Before today’s explosion in Manhattan, the news for the day was of the United States airforce conducting four separate airstrikes on the Syrian army in Syria killing 62 soldiers and injuring 100 more. The soldiers, representing the elected Syrian government, where in battle against ISIS when the US war planes came and were essentially acting as air support for…
The unrelenting urge among American politicians to keep punishing Iran—or more precisely, to be seen supporting steps with that objective—continues to work against sensible statecraft and U.S. interests in multiple respects. One of those respects concerns how measures taken by the United States affect political competition within Iran. Here’s the current background to questions of…
This unaccountable oligarchy of spies controls the information that guides our military and civilian leaders. The recent integration of two military contractors into a $10 billion behemoth is the latest in a wave of mergers and acquisitions that have transformed America’s privatized, high-tech intelligence system into what looks like an old-fashioned monopoly. In August, Leidos…
In the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when Congress voted to authorize military force against the people who “planned, authorized, committed, or aided” the hijackings, few Americans could have imagined the resulting manhunt would span from West Africa all the way to the Philippines, and would outlast two two-term presidents. Today, U.S….
President Barack Obama says Americans are so uninterested in the rest of the world because they are “lazy” and don’t feel like knowing about “other people.” His remarks have not gone unnoticed at home, where angered Americans suggested he stay abroad. “[…] We are such a big country we haven’t always had to know about…
The Geneva treaties and protocols (aka accords) It was on 12 August 1949 that the nations of the world, with Nazi atrocities still in mind, updated what are known as the Geneva Accords. This constituted an effort to once again set limits on the wartime behaviour of states and their agents. Among other things, the…
