extradition case was worked out. Assange’s US legal teams made an application to have the extradition hearing split. His defense lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, emphasized to the...
Iraq Daily Roundup: Three Killed; Airstrikes Against PKK
Trump’s Katyusha Conundrum
Katyushas are short-range, unguided artillery rockets typically fired in salvos from truck-mounted launch-tubes. Iraq’s insurgents deploy three types. The smallest is 107 millimeters in diameter and 1 meter long. Its 19 kilogram weight includes an 8 kg high-explosive,...
Making Sense of Russia’s New Cabinet
Tuesday evening, 21 January, the composition of Russia’s new cabinet was announced to the nation and the world. Russian state television was caught as unawares as any of us in the broad public when the names of the departing ministers, the names and biographical...
Drone Strikes Leave Innocent Widows and Orphans
The killing of Iranian General Soleimani was big news. There were a few points made in the Western mainstream media about its legality being dubious, but nobody seems to be concerned that it contravened international law, in addition to be totally amoral. One wonders...


