“An epidemic terror seized upon the nations,” wrote Charles Mackay in his 1841 masterpiece, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. “It was a crime imputed with so much ease, and repelled with so much difficulty, that the powerful,...
Buttering Up the Pentagon
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Recently, the Pentagon’s top Asia official, Randall Schriver, told senators that the Afghan war would cost this country’s taxpayers $45 billion in 2018, including $5 billion for the Afghan security forces, $13 billion for...
U.S. Soldier Among Eight Killed in Iraq
Is That Russia Troll Farm an Act of War?
According to the indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Russian trolls, operating out of St. Petersburg, took American identities on social media and became players in our 2016 election. On divisive racial and religious issues, the trolls took both sides. In...
ISIS Ambushes Shi’ite Militiamen near Kirkuk; 31 Killed in Iraq
Beyond Mere Survival
The personal and the political often meet and merge – and, in my case lately, this has certainly been quite true. I won’t go into the details of my recent cancer diagnosis, which I wrote about here, except to say that it has certainly intensified and sharpened my...
Trump’s Dangerous Nuclear Posture
The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) released by the Trump Administration last week is self-perpetuation by the nuclear weapons establishment at its worst. It advocates astonishing increases in nuclear weapons, their funding, and the circumstances in which they might be...
ISIS Widows Sentenced to Death, Prison; Eight Killed in Iraq
Another Mass Grave Found South of Mosul; 116 Killed in Iraq
US and Coalition Aid to Iraq Is Ungenerous and Self-Interested
At the donor conference for the “post-ISIL reconstruction” of Iraq which just ended in Kuwait, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson talked about Iraqi corruption and insecurity, which he claimed had to be tackled for rebuilding investments to be feasible. He said...


