International Politics and Economy

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – April, the month tax filings are due, prompts us to ponder what our income taxes pay for. Are they used to provide all citizens sufficient resources and public goods for human security and well-being – the core of our national security? How much of our taxes pay […]

Nonviolence

The Tragic U.S. Choice to Prioritize War Over Peacemaking

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink ) – In a brilliant Op-Ed published in the New York Times, the Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi explained how China, with help from Iraq, was able to mediate and resolve the deeply-rooted conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, whereas the United States was in no position to do so after siding with […]

Drones

How Russian and Iranian Drone Strikes further dehumanize Warfare

The Conversation

By Jordan Richard Schoenherr, Concordia University | – Along with the recent reciprocal drone strikes by Iran and the United States in Syria, Russia continues to unleash its arsenal on Ukrainian civilian and military targets alike. While the Russian armies have started using outdated weapons, novel technologies remain the objects of fascination on the battlefield. […]

European Union

‘Dirty Smear Campaign:’ How the United Arab Emirates Spread Hysteria against Islam in Europe (Yes)

Middle East Monitor

Nasim Ahmed Nasimbythedocks ( Middle East Monitor) – A “smear campaign” alleged to be orchestrated by the United Arab Emirates and executed through a Geneva-based private intelligence firm has apparently been peddling hateful misinformation associated with anti-Muslim conspiracy theorists, an article in New Yorker Magazine has revealed. In “The dirty […]

Arms Sales

Congress Has Been Captured by the Arms Industry: And We’re Paying the Price (and What a Price It Is!)

William D. Hartung

( Tomdispatch.com ) – On March 13th, the Pentagon rolled out its proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2024. The results were — or at least should have been — stunning, even by the standards of a department that’s used to getting what it wants when it wants it. The new Pentagon budget would come in […]

Authoritarianism

Constitutional Crisis Threatens to Tear Israel Apart as Att’y-Gen. takes on Netanyahu and 200 Reservist Pilots refuse to Fly

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Thursday, the Israeli parliament passed a law preventing the Supreme Court from removing a sitting prime minister for inability to carry out his or her duties. This move was tactical, not strategic. Prime Minister Netanyahu is on trial for corruption, and he agreed with the Supreme Court in 2020 […]

Featured

No, Mr. Smotrich, Palestinians are not New in History, and all Nationalisms are Modern, including the Israeli

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Bezalel Smotrich in a speech in Paris over the weekend maintained that there are no Palestinians and that the whole notion of Palestine is no older than a century. This cliocide, a form of genocide involving wiping out the history of a people, has been a common narrative among Zionists […]

Arab World

Still “Not Free:” Bush’s Invasion of Iraq did not result in Democracy there or in the Arab World

The Conversation

By Brian Urlacher, University of North Dakota | – (The Conversation) – President George W. Bush and his administration put forward a variety of reasons to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In the months before the U.S. invasion, Bush said the looming conflict was about eradicating terrorism and seizing weapons of mass destruction – […]

military

On Missing Dr. Strangelove: Or how Americans learned to Stop Worrying and forgot the Bomb

Andrew J. Bacevich

( Tomdispatch.com) – Bosley Crowther, chief film critic for the New York Times, didn’t quite know what to make of Dr. Strangelove at the time of its release in January 1964. Stanley Kubrick’s dark antiwar satire was “beyond any question the most shattering sick joke I’ve ever come across,” he wrote. But if the film […]