I've written extensively about US aid to tyrannies in the Middle East as a method to keep governments in place that will obey US demands and that will prevent the populations from interfering with policymaking. And a government ain't a government without that...
Charlie Savage at the New York Times has a piece up from yesterday citing declassified documents revealing that the Federal Bureau of Investigation often keeps suspects on their terrorist watch list even if they have been found not guilty in a court of law....
A mere day after the forces of light and progress ensured that no American can be deprived of his or her God-given right to kill foreigners, a new crisis of conscience emerged. A Chicago Sun-Times editorial from Sept. 21 has the details: Give military women equal...
As in many other places around the globe, the United States has a bad track record of propping up leaders and groups in Somalia, only to watch them crumble months or years later. Siad Barre, the ruthless military dictator of Somalia, was kept in power by the US until...
Tunisia was the spark of the revolution that is the Arab Spring. The Tunisian foreign minister has announced that the transitional government is ready for elections to take place next month on October 23. The elections will be the first since the overthrow of the...
The Net is abuzz today with the irony, that Peter Van Buren, a 23-year foreign service officer with the U.S Department of State, may be the only department personnel to be fired over the WikiLeaks' scandal. Van Buren, who just published the book, We Meant Well: How I...
Last week, the Federation of American Scientists released “Upsetting the Reset: The Technical Basis of Russian Concern Over NATO Missile Defense” [.pdf]. The introduction includes a recurring theme of the Bush-Obama years: In September 2009, the Obama administration...
Israel has always undercut any possible peace process, but its tactics are big and small. Officials don't have to start a war in Gaza to break a truce with Hamas, they can also just say things like "Abbas is the best Palestinian leader for Israel." Thus spake...
Last week, Turkey asked the US for assistance (read: weapons) in fighting separatist Kurds in southeast Turkey. As I mentioned in the piece, it wouldn't be the first time and back when the Clinton administration "donated" arms to Turkey for this same reason, it...
