Originally posted at TomDispatch. Fifteen to 20 years ago, a canny friend of mine assured me that I would know I was in a different world when the Europeans said no to Washington. I’ve been waiting all this time and last week it seemed as if the moment had...
When Politics Mean More Than Human Lives: Saudi Arabia Bombs Yemen
Yesterday a coalition of Arab nations led by Saudi Arabia bombed targets across Yemen in an attempt to reverse recent gains by Shiite rebels. The Saudi’s also announced that 150,000 soldiers had been deployed in anticipation of a possible ground invasion. It’s all...
Leave the Houthis Alone!
Saudi Arabia's US-backed aggression against the sovereignty of Yemen is a textbook example of how local conflicts are internationalized – and become tripwires for regional wars and even global conflagrations. Like Libya, Yemen is yet another Middle Eastern country...
Are Cops Soldiers Yet?
On March 23 over at Volokh Conspiracy, law professor Ilya Somin wrote about a lawsuit against Henderson, Nevada police officers who allegedly forced a family to let them into their home for hours while scoping out a neighbor's domestic disturbance standoff back in...
Militias Pushed Out of Tikrit Battle; 209 Killed in Iraq
The Government’s Fixation on Spying and Lying
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Congress earlier this month about the parameters of the secret negotiations between the United States and Iran over nuclear weapons and economic sanctions, how did he know what the negotiators were considering?...
How Will the Yemeni Civil War End?
The Civil War in Yemen is rapidly expanding. We have been forced to close our embassy and military base located there. It is now clear that Obamas optimism for fighting terrorism in Yemen was misplaced. It hardly sets a standard for dealing with constant...
Jim Crow in the Holy Land
The last days of the campaign sounded an awful lot like the Jim Crow South, when African Americans had officially won the right to vote but still faced massive discrimination. On election morning, a powerful white official running for re-election urged his followers...
109 Killed across Iraq as U.S. Begins Airstrikes in Tikrit
Espionage, Treason, and the Congressional Fifth Column
The spectacle of virtually the entire Senate GOP caucus mobilizing in support of a foreign power in order to drag us into war with Iran has certainly been instructive. Not since the Federalist party plotted with the British during the War of 1812 has an American fifth...


