The government of Macedonia has formally apologized to Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen who was unlawfully abducted, tortured and handed over to the United States, which further tortured him at a secret CIA "black site" in Afghanistan under its Bush-era...
Why Israel Feels Threatened by Popular Resistance in Palestine
Why did Israel kill many unarmed Gaza protesters and wound over 2,000 on Friday, March 30 and on the following days, when they clearly posed no threat to Israeli soldiers? Hundreds of Israeli soldiers, many of them snipers, were deployed to the deadly buffer zone that...
Taking the World to the Brink of Annihilation
Western neoconservatives and hawks are driving the international situation to increasing tension and danger. Not content with the destruction of Iraq and Libya based on false claims, they are now pressing for a direct US attack on Syria. As a dangerous prelude,...
40 Victims Found in Mosul Grave; 20 Killed Elsewhere in Iraq
Circle of Absurdity: Killing the Islamists We Create
The U.S. military remains mired in countless wars in the Greater Middle East. Ironically – and tragically – it tends to combat Islamists that Washington either armed or birthed. We, Americans, truly are a strange lot. Our government in Washington – ostensibly...
Who’s Afraid of Russian Propaganda?
If the reader will indulge me, I want to relate some further thoughts about the concern over Russia and the American political system. For the sake of discussion I will assume that expressions of this concern are sincere, that “Russia” did what it’s...
Has the War Party Hooked Trump?
With his Sunday tweet that Bashar Assad, "Animal Assad," ordered a gas attack on Syrian civilians, and Vladimir Putin was morally complicit in the atrocity, President Donald Trump just painted himself and us into a corner. "Many dead, including women...
Gunboat Diplomacy and the Ghost of Captain Mahan
Originally posted at TomDispatch. Amid the intense coverage of Russian cyber-maneuvering and North Korean missile threats, another kind of great-power rivalry has been playing out quietly in the Indian and Pacific oceans. The U.S. and Chinese navies have been...
Trump: Is He Stupid or Dangerously Crazy?
A child could see through the fake “chemical attack” supposedly launched by Bashar al-Assad just as his troops defeated the jihadists and Trump said he wanted out of Syria. But our President can’t, which raises the question: is he as stupid or stupider than George W....
What Ken Burns Left Out of the Vietnam Story
The Vietnam War: An Intimate History by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns (Knopf, 2017; 640 pages) The companion coffee-table book to the 10-part PBS series by Ken Burns, The Vietnam War, is so closely tied to the series that it’s left ambiguous whether Ken Burns himself...


