I am mystified by all the whooping on the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. Most of the commentators seem to believe that Lincoln was an honest man touting the highest ideals. The fact that warmongers like George W. Bush and Obama purport to idolize Lincoln...
60 Minutes: Life at Gitmo
Drone Victims Take on Washington DC
Faisal bin Ali Gaber is a soft-spoken engineer from Yemen. After he lost his cousin and brother-in-law in a drone strike in August 2012, he published an open letter to President Obama and Yemeni President Hadi. He said his brother-in-law was an imam who had strongly...
US Asia-Pivot Could Inflame Anti-Colonialist Sentiment
Obama's strategic pivot to Asia has been hamstrung by hard facts. Sequestration included cuts to the defense budget that officials say handicapped the planned military surge in East Asia. The Syrian civil war, nuclear negotiations with Iran, and efforts to get Israeli...
Here’s How We Know Iran Is Serious About a Nuclear Deal
Those in Congress who oppose U.S.-Iran negotiations to settle the nuclear issue essentially argue that Iran is untrustworthy and is simply trying to buy time in talks to build a nuclear bomb. Anyone paying attention can see this is irrational. First of all, the...
Why the Status of Forces Agreement Is So Important for Afghanistan
In about a month and a half it will be 2014. As far as U.S. policy in Afghanistan is concerned, 2014 is a big year. When President Obama announced the military surge in 2009, he mapped out a so-called "withdrawal" plan and the date for the official end of the surge...
NSA Aside, It’s Way Too Easy For Government to Snoop On You
Since Edward Snowden's leaks, much attention has been paid to the domestic surveillance capabilities of the NSA, which have turned out to be more egregious than many predicted. But it's worth remembering that the government has all kinds of ways to invade the privacy...
LA vs NSA, Antiwar.com vs FBI (or Us vs the Empire)
Thursday, November 14th, 6:30pm at Huffington Center at St. Sophia Cathedral, a coalition of activists will be introducing LA vs NSA: How to Push Back Against Warrantless Spying as part of the Stop NSA Spying Coalition. The Huffington Center is located at 1324...
When Falsehoods Triumph: Why a Winning Palestinian Narrative Is Hard To Find
In an initially pointless exercise that lasted nearly an hour, I flipped between two Palestinian television channels, Al Aqsa TV of Hamas in Gaza and Palestine TV of Fatah in the West Bank. While both purported to represent Palestine and the Palestinians, each seemed...
US Refuses to Cooperate With Afghan Investigation Into War Crimes
Last week, Matthieu Aikins at Rolling Stone shed light on evidence that U.S. forces committed war crimes against Afghans, including extra-judicial executions, torture, and disappearances of at least 17 men. The following day, Human Rights Watch issued a statement...
