US politics

(Foreign Policy in Focus) – Centrist liberalism is dead, and Trump is a disaster. But progressives can use what he’s done to remake America and its place in the world. Donald Trump has shaken up U.S. foreign policy. Most of what he has done has been disastrous, like pulling America out of the Paris climate […]

Pentagon

No Exit: America’s Senior Generals and the Trap of Infinity Wars

William J. Astore

(Tomdispatch.com) – “Veni, Vidi, Vici,” boasted Julius Caesar, one of history’s great military captains. “I came, I saw, I conquered.” Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed that famed saying when summing up the Obama administration’s military intervention in Libya in 2011 — with a small alteration. “We came, we saw, he died,” she said with […]

Bill of Rights

When it Comes to Actively Defending Religious Minorities, Trump is no George Washington; but he Should Be

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – If Trump were actually acting as a president, he could and would tamp down the terrifying spread of hatred against Muslims that has resulted in several mass murders at mosques in the English-speaking world in recent years. All he would have to do is come out and say that ordinary […]

Donald Trump

Trump Dismisses White Nationalism Threat after N. Zealand Killings

AFP

By Sebastian Smith | – Washington, DC (AFP) – US President Donald Trump on Friday dismissed concerns that the massacre by an apparent white supremacist in New Zealand indicates a dangerous trend. Trump was asked if the killing of at least 49 people in two mosques in Christchurch by a man claiming that white people […]

Donald Trump

New Zealand: Is Trumpism now replacing ISIL as a major Cause of Stochastic Terrorism?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – One of the tactics of the so-called “Islamic State group” or ISIL had been to put out calls on the internet and social media for people to engage in random acts of violence. In some instances, these fevered and vague expression of violent grievance infested the nightmares of unstable young […]

Bernie Sanders

In Historic Rebuke to Trump, Senate invokes War Powers to Halt US aid to Saudi War on Yemen

Juan Cole

The US Senate voted 54 to 46 to invoke the 1973 War Powers Act and to end US support for the Saudi-led war on Yemen. The Yemen War has involved extensive war crimes, in which the US is complicit. Tens of thousands of people have been killed since the Saudis launched the war in spring […]

CIA

In Blow to Democracy, Trump ends Requirement that CIA report Drone Strike Casualties

AFP

A US Predator drone armed with a missile stands on the tarmac of Kandahar military airport in Afghanistan Washington, DC (AFP) – US President Donald Trump revoked a policy Wednesday that required the Central Intelligence Agency to account for civilian deaths from drone strikes. The move reversed a two-year-old order by his predecessor Barack Obama, […]

Drone Warfare

School Shootings and Drone Wars: America’s Invisible Ways of Violence

Tomdispatch

By Allegra Harpootlian (Tomdispatch.com) – In the wake of the February 14, 2018, mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 students and staff members, a teacher said the school looked “like a war zone.” And to many young Americans, that’s exactly what it felt like. But this shooting […]

Colonialism

What does the World look like from Somalia? Explaining why Ilhan Omar Scares the Horses in DC

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | – Few Americans remember that the United States colonized the Philippines and virtually no one but the more historically conscious Filipinos remember how destructive the initial military occupation was, with thousands killed by US troops and hundreds of thousands killed by disease and exposure as a result of the brutality with […]