Vice President Joe Biden, who has been traversing Europe in the aftermath of the pro-Russian referendum in Crimea, announced on Tuesday that the U.S. "may consider rotating units of its ground and naval forces through the [Baltic] region for training exercises." This...
The Libya Intervention Was an Illegal Failure. Thus: Hooray for Intervention!
Three years ago, the UN approved NATO action in Libya to impose a no-fly zone and head off an allegedly imminent bloodbath perpetrated by the Gadhafi regime. Days before this third anniversary, the Libyan parliament basically impeached the Prime Minister following the...
Empire on Their Minds
The conflict in Ukraine has prompted several level-headed commentators to point out that, of all governments, the U.S. government is in no position to lecture Russia about respecting other nations’ borders. When Secretary of State John Kerry said on Meet the Press,...
Bill Kristol Calls For Americans to be ‘Awakened and Rallied’ to War
Bill Kristol is not shy about his fetish for war. His latest piece at the neoconservative Weekly Standard borders on self-parody in the way that it openly longs for a return to a time when Americans were eager to send the U.S. military off on unnecessary,...
Obama’s Calls for Russian Sanctions Reveal Hypocrisy
With tensions in Crimea continuing to swell, so too has friction between the United States and Russian governments. On Monday, President Obama issued an executive order instituting travel bans and freezing the assets of Russian government officials believed to be...
Ambivalence and Insincerity on Crimea’s Vote to Join Russia
More than 90 percent of Crimean voters have voted to join Russia. Putin and the rest of Moscow are praising the power of democracy, however disingenuously, and Obama and all of Washington are condemning the referendum as an illegal act. As has been true throughout...
Medea Benjamin: Why I Didn’t Make It to Gaza for International Women’s Day
When I boarded the plane to Cairo, Egypt, to make sure everything was in place for the women’s delegation headed to Gaza, I had no reason to think I’d end up in a jail cell at the Cairo airport and then violently deported. The trip was in response to a call from women...
The Outrageous and Criminal Cover-Up By Obama and the CIA
Imagine you commit a heinous crime. Then imagine that, once facing charges in court, you're allowed to withhold incriminating evidence brought forth by the prosecutors, keeping the jury in the dark about the details of your lawbreaking. Further, imagine you commit...
Al-Aqsa vs. Israel: The Lurking Danger Beneath
Something sinister is brewing around and below al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, and it has the hallmark of a familiar Israeli campaign to strip the Mosque of its Muslim Arab identity. This time around, however, the stakes are much higher. The status of...
Human Rights Watch: NSA Surveillance ‘Violates Fundamental Civil & Political Rights’
The key to being taken seriously in Washington is to condemn other countries for their failures, crimes, and shortcomings and to praise the United States of America. One should never entertain the notion that the U.S. should be condemned for human rights abuses on the...


