South Korean President Moon Jae-in did something very unusual in early October for a leader who once deemed the Korean peace process among the highest priorities of his administration: He promoted the very fighter jets that North Korea says undermine diplomacy....
‘No Friend But the Mountains’: A History of US Betrayal of the Kurds
To be clear, what follows is not an endorsement of a continued US military presence in Syria. There is, however, a difference between President Donald Trump attempting to fulfill a campaign promise to end American involvement in wars that have cost so much in blood...
Is the Interventionists’ Era Over for Good?
President Donald Trump could have been more deft and diplomatic in how he engineered that immediate pullout from northeastern Syria. Yet that withdrawal was as inevitable as were its consequences. A thousand U.S. troops and their Kurdish allies were not going to...
Washington Is Wrong Once Again Kurds Join Assad To Defend Syria
When President Trump Tweeted last week that “it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous endless wars,” adding that the US would be withdrawing from Syria, Washington went into a panic. Suddenly Republicans, Democrats, the media, the think tanks, and...
Endless Afghanistan: War Without Justification
"Farm boys with guns." That’s how then Captain Sjursen described average Taliban fighters while serving in Kandahar province. I was speaking to a Reuters reporter that shadowed me for a few days – since I was a New Yorker – to mark the then 10th anniversary...
Iraq Daily Roundup: Six Killed; Another Ammo Dump Explodes
Mainstream Media Suddenly Care About Syrian Civilian Casualties
Turn on any US cable news network or click on any mainstream media news story about the Turkish offensive in Syria and you'll see lots of worrying about civilian casualties. On the first day of the Turkish campaign, all the major networks covered the mass exodus of...
Iraq Daily Roundup: Seven Killed in Random Attacks, Strikes
The Forgotten Trauma of a Forgotten War
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Thanks to the looming impeachment crisis, the already Trumpian news cycle – the media has dealt with The Donald as no human being in history – is reaching a bizarre crescendo. And so is a president who seems to spend most of his White...
Secretary of Defense, Incorporated
This article originally appeared at TruthDig. The man is so beautifully bland. In fact, I’d wager that only a tiny segment of Americans could name the current Secretary of Defense – and far fewer could pick him out of a lineup. Perhaps that’s the point. President...


