‘Aiding and Abetting’ Crimes is Unlawful, Sometimes
The International Criminal Court has sentenced Charles G. Taylor, the former president of Liberia "to 50 years in prison over his role in atrocities committed in Sierra Leone during its civil war in the 1990s," reports the New York Times. As is common for heads of...
The Worst Horror Imaginable
...is to be called an 'Arab.' At least that is my take away from the latest Obama ad to appease bigots. In today's Electronic Intifada, editor Ali Abunimah notes how easily and breezily this slips by the sensible Eastern Establishment censors: But The Hill fails to...
There’s No Such Thing as Civilians in the Drone War
Via Glenn Greenwald, this New York Times report on the Obama administration's drone wars: Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants,...
The BBC’s Photo Fib of a Syrian Massacre
A few days have passed since the BBC irresponsibly passed off this 2003 picture of dead Iraqis as depicting dead Syrians in last week's Houla massacre. The original photographer, who works for Getty Images, said “Someone is using someone else's picture for propaganda...
Cup of Coffee Should Cover It, Right?
Its Memorial Day and for many Americans this means vacation. Not for Antiwar.com of course, because the war doesn't take a vacation and neither do we. But this sort of "take a trip up north" or "go to a barbecue" holiday comes with the built-in assumption that we...
A Decade of War ‘Not Worth the Effort’
As jingoists condemn critiques that the veterans have not been fighting for our freedoms (much the opposite) on this here Memorial Day, consider this passage surprisingly printed on the front page of today's New York Times: Broadly, the question is what the United...
Questioning State Doctrine on Memorial Day
Apparently yesterday's MSNBC show Up with Chris Hayes is getting a lot of attention. And by attention I mean vitriol. His crime? questioning the martial civic religion and the morality of mindless soldier worship on Memorial Day. I can't decide whether or not I'm...
US Iran Policy Intended to Leave Open ‘Avenues for Regime Change’
Joshua Landis, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma, posted on his blog last week a letter from a friend who witnessed an encounter between an Iranian opposition activist and U.S. State Department...
The Ever-Shrinking Burden of Proof
Taking the "scary Iran story" angle to a new low, a new report today reveals that Iran could theoretically make 5 nuclear bombs if it took all of its civilian uranium and dedicated it exclusively to weapons production. The bulk of Iran's uranium is enriched to 3.5%,...
