Former Blackwater USA guard Nicholas Slatten was sentenced on Wednesday to life in prison nearly eight months after a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder for his role in the September 2007 massacre of 17 Iraqi civilians at Nisour Square in Baghdad. "The...
Iraq Daily Roundup: Ammo Depot Casualties Rise; 15 Killed in Iraq
The US Government Doesn’t Care About Afghan Women
This article originally appeared at TruthDig. In once, and to some extent still, relatively cosmopolitan Baghdad, Iraq, I once saw three young female college students from Mustansiriyah University walking home from class. They couldn’t have been more differently...
Americans Oppose Israel Lobby Junkets
Seventy members of the U.S. Congress (16% of the total membership) are visiting Israel during recess. Most of the private funding for the junket arrives through an entity called the American Israel Education Foundation. AIEF officially formed as a "supporting...
Seth Rich’s Ghost Haunts the Courts
As if it weren’t enough of a downer for Russiagate true believers that no Trump-Russia collusion was found, federal judges are now demanding proof that Russia hacked into the DNC in the first place. It is shaping up to be a significant challenge to the main...
Military Strength Is Our National Religion
Originally posted at TomDispatch. After almost 18 years of the war (or rather wars) on (or perhaps of) terror, there's some good news! The Washington Post reports that American troops are finally coming home from Afghanistan! Actually, let me amend that slightly. They...
The Prosecution of Julian Assange Affects Us All
With the indictment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the imprisonment of whistleblower Chelsea Manning, we are seeing the US government’s blatant attack on the First Amendment. This assault now is officially acknowledged by a US federal court, where the judge...
India: The Next Apartheid State?
It has long been called the most dangerous place in the world. Still, few Americans know anything about the place; nor could they point out the troubled region of Kashmir on a map. Yet for 62 years India and Pakistan have contested for control of the province. In...
Iraq Daily Roundup: Fire Engulfs Baghdad Ammo Depot; 19 Killed in Iraq
Creating a Spectacle of Slaughter at the Movies
Call it a summer whim or something about this grim moment of ours, but I had an urge to post at TomDispatch my very first piece of published writing. It appeared 48 years ago in what was, at the time, one of the more obscure journals on the face of the Earth, one I...


