US politics

By Mohammed Nuruzzaman | (Informed Comment) | – – As assumed, the US, the UK and France launched their coordinated airstrikes on Syria in the early hours of Saturday, April 14 to punish the Bashar Al-Assad government’s alleged chemical attacks on the rebel fighters in Douma, a city close to Damascus. Russia’s counter-threats to shoot […]

Central Intelligence Agency

How the CIA’s secret torture program sparked a citizen-led public reckoning in North Carolina

contributors

By Alexandra Moore | (The Conversation) | – – President Donald Trump’s nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel, is reported to have overseen a U.S. site in Thailand where torture of a suspected terrorist took place. Later she allegedly helped destroy evidence of torture. Her nomination, pending congressional approval, is viewed by many as further […]

Pentagon

Top 5 Lessons from the History of America’s Defeats

contributors

By Tom Engelhardt | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – The lessons of history? Who needs them? Certainly not Washington’s present cast of characters, a crew in flight from history, the past, or knowledge of more or less any sort. Still, just for the hell of it, let’s take a few moments to think about […]

Plutocracy

Ryan steps down, with Lifetime dream of transferring Trillions from People to Super-Rich Fulfilled

contributors

By Jake Johnson, staff writer | ( Commondreams.org ) | – – Having successfully rammed through tax legislation that massively rewards America’s billionaires—including his long-time patrons Charles and David Koch—and sets the stage for his ultimate goal of obliterating the safety net, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is reportedly set to tell his staff on […]

Democratic Party

Protests won’t stop Trump derailing Mueller Inquiry; Putting the Left in Congress Will

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The broad hints Trump gave Monday that the search of his personal attorney’s offices on a tip from Robert Mueller might lead him to fire deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has galvanized the American left, which is pledging massive public rallies in response. Public protests and […]

Militarization

America’s Forever Wars as Spectator Sport

contributors

By Andrew J. Bacevich | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – The purpose of all wars, is peace. So observed St. Augustine early in the first millennium A.D. Far be it from me to disagree with the esteemed Bishop of Hippo, but his crisply formulated aphorism just might require a bit of updating. I’m not a […]

Corruption

Will Trump divert attention from Cohen Raid by attacking Syria?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Matt Apuzzo of the New York Times reports that FBI agents produced a warrant at the offices in the Rockefeller Center of Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, that allowed them to gain access and to spend hours going through and confiscating documents and equipment. Trump lambasted […]

Donald Trump

Psychopathocracy Matures: Trump asks why CIA did not Massacre family of Militant with Drone

contributors

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Greg Jaffe at the Washington Post reports that Trump has reversed an Obama-era push to get the Central Intelligence Agency out of the business of assassinating people with drone strikes (Obama had tried to shift most such operations to the Department of Defense). In the course […]

Drone Warfare

Trump’s Increasingly Secret Air and Drone Wars

contributors

By Jessica Purkiss and Abigail Fielding-Smith | ( Bureau of Investigative Journalism) | – – Civil rights group calls the transparency clampdown “deeply disturbing” Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share the URL Send via Email The US has quietly stepped up secrecy over its air wars in Afghanistan and Yemen since President Donald Trump […]