Militarization

TeleSur | – – Despite the deep social and economic issues President Barack Obama is confronted with, military expenditure was conceived as a priority. The Pentagon plans to spend four more times in [Europe] defense in 2017 than in 2016 in order to have sufficient military capability to support to its European NATO allies, the […]

Featured

Rhetorical Terror: GOP Candidates Pledge War Crimes, Carpet-Bombing, Asian Land Wars

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – At the Trumpless GOP debate Thursday evening, the candidates once again promised to bankrupt us with military and intelligence spending and to commit vast war crimes with reckless disregard for the lives of women, children and non-combatant men, of the sort not openly plotted since the […]

Militarization

No, Donald Trump, we can’t just “take their oil”

contributors

By Emily Schwartz Greco | (Otherwords.org) | – – Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign ad pledged to “take their oil.” That’s what President (gasp) Trump would do after having “quickly cut the head off the Islamic State,” says the deep-voiced narrator. Along with political decapitation, there are many disturbing things in the Republican front-runner’s commercials […]

Featured

War Talk, Jingoism and White Supremacy at GOP Debate

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The GOP presidential debate last night veered even further right on international issues, given the absence of Ron Paul, who represents the Libertarian wing of the party that is less interested in foreign wars. Ted Cruz started off with a promise of war on Iran over […]

Democratic Party

When did Justifying Large Scale Civilian Deaths in Bombardments become a Bipartisan Consensus?

contributors

By Stephen Zunes | (Foreign Policy in Focus) | – – There’s a bipartisan effort to justify the killing of civilians in the “war on terrorism.” There has been a lot of consternation expressed in the media at a series of statements by Republican presidential candidates during their most recent debate and elsewhere in which […]

Foreign Policy

Trump & GOP: Saber Rattling re: Iranians can never be too Aggressive

contributors

By Mahsa Alimardani | (Global Voices Online) | – – GOP candidate Donald Trump was the first to attack Iran early on in the [last] debate, calling it a “terrorist nation.”. The relationship between Iran and America is tenuous at best, and there is no better forum to exaggerate this difficult relationship than the debates […]

Militarization

5 Questions For Syria Hawks

contributors

David M. Faris | (Informed Comment) | – – Last month’s horrific attacks in Paris and last week’s massacre in California – which was at most loosely connected to Daesh (ISIS/ISIL)– have renewed calls for more robust U.S. intervention in Syria. The momentum toward escalation is hardly limited to the political right: Opinion polling suggests […]

Featured

41% of Trump Supporters want to bomb Aladdin and Jasmine

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Public Policy Polling asked US voters if they favored bombing “Agraba.” Some 30% of Republicans said “Yes!” Obviously, this is a a little bit of a trick, since voters being asked such a question assume it is a real policy issue. But wouldn’t you want to […]

Israel Lobbies

The real Threat to Peace? Marco Rubio Is Winning the Neocon Primary

contributors

By Sina Toossi | (Foreign Policy in Focus) | – – With pundits and columnists dissecting and critiquing every word uttered by GOP front-runners Ben Carson and Donald Trump, comparatively little attention has been paid to the positions and affiliations of a far more electable Republican presidential candidate: Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Unlike Trump or […]