Walter Brasch: Most of the questions—and responses—in the three presidential debates had been asked—and answered—several times during the campaign. But there are critical questions that were not asked.
Who Gains from Syria’s Destruction
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Shamus Cooke: The steady destruction of Syria will continue until it reaches a Libya-like crescendo: a “no fly zone” will be the goal of the western powers, with the motive of toppling the regime.
Abolishing the Death Penalty: The Tip of America’s Human Rights Iceberg
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David Love: As people are still put down like dogs in the land of the free – despite the momentum for abolition – capital punishment represents America’s human rights blind spot.
Threat of War Against Iran and Syria Is Real
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Shamus Cooke: The U.S. is creating the conditions for war in a region that is already boiling over from decades of U.S. backed dictators combined with past U.S. military aggression.
Debunking the Iran “Terror Plot”
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Gareth Porter: A close analysis of the FBI deposition reveals, however, that independent evidence for the charge that Arbabsiar was sent by the Qods Force on a mission to arrange for the assassination of Jubeir is lacking.
FBI Account of “Terror Plot” Suggests Sting Operation
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Gareth Porter: While the administration of Barack Obama vows to hold the Iranian government “accountable” for the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, the legal document describing evidence in the case provides multiple indications that it was mainly the result of an FBI “sting” operation.
The Crime of Making Americans Aware of Their Own History
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William Blum: The biggest lie of the “war on terrorism”, although weakening, is that the targets of America’s attacks have an irrational hatred of the United States and its way of life, based on religious and cultural misunderstandings and envy.
Arab Spring: The Kings and the Presidents
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John Peeler: Just as with the fall of the Soviet Bloc in Eastern Europe, success in Tunisia encouraged protesters elsewhere; success in the most important Arab state, Egypt, meant that success was conceivable anywhere.
The Lies That Sold Obama’s Escalation in Afghanistan
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Gareth Porter: The Obama administration has relied heavily, of course, on the widespread impression that the Taliban regime was somehow mixed up with Osama bin Laden’s plotting the 9/11 attacks.
Militarist Madness
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Lawrence Wittner: Despite the vast rivers of blood and treasure poured into wars over the centuries, the nations of the world continue to enhance their military might.
Drowning in Hypocrisy
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Jim Fuller: We have to be the watchdogs, to call the “media” and the politicians on every omission or bending of fact, every substitution of myth for reality. It won’t change the story every time, but if enough people make noise, it does have some positive effect.
When “Good” Dictators Go Bad
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Norman Solomon: And so, the secretary of state condemns awful Iran, invoking “our sense of human dignity, the rights that flow from it and the principles that ground it.” But don’t hold your breath for any such condemnation of, say, Saudi Arabia — surely an “awful” government that “routinely violates the rights of its people.”
Arab Unrest Hopping from Country to Country
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Jim Fuller: It’s a tossup at this moment as to whether the Jordanian and Saudi governments will be thrown out, I think. But what about Yemen and Algeria? No one can say at this point.
Don’t Expect Iraq to End Like Sudan
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Ivan Eland: The American media continues to tout the reduced violence in Iraq without foreseeing the long-term potential for a resumption of severe ethno-sectarian violence and the absence of mechanisms—à la Sudan—to defuse it.
Extending Nuclear Umbrella Is a Bad Idea
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Ivan Eland: Extending the U.S. nuclear shield to the much more unstable and violent region of the Middle East seems supremely foolhardy. The U.S. could more easily get dragged into an unplanned and unneeded future nuclear exchange there than in any other area of the world.
WikiLeaks Exposes More Than Documents
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Joseph Palermo: The State Department documents that WikiLeaks is making public expose the desire of many mainstream journalists and commentators to stand up and be counted as the dutiful water-carriers for the prerogatives of United States foreign policy.
Ferial Masry: Surprised Political Legend
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Wendy Block: This Election Day, Masry hopes to make that scenario real by beating Jeff Gorell for the open seat in California’s 37th Assembly District (Ventura/LA County). If she wins, her victory will also be a victory for millions of people half a world away.
Assessing the Iraq War
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Ivan Eland: The Iraq War was not only disastrous, it was one of the worst strategic blunders in the history of U.S. foreign policy. President Obama should not renegotiate the status of forces agreement with any government in Iraq.
A Hundred Years of War
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Joseph Palermo: The invasion of Iraq was the greatest terrorist recruitment program ever. It destabilized one of the most important big cities in the Arab world. It fueled pan-Arab nationalism as well as jihad against the West. It caused a sectarian bloodbath because of the jolt given to power relations by external military force.
The Wars in Yemen: More Complex Than We’re Being Told
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Carl Bloice: With Al Qaeda now in the picture and linked to an attempted physical attack on the U.S., the Obama Administration, obsessively carrying on the “war against terrorism,” has suddenly become enmeshed in still another civil war.
Terrorism State Lottery Winners Not Welcome in the Secure Homeland
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Denis Campbell: So when someone says ‘airport security,’ remember these El-Al examples. Aside from the tail’s blue Star of David targeting the aircraft during take-off and landing below 1,000 feet, I never felt safer on any airplane.
Obama, the Karzai Brothers and the Ghost of Najibullah
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In any case, the proper path for the U.S. must not involve continuing to bed down with the feudal warlords and the likes of the Karzai brothers. That puts us on the wrong side of history and decency.
Fallacies in U.S. Oil Policy
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Instead of coddling oil-producing tyrants like Moammar Gadhafi and the Saud family, the United States and other industrial countries should let the market work. We should not pay a premium for oil by sacrificing our principles or pursuing unnecessary, costly and counterproductive military activities.
Better Relations with Iran Require Change in U.S. Thinking and Policy
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One election in Iran will not significantly change U.S.-Iran relations—only a change in U.S. thinking and policy will do so. Historically, the U.S. government, under both Republican and Democratic presidents, has painted relatively poor third world regimes that don’t toe the empire’s line as “evil”—Moammar El-Gadhafi’s Libya in the 1980s, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the [...]
Will It Remain Business as Usual in the Middle East?
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One of the most glaring ironies of the Middle East conflict is the righteous indignation displayed by the region’s leaders towards each other’s policies. In a region where violent and oppressive rule is the norm, leaders have no trouble pointing out each other’s flaws, often menacingly. And so Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government [...]
On Barack’s Platter: Iraq’s Disastrous Fallout
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President Barack Obama will face a daunting international scene in January as a direct consequence of George Bush’s ill-conceived adventure in Iraq. Having argued forcefully that the war should never have been fought, and having committed himself to a “responsible” withdrawal, Obama will indeed inherit responsibility for Iraq.
Iraq: Even If We Win We Lose
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by Jules R. Benjamin – Has George W. Bush surged to victory in Iraq? If so, he can thank Iraqi tribalism, the success of ethnic cleansing, the loss of legitimacy by Al Qaida in Iraq, the “standing down” of the Sunni militias and Iran’s willingness to let its friends in Baghdad make their own peace [...]
Truth or Consequences
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Truth or Consequences was once a TV game show and a town in New Mexico. In the real world, there is always truth, and ignoring the truth has terrible consequences. In Vietnam, we tried to demonstrate that advanced technology could conquer Stone Age nationalism. Using guns that could fire thousands of bullets a minute, chemicals [...]
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