News broke this week that Israeli bus company Afikim began running "Palestinian-only" buses to transport West Bank Palestinian workers into Israel, reportedly because Israeli settlers complained about having to ride the bus with Arabs. See Mondoweiss for details on...
US political leaders and media pundits trumpet North Korea's recent testing of missiles and nuclear weapons as a great threat. But the US mass media do not tell the whole story. Without the context of history and current events, the actions of North Korea look insane,...
See here for the background of the UK investigations of "terrifying acts of brutality" by British troops in Iraq. We all know the stories from Abu Ghraib. And see here and here for some of the details about US-sanctioned torture that the WikiLeaks cables revealed.
White House Denounces Dennis Rodman No, seriously, they did. The White House issued a whole statement condemning the Dennis Rodman visit to North Korea, and North Korea for allowing him to visit, insisting "celebrity sporting events" of this kind are unacceptable. The...
Secretary of State John Kerry stopped off in Saudi Arabia on Monday to stand united in the name of democracy in Syria. The Associated Press called it "a united front," reporting that Kerry and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal "warned Syrian President...
In anticipation for his book release next month, Vali Nasr is publishing harsh critiques of the Obama administration's foreign policy (see earlier ones here and here). Nasr was at the State Department in Obama's first term working on Afghanistan and Pakistan under...
Less than a week. That's how long it took for Hagel to start toeing the Obama line on sequestration, contradicting his now infamous prior statement that the Pentagon is "bloated" and "needs to be pared down." Antiwar voices that got excited over Hagel's nomination...
This Week's Top News: Western Diplomats: Iran Talks Made Progress: Iranian officials had expressed similar optimism about the talks, calling them a major turning point and saying that for basically the first time in years of talks Western nations seem interested in...
Governments survive on myth. Truth is dangerous. As Chief Nazi "Information Officer" Goebbels put it, "...the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State." While the main stream media averts its eyes,...
In recent months, a number of essays have been written by some of the most prominent scholars in international relations, all on the same topic: US grand strategy. The question that these scholars have sought to address is whether the US should adopt a more restrained...
