Since its creation in 1949, NATO has been the keystone of U.S. foreign policy in Europe. Indeed, the alliance has been the most important feature of Washington’s overall strategy of global primacy. America’s political and policy elites have embraced two key...
Deliberate Contradiction: How the West Plays Dumb and Kills People in Gaza
First, let’s dissect this puzzle. On February 29, 2024, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent shockwaves when he informed lawmakers in the House Armed Services Committee that over 25,000 Palestinian women and children had been killed by Israel in Gaza up to that...
Trump Ukraine Plan AOA (Alive on Arrival)
Despite widespread rejection and ridicule in Western media of Donald Trump’s peace proposal on Ukraine being “dead on arrival” in Moscow, there was Trump’s envoy and his son-in-law discussing the “dead” document for five hours until midnight on Tuesday with Russian...
Murder for Christmas?
When Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth posted a meme of Franklin the Turtle, the amiable child's cartoon character, in a helicopter using a military weapon to kill people in a small boat below him, and captioned it "For your Christmas wish list," it understandably...
Democrats in Congress Are Out of Touch With Constituents on Israeli Genocide
Last month, some House members publicly acknowledged that Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza. It’s a judgment that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch unequivocally proclaimed a year ago. Israeli human-rights organizations have reached the same...
Behind Diplomatic Crisis, Japan’s Economic Slide
On October 21, Sanae Takaichi, the president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), was voted in as the 104th prime minister of Japan; the first woman selected for the nation’s highest post. Barely a month later, in her first parliamentary address, Takaichi,...
A Thermonuclear Hair Trigger
From TomDispatch: Once in the previous century, I actually visited the city of Hiroshima. I was an editor at Pantheon Books and had published a translation of a Japanese volume, Unforgettable Fire: Pictures Drawn by Atomic Bomb Survivors. In it, years later, a few...
Trump Commands Venezuela’s Heavens Closed
US President Trump ordered the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela “closed in its entirety” on November 29. Yet the US has as much legal and moral authority to shutter the skies over Venezuela as the Venezuelans have to close the putting greens at Mar-a-Lago....
When Populists Unite, the Neocon Horseshoe Closes
The American public watched in shock and awe as the democratic socialist mayor-elect of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, and the right-wing populist President Donald Trump had a “chummy” visit in the White House. Some have cited this bewildering bond as an example of...
Ukraine Peace Talks: Concessions or Done Deals?
The latest attempt at U.S. mediated peace talks between Russia and Ukraine are in disarray with the chance of success rapidly shrinking. Trump originally offered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a plan that "He'll have to like… and if he doesn't like it, then...


