International Politics and Economy

The Iranian electorate did about the most cruel thing possible to uber-hawk Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. It replaced former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with an eminently reasonable and personable successor, Hasan Rouhani. The Israeli and American politicians who desperately want to fall on Iran the way a hungry lion does on a lamb had […]

Domestic Surveillance

Top Ten American Steps toward a Police State

Juan Cole

The police state, a term first coined in the mid-19th century in German (Polizeistaat), is characterized by a standing political police, by intense domestic surveillance and by restrictions on the movements of citizens. Police states are on a spectrum, and unfortunately in the past decade the Unite States has moved toward police-stateness in small but […]

Domestic Surveillance

Mueller: FBI Drones on US Soil, used ‘Minimally’ (Young Turks)

Juan Cole

FBI director Robert Mueller admitted Wednesday that the FBI sometimes deploys drones over US territory. Cenk Uygur reports: Cenk points out that if the Bureau can use the drones minimally, there is no check on them being used extensively, and he evokes Orwell’s image of Big Brother.

Drones

US Drone Operator says, ‘I became a sociopath’, regrets 1626 Killings (Lest we forget)

Juan Cole

Lest we forget (from last summer): Brandon Bryant is haunted by his career as a drone contract killer for the US government. Drone operator: ‘I became a sociopath’, regrets 1626 assassinations.

CIA

Syria, NSA Spying, Popular Mobilization and History: Cole Interview in La Prensa (Ricky Martinez)

Juan Cole

Interview with Juan Cole by Ricky Martínez (These are the English notes of the interview rearranged in pyramid form; they were translated and published in a different sequence in Spanish at La Prensa of Panama City). Many thanks to Mr. Martinez for a wide-ranging conversation! RM: How is Syria different from Libya? Syria is different […]

al-Qaeda

Gitmo comes Home to America: Torture, Gag Orders and Legal Dirty Tricks have Corrupted the System (Brittain)

Juan Cole

Victoria Brittain writes at Tomdispatch.com A four-month hunger strike, mass force-feedings, and widespread media coverage have at last brought Guantanamo, the notorious offshore prison set up by the Bush administration early in 2002, back into American consciousness. Prominent voices are finally calling on President Obama to close it down and send home scores of prisoners […]

al Qaeda in the Arabian Penisula

Fresh US covert Drone Strikes in Pakistan and Yemen (Serle and Woods)

Juan Cole

Excerpted from a report by Jack Serle and Chris Woods for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism: Pakistan The only drone strike reported to hit Pakistan in May killed Wali Ur Rehman, second-in-command of the Pakistan Taliban (TTP). It was the first US attack in Pakistan for 42 days and came less than a week after […]

Drones

President Obama and Counter-Terrorism: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Juan Cole

Here are the good, the bad and the ugly things in President Obama’s important speech on counter-terrorism Thursday, and in the off-stage steps he has announced that mysteriously did not appear in the speech: The Good: President Obama seems determined to give responsibility for drone strikes to the Department of Defense, taking it away from […]

Afghanistan

Obama: US will Continue its Targeted Killing with Drones (Woods)

Juan Cole

Chris Woods writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism Barack Obama has made it clear that the US will continue with its controversial targeted killing programme. In a major speech the US president also announced that he has signed into force a new – and secret – rule book for lethal action that provides ‘clear […]