Antiwar

AZERTAC (the Azerbaijan State News Agency) recently conducted an interview with one Isak Novruzov, chairman of the Council of Elders of Azerbaijanis in Georgia, with the headline Shusha Declaration will serve the unity of the Turkic world, ensuring stability and security in the region. Shusha, known as Shushi to Armenians, is a city in that part of Nagorno-Karabakh conquered last year […]

Originally posted at TomDispatch. This editor’s note introduced the single article that took up almost every inch of space in the August 31, 1946, New Yorker magazine: “TO OUR READERS: The New Yorker this week devotes its entire editorial space to an article on the almost complete obliteration of a city by one atomic bomb, and what happened to the people of […]

It was common knowledge that a U.S. failure to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal (known as the JCPOA) before Iran’s June presidential election would help conservative hard-liners to win the election. Indeed, on Saturday, June 19, the conservative Ebrahim Raisi was elected as the new President of Iran. Raisi has a record of brutally cracking down on government opponents and his election […]

Julian Assange remains in a maximum security jail, despite never being sentenced for anything but a long ago served spell for bail-jumping, and despite the US Government’s request for extradition having been refused. It is approaching six months since I was in court to hear the decision rejecting Julian’s extradition, and it was in the same week that Baraitser ordered Julian be […]

This past September, Turkey and Israel encouraged Azerbaijan’s “mini-Stalin” of a strongman to forcefully seize the disputed mountainous patch of Armenian-inhabited Caucasus-earth known as Nagorno-Karabakh. These treaty or decisively de-facto allies, respectively, armed and backed Baku’s decision to take what’s been called a “frozen conflict” out of the freezer for good – thereby committing the “supreme crime” of aggression, […]

At least four people were killed, and 14 were wounded in recent violence: In Sulaimaniya, 11 people were wounded when a clash broke out between Asayesh security forces and the Golden Force. The Golden Force is a Peshmerga unit associated with Kurdistan Region Vice President Jaafar Sheikh Mustafa. Several journalists reporting from the hospital where the injured were taken reported that they were attacked and prevented […]

The U.S. economic war on Iran hasn’t ended, and one of the costs of that war has been the increasing authoritarianism of the Iranian government. The “maximum pressure” campaign is not solely responsible for empowering Iranian hard-liners and contributing to the rigged victory of Ebrahim Raisi, the head of Iran’s judiciary, but it has significantly undermined reformists, impoverished middle class Iranians, […]

President Joe Biden recently met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, causing some complaint in Washington. After all, the latter runs an authoritarian state. To highlight his public commitment to democracy, Biden told the press: “I made it clear to him that I believe the consequences of [opposition leader Alexei Navalny dying in prison] would be devastating for Russia.” That sounds serious, yet after being elected Biden […]

Recent news reports coming out of Nicaragua confirm that Daniel Ortega’s autocratic, left-wing regime is tightening its already repressive rule over the country’s population. Nicaragua’s November presidential election is fast shaping up to be a farce. During just the first two weeks of June, authorities went after four of Ortega’s principal challengers in that election. Police arrested two presidential hopefuls on June 8 – Félix Maradiaga, […]

At least nine people were killed, and nine were wounded in recent violence: An attack on a militia checkpoint in Adhaim left three dead and four wounded. Two of the wounded were security personnel. One of the fatalities may also have been a militia member. In Baghdad, a father and his son were killed in a roadside bomb blast. Gunmen killed a civilian. The body of […]

Last week President Joe Biden attended the latest NATO summit but achieved nothing of note, other than reaffirming America’s promise to defend Europe even if the Europeans won’t do so themselves. However, he did reject the attempt by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to force the alliance to admit Kyiv. Adding Ukraine as a defense dependent would be against America’s interest by […]

On June 15, 2021, Israeli far-right nationalists took part in a flag-waving march through occupied East Jerusalem. The so-called March of the Flags beats the drums of colonialism – it is an open celebration of the anniversary of Israel’s 1967 occupation of the city’s eastern part. The Israeli government decided shortly after the end of the 1967 war to annex East Jerusalem […]

President Joe Biden’s words about China at the Geneva summit shows him to be woefully misinformed about the “world correlation of forces” (to borrow from an old Soviet term). He appears to be stuck in a decades-old paradigm of Sino-Russian hostility, which President Richard Nixon was able to leverage into key arms control agreements with Moscow during the early 70s. In my […]

On June 16, US president Joe Biden and Russian president Vladimir Putin issued a Joint Statement on Strategic Stability, in which they “reaffirm the principle that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” and “seek to lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures.” With the extension of the New START treaty and joint statements […]

At President Putin’s press conference right after yesterday’s summit meeting with President Biden, Euronews journalist Galina Polonskaya asked Putin if he had reached “a new level of trust with the U.S. president.” In response, Putin quoted Leo Tolstoy: “Tolstoy once said, there is no happiness in life, only lightening flashes (зарницы) of it – cherish them. I believe that in this situation […]

At least two people were killed, and five were wounded in recent violence: In Amara, gunmen killed a police officer working in the anti-corruption section. The body of a man was found in Sinjar. Three militiamen were injured in a bombing in Dour. In Baghdad, gunmen wounded a government employee. A bomb in Muqdadiya wounded a retired teacher. Author: Margaret Griffis Margaret Griffis is a […]

Last Monday, NATO held its yearly summit in Brussels, where heads of state and Foreign and Defense Ministers gathered to discuss the general outlines of the alliance’s common policy. Precisely on that morning, I crossed a digital poster in the metro station of Brussels-South. “NATO works to protect our future,” the message read. A hula-hooping girl in the background of the […]

It’s no secret that college campuses have always been one of the most steadfast bastions of antiwar sentiment throughout America. Indeed, student resistance to illegal, imperialist wars from Vietnam to Iraq has been well documented. Countless students participated in draft card burnings, building occupations, and protests against these wars and other acts of aggression. But less examined is the history of […]

At least eight people were killed, and one more was wounded in recent violence: Near Baquba, a bomb killed three soldiers. An attack on a nearby checkpoint left a policeman dead. A man was seriously injured when an old bomb exploded in Shura. Turkey reported that airstrikes targeting Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.) near Gara left four guerrillas dead. Author: Margaret Griffis Margaret Griffis is a […]

If the US Government was trying to destroy Burkina Faso, it could hardly have done it any better. But this already impoverished, landlocked West African country is simply symptomatic of Franco-America’s Sahel-wide exercise in absurdity. It goes like this: in the years following the 9/11 attacks there was no Islamist militant threat to speak of in this region. Nevertheless, on […]

Aside from establishing face-to-face contact between the the two presidents, the Biden-Putin summit today met only the most modest expectations of those hoping for improved ties between the U.S. and Russia. By the same token, weapons makers and others profiteering on tension with Russia, and living in fear of a thaw in bilateral relations, can now breathe a sigh of relief. Presidential […]

On May 25, famous American actor, Mark Ruffalo, tweeted an apology for suggesting that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza. “I have reflected and wanted to apologize for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas fighting that suggested Israel is committing ‘genocide’,” Ruffalo wrote, adding, “It’s not accurate, it’s inflammatory, disrespectful and is being used to justify anti-Semitism, here and abroad. Now is the […]

President Joe Biden is visiting Europe, spreading hugs and kisses to lovelorn European officials traumatized by Donald Trump’s oft-expressed disdain. Fearful that the good times of American security guarantees might end, Europeans contemplated a world in which they might have to do their own heavy lifting when it came their defense. Oh, the horror, the injustice of life! But that fear has vanished with Joe Biden […]

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been an alliance without a purpose for thirty years, and every few years it latches on to the latest big security issue to justify its continued existence. In the 1990s, Balkan interventionism and peacekeeping filled the void left by the demise of the Soviet Union and collapse of the Warsaw Pact. The illegal Kosovo war […]

US sanctions and other actions against Russia and China have naturally drawn Beijing and Moscow closer together. Despite the obvious result of Washington’s policies over the past few years, US officials are acting surprised and concerned about the growing Russia-China relationship. A Biden administration official told Politico that the issue was of so much concern to the US that President Biden had recently been briefed on […]

At least six were killed, and two were wounded in recent violence: Three people were killed when an old bomb exploded in Tal al-Lahm. An explosion in Bani Saad killed one soldier and wounded two more. A gunman killed a tribal sheikh in Amara. The body of a man who had gone missing in Maysan was found with gunshot and burn marks on it. Author: Margaret […]

The Trump years were not good years for Latin America. There were coups in Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela. There were some signs that things may change under the Biden administration. But recent moves have pointed those signs back in the old direction. Ecuador After early indications from an unsettled and still confused new administration that Biden was going to continue Trump’s interventionist […]

After 12 years, Israel finally inaugurated a new prime minister. While being hailed by many as the opportunity for a fresh start, Naftali Bennett is at best a continuer of Netanyahu’s policies and at worst an ideologue whose positions are to the right of Netanyahu’s. In 2013, as Middle East peace talks were set to resume after a five-year freeze, Bennett reportedly […]

A development that set an extremely unfortunate foreign policy precedent took place during the waning weeks of George H.W. Bush’s administration when the United States commenced a “humanitarian” military intervention in Somalia. Although that effort ostensibly operated under the auspices of the United Nations, Washington was firmly in command. The multi-sided conflict in Somalia among rival militias had spawned a serious famine, which U.S. and other […]

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. Karl Marx’s comment came to mind as President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson sought to equate their tête-à-tête at the G7 confab in Cornwall, England, to the Atlantic Charter conference of 80 years ago. Those were historic days, to which these days cannot compare. In August 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and […]

Fifty years ago the Pentagon Papers exploded politically in a nation weary of the Vietnam War. Daniel Ellsberg worked on a Defense Department study about Washington’s involvement in Vietnam. He was so appalled with the findings that he leaked the document to the New York Times. The embarrassed Nixon administration sought to block publication. Attorney General John W. Mitchell, later imprisoned for […]

He hasn’t gone anywhere, actually. He’s been here all along – poking small holes of decency in sick system, for five-plus decades. At 90, Dan Ellsberg is with us still, and still calling bullshit on a government that couldn’t act right if it tried, to a citizenry that couldn’t care less. Most of it, anyway; reminding me, at least – here at […]

At least 18 people were killed, and nine were wounded in recent violence: In Badush, authorities removed 123 bodies from a mass grave dating back to the ISIS occupation. The mass grave was first located in 2017. Dozens of people have given blood samples in recent weeks in the hope of identifying family members in the mass grave. In Kirkuk, snipers killed a federal police officer. […]

At least one person was killed, and nine were wounded in recent violence: Turkish authorities claimed to have killed a senior P.K.K. official at a refugee camp in Makhmour. This is the second senior official killed in less than a week at the camp, which shelters Kurdish refugees from Turkey. Turkey also claims that the camp houses members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.) and that […]

The United States Army plans to build an enormous weapons facility storing stockpiles of conventional warheads and explosives right next to the residential housing communities of Ewa Beach, Ewa Villages, West Loch Estates, and Ewa Gentry, as well as beside the Pearl Harbor National Wildlife Refuge in Hawaii. This Pacific island paradise already has the largest concentration of United States military […]

We are led to believe that history is being made in Israel, following the formation of an ideologically diverse government coalition, which for the first time includes an Arab party, Ra’am, or the United Arab List. If we are to accept this logic, the leader of Ra’am, Mansour Abbas, is a mover and shaker of history, the same way that Naftali Bennett of […]

The latest Israeli bombardment of its internally – and seemingly eternally – occupied open air prison of Gaza followed a familiar pattern. First, there was the disturbingly drastic casualty disparity: a 21-to-one overall, and 33-to-one for children, Palestinian-to-Israeli death ratio (in the three previous Gaza bombings since 2008, the overall statistic was 35-to-one). Next, there was the Biden administration’s simultaneous approval […]

Originally posted at TomDispatch. In this century, Memorial Day, a civic holiday, has gained an almost religious tinge. That third Monday in May is meant, of course, to honor the dead of this country’s wars and has a history that goes back to the period after the Civil War when, thanks to the bloodshed of that conflict, America’s first national cemeteries were […]

For the first time in American history, a federal judge last week authorized the government to admit as evidence in a criminal case in a public courtroom words uttered by the defendant that were obtained under torture. The fruits of torture – which is any cruel or degrading or intentionally painful or disorienting behavior visited upon a person in captivity to induce compliance […]

The following is the Introduction to Antiwar.com editorial director Scott Horton’s new book, Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism. The Middle East, North Africa and South-Central Asia are in chaos. Populations have been riven by sectarian civil war in what remains of the former states of Iraq, Syria, Libya and Mali, across to Afghanistan and down into the Arabian […]

In 1974, at the 29th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, made his “olive branch” speech, for which he received a standing ovation. “Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I repeat: Do not […]

At least two people were killed, and one was wounded in recent violence. Eleven people were found in a mass grave: A rocket attack was launched on Baghdad International Airport. A few hours later U.S. Forces shot down a drone over Camp Victoria. Rockets also struck the Balad airbase. No casualties were reported. A mass grave in Sinjar yielded 11 Yazidi victims. A man was killed, […]

Reading the tea leaves a week before Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin meet in Geneva puts a premium on the kind of media analysis we old-school Kremlinologists had to rely on back in the day. Not all rhetoric is equal though; it is just as important to make an honest attempt to reconstruct the … Continue reading “Biden-Putin Summit: Boon or Bust?” The post Biden-Putin […]

At some point before the summer of 2018, an arms deal from the US to Saudi Arabia was sealed and delivered. A 227kg laser-guided bomb made by Lockheed Martin, one of many thousands, was part of that sale. On August 9th, 2018 one of those Lockheed Martin bombs was dropped on a school bus full of Yemeni children. They were on their […]

U.S. Iran policy is marred by many flaws, and some of the worst are threat inflation, imperial arrogance, and hypocrisy. Alarmist media reporting routinely overstates the threat that Iran poses to the US and the world, and hawkish politicians and pundits are only too eager to use this alarmism to agitate for more aggressive policies and to scuttle ongoing diplomacy. Even when […]

At least four people were killed, and five were wounded in recent violence: In Darkar, Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.) killed a Kurdish Peshmerga fighter. A clash near Khanaqin left one militiaman dead and another three wounded. A militant leader was killed in a separate event. In Baghdad, gunmen killed a senior intelligence officer. Two civilians were wounded in a shooting in Kokjili. Author: Margaret Griffis […]

President Joe Biden has proposed his first budget and the Pentagon won’t go without. Biden followed his Republican predecessor in pushing higher military spending. Although the proposed increase, from $740 billion to $753 billion, isn’t a lot, he invited Congress to spend more by playing the Washington game of underestimating expenditures for politically popular programs. The president evidently has few progressive impulses […]

Since Joe Biden took office as president in January, there has been considerable speculation about the prospects for successful U.S. negotiations with Iran to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) regarding Tehran’s nuclear program. President Donald Trump effectively torpedoed that agreement when he rescinded Washington’s adherence to its provisions in 2018. The chances of resuscitating the JCPOA remain uncertain, even as tensions between the […]

“Take away this pudding; it has no theme,” is a comment attributed to Winston Churchill, when a disappointing dessert was put in front of him. Writers have used Churchill’s remark to describe a foreign policy that lacks coherence or centrality of purpose. For most of our lifetimes, this has not been true of the United States. The goal of our foreign policy has […]

I have my doubts whether the Putin-Biden summit in Geneva will take place later this month, but even if somehow it is pulled off, recent Biden Administration blunders mean the chance anything of substance will be achieved is virtually nil. The Biden Administration was supposed to signal a return of the “adults” to the room. No more bully Trump telling NATO it’s […]

The photo was unprecedented. It showed Mansour Abbas, leader of an Islamist party for Palestinians in Israel, signing an agreement on Wednesday night to sit in a “government of change” alongside settler leader Naftali Bennett. Caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will fervently try to find a way to break up the coalition in the next few days, before a parliamentary vote […]

At least eight people were killed, and two were wounded in recent violence: Near Makhmour, at least three civilians were killed and two more were wounded when Turkish bombs targeting Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.) guerrillas instead landed in a U.N.-supported refugee camp housing Kurdish refugees from Turkey. The camp has housed refugees for decades. This week, however, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan directly threatened the camp […]

Even the biggest, toughest, meanest movie characters go wobbly when facing the Great Panda. At least when Chinese nationalism demands they kowtow to its demands. The latest Hollywood wimp who plays a real man on screen is John Cena. The former wrestler, when promoting his role in Fast & Furious 9, stated that Taiwan was a country. After realizing his “mistake,” he immediately […]

In Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, a broad but shaky new “change coalition” claims it’s ready to finally oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – the right-wing Likud leader who’s held the office for the last 12 years. If approved, the new coalition would anoint as prime minister Naftali Bennett, a former Netanyahu ally who supports settlement expansion and annexation of much of the […]

Human rights defenders on Wednesday accused the Biden administration of joining its predecessors in undercounting the number of civilians killed during US wars, as the latest annual Pentagon report on noncombatants killed by American bombs and bullets was blasted as “grossly inadequate” by a leading ACLU official. According to a Department of Defense report (pdf), US forces killed 23 civilians last year […]

At least three people were killed, and 10 were wounded in recent violence: A militant attack in Tarmiya left one person dead and seven wounded. Three of the wounded were militiamen. In Baghdad, a tribal fighter was killed. In Amara, a sniper killed a young man leaving a soccer game. A bomb wounded two small children in Tal Afar. A militiaman was wounded during an attack […]

The political discourse of Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, is similar to that of an ineffectual king who has been isolated in his palace for far too long. The king speaks of prosperity and peace, and tirelessly counts his innumerable achievements, while his people are dying of starvation outside and pointlessly begging for his attention. […]

Once you have been active in politics for a few decades, you get used to the popular convulsions of support for Palestine every few years when Israel military action against Gaza becomes particularly intense. Then follows a ceasefire, the media move on and Israel resumes the daily routine of low level evictions, destruction of tree crops, imprisonments and murders that accomplishes the […]

US President Joe Biden rolled out his 2022 federal budget request on May 28, surprising no one with his proposals for lavish expenditures on education, healthcare, and infrastructure, or with his promise that only the rich will be soaked to pay for it all (the $1.8 trillion projected deficit will be borrowed in your name, but you’re not supposed to notice). […]

At least eight people were killed, and another was wounded recently: Eight militants were killed in a French-Peshmerga, anti-ISIS operation near Tuz Khormato and Kifri. Turkish strikes targeting Kurdistan Workers Party (P.K.K) guerrillas instead wounded a civilian. Author: Margaret Griffis Margaret Griffis is a journalist from Miami Beach, Florida and has been covering Iraqi casualties for Antiwar.com since 2006. View all posts by Margaret […]

In this crisply written, well-researched book, Lesley Blume, a journalist and biographer, tells the fascinating story of the background to John Hersey’s pathbreaking article “Hiroshima,” and of its extraordinary impact upon the world. In 1945, although only 30 years of age, Hersey was a very prominent war correspondent for Time magazine – a key part of publisher Henry Luce’s magazine empire […]

“There will be no way to avoid one day temporarily taking over Gaza,” Yuval Steinitz, Netanyahu’s energy minister said just days before the latest ceasefire. “That day has not arrived for all kinds of reasons. I think the day will come, if not now than in the coming years.” Though the next war on Gaza may not explode immediately, that will be because […]

Unfounded or unconfirmed charges of antisemitism made by US pro-Israel organizations which are then parroted by the pro-Zionist US mainstream press, always increase when Israeli actions become so hideous they shame even some of its most dedicated supporters. With the latest Israeli shelling of Gaza, its evictions of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in … Continue reading “Antisemitism’s Misdirection: Who Gets Hurt?” The post Antisemitism’s […]

Two successive U.S. administrations were complicit in war crimes in Yemen. The Saudi royals did the killing, both directly through air strikes and indirectly through a blockade. Tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians have died in more than six years of conflict. However, America provided, armed, refueled, and serviced Saudi warplanes. Washington also dispensed targeting intelligence, allegedly to diminish civilian casualties by a foreign […]

Silvia from Miami, Eduardo from Hialeah, Abel from Lakeland. The names pour in on the donations page for “Syringes to Cuba” as Carlos Lazo promotes the campaign on his popular Facebook livestream. An energetic Cuban-American high school teacher in Seattle, Lazo created a group called Puentes de Amor, Bridges of Love, to unite Cuban Americans who want to lift the […]

The Biden administration hasn’t followed through on its commitment to end U.S. support for the Saudi coalition war on Yemen. Almost four months since Biden announced the end to US support for Saudi coalition “offensive operations,” the administration refuses to tell Congress what kind of support it has halted and what it has continued. A request from 41 members of […]

During the month of May, 110 people were killed, and 156 were wounded in Iraq. The number of fatalities is down from April, when 166 people were killed. Militant-related violence left 23 civilians, 43 security personnel, and 26 militants dead. At least 38 civilians and 63 security personnel were wounded. One person was killed and 50 were wounded in protests.  In northern Iraq, the conflict between […]

After an 11-day bombing campaign in Gaza that killed at least 256 Palestinians, including 67 children, Israel has its hand out to its greatest ally for an additional $1 billion in “emergency” military aid, on top of the $3.8 billion Washington provides each year. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) confirmed that Israel will make the request a day after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in […]

The ceasefire on May 21 has, for now, brought the Israeli war on Gaza to an end. However, this ceasefire is not permanent and constant Israeli provocations anywhere in Palestine could reignite the bloody cycle all over again. Moreover, the Israeli siege on Gaza remains in place, as well as the Israeli military occupation and the rooted system of apartheid […]

“Dig a hole, cover it with a couple of doors and then throw three feet of dirt on top. . . . It’s the dirt that does it. . . . . If there are enough shovels to go around, everybody’s going to make it.” This bit of cheery advice was offered by Thomas K. (“T.K.”) Jones, deputy undersecretary of defense for research […]

The United States has had a long, dishonorable history of supporting a series of “friendly dictators” in Egypt. It dates from the late 1970s, when Anwar el-Sadat broke with the pro-Soviet, anti-Western orientation that his predecessor, Gamal Abdel Nasser established in the 1950s. Sadat’s decision to sign the Camp David peace accord with Israel cemented his heroic reputation in the United […]

At least three people were killed, and 13 were wounded: A bomb in Daquq killed one police officer and wounded three policemen. One militiaman was killed and another was wounded in an ISIS attack near Khanaqin. An ISIS attack left four soldiers with injuries in Tuz Khormato. In Dibs, two soldiers were wounded in an ISIS attack. Two Iraqi soldiers were wounded when a bomb exploded […]

Reprinted from The Grayzone with the author’s permission. A previously censored account of the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis that was sponsored by the Pentagon has been published in full by the leaker of the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg. The report provides a hair-raising portrait of a reckless US military leadership relentlessly pressing President Dwight Eisenhower for the authority to carry […]

When the Israeli government describes the conflict over the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem as just a “real-estate dispute,” it has a point. Palestinian families are at risk of eviction (and some have already been evicted) from homes they’ve lived in for many years so that Jewish settlers, many of whom were born in Brooklyn, N.Y., can move into them. This […]

The serried ranks of graves at Arlington National Cemetery never fail to simultaneously impress and sadden. So many lives forfeited. So many families bereaved. So many communities disrupted. For what were so many and so much sacrificed? Alas, only rarely for freedom, as preening politicians piously proclaim. That rhetoric is cheap is never more evident than during Memorial Day remembrances. Many of […]

Israel’s most precious asset, peace, has been shattered. Continuation of the unequal war against Hamas in Gaza is not the greatest threat to the Jewish state’s future. Rather, the possibility of a broader conflict including Israel’s Palestinian citizens is a frightening abyss into which Israeli and U.S. policymakers alike must now stare. If Israel continues to seize Palestinian land and treat Palestinians […]

Lebanese Foreign Minister, Charbel Wehbe, resigned from his position last Wednesday, over remarks made during a TV interview, that insinuated the rise of the Islamic State (IS formerly ISIS) was facilitated by the Gulf States. Speaking to the Al-hurra regional network on Monday 17th May, Wehbe stated: “Those countries of love, friendship and fraternity – they brought us Daesh and planted […]

The “Palestinian Revolt of 2021” will go down in history as one of the most influential events that irreversibly shaped collective thinking in and around Palestine. Only two other events can be compared with what has just transpired in Palestine: the revolt of 1936 and the First Intifada of 1987. The general strike and rebellion of 1936-39 were momentous because they […]

On September 28, 2000, Ariel Sharon led a group of Likud politicians, surrounded by a thousand armed police, up the Temple Mount, home of the Al-Aqsa Mosque: an unprecedented provocation at one of Islam’s holiest sites. The next day, as thousands of Palestinians protested, Israeli police opened fire on the protesters, and, the day after that, the second intifada was born. Sharon […]

At least four people were killed, and 11 were wounded in recent violence: Gunmen killed one civilian and wounded three more in a drive-by attack in Nasariya. An inmate died under mysterious circumstances at the Nasariya Central Prison. A bomb in Wadi al-Shay killed a police officer. The body of a kidnapped teenager was found in Abbara. The boy was from Khalis. Unidentified gunmen attacked a […]

Once upon a time, the United States of America – the world’s self-styled “beacon of democracy” – nearly nuked China’s then 600 millions worth of innocents. This, before Beijing even had any A-Bombs of its own. Well, that much we’ve known, in broad strokes – though, I fear, without the requisite resultant soul-searching – since historian Gordon Chang’s 1988 journal […]

In 2018, telling us that “trade wars are good, and easy to win,” then-US-president Donald Trump imposed 15-25% tariffs (versus the previous rate of 10% and the average US tariff of 1.6%) on various Chinese goods, ranging from “dental cements and other dental fillings” to “Trout, fresh or chilled, excluding fillets, other meat portions, livers and roes.” China wasn’t the only […]

An unofficial ceasefire in Iraq has just been called off between powerful and established Shi’ite militias. Their renewed violence will be leveraged against the remaining 5,000 United States troops in the country. In a statement on Saturday from a group calling themselves the Iraq Resistance Coordinating Commission (IRCC), the militia leaders slammed the executive branch of the Iraqi government for […]

At least two people were killed, and 61 were wounded in recent violence: Demonstrations against the deaths of activists in recent days took place in Baghdad. Security personnel attacked the demonstrators. Two protesters were killed. At least 28 civilians and 22 security personnel were wounded. A bomb in Haditha wounded 10 civilians. A civilian was wounded during Turkish airstrikes targeting Kurdistan Workers’ Party (P.K.K.) guerrillas […]

The world is reeling in horror at the latest Israeli massacre of hundreds of men, women and children in Gaza. Much of the world is also shocked by the role of the United States in this crisis, as it keeps providing Israel with weapons to kill Palestinian civilians, in violation of U.S. and international law, and has repeatedly blocked action by the […]

President Joe Biden’s advisers had best warn him that a shifting “world correlation of forces” (to borrow an old Soviet term) will form an influential backdrop to the U.S.- Russia summit planned for June 16 in Geneva. While China, of course, will not be taking part in the discussions, it will be very much there. As the planned summit was announced Tuesday, […]

Think about this: on Saturday, May 12th, with barely an hour’s notice, Israel took out the al-Jalaa Tower, a high-rise building in Gaza City that housed the Associated Press, al-Jazeera, and other media outlets. That act of destruction, among so many others, caused shock globally and protests not just by those media groups but by previously Israeli-supporting Democrats in Congress. […]

Losing a war is never pretty. Leaving behind thousands of people who risked their lives to fight with you is truly ugly. If the Biden administration’s timetable for Afghanistan holds firm, American forces will be home by fall. And a multitude of Afghans will be vulnerable to retaliation if the Taliban wins the ensuing struggle, as is widely feared. The potential tragedy […]

Whenever the U.S. or one of its client states launches attacks on others or commits war crimes against a civilian population, they claim they are acting in self-defense. This takes a legitimate exception to the U.N. Charter’s prohibition on the use of force and twists it into a catch-all justification for criminal aggression and violations of the laws of war. While the […]

At least two people were killed, and six were wounded in recent attacks: In Nasariya, a sticky bomb wounded an activist; Imad al-Aqili was in stable condition after surgery. Gunmen killed a civilian. Unknown assailants in Baghdad killed a man who was to run parliamentary election later this year. Near Riyadh, three Iraqi policemen were wounded wild repulsing an ISIS attack. Two people were wounded […]

On May 23, a fighter jet intercepted Ryanair Flight 4978 as it was about to exit Belarus’s airspace en route from Athens, Greece to Vilnius, Lithuania. Citing a supposed bomb threat (apparently contrived by regime agents on board the plane), Belarus air traffic control ordered the Boeing 737 to turn around and land in Minsk. … Continue reading “The US and EU vs. Belarus: Pot, Kettle, […]

Here is something that can be said with great confidence. It is racist – antisemitic, if you prefer – to hold Jews, individually or collectively, accountable for Israel’s crimes. Jews are not responsible for Israel’s war crimes, even if the Israeli state presumes to implicate Jews in its crimes by falsely declaring it represents all Jews in the world. Very obviously, it […]

In recent years, U.S. executive branch officials and members of Congress from both political parties have routinely portrayed Russia or China (and frequently both countries) as existential threats to the United States. It also is becoming increasingly common to find news articles or opinion pieces that adopt the same theme. Moreover, a significant number of politicians and analysts put smaller powers, especially Iran and North Korea, […]

Originally posted at TomDispatch. From the dawn of recorded history, humans have been making war and rape has been part of it. In ancient Greece, the rape of a woman was considered a property crime; that is, a crime against her father, husband, or master. But in war, rape was socially acceptable and the women of conquered lands were considered legitimate […]

Reprinted with permission from MondoWeiss. After 243 Palestinian deaths, more than 1,900 Palestinians wounded, 16,800 Palestinian homes destroyed, tens of thousands of Palestinians displaced from their homes and a refused Egyptian proposal of a ceasefire, Israel has accepted an Egyptian ceasefire. But it never had to happen. On April 6, 2021, the United States returned for the first time to talks whose […]

What a difference a presidential campaign and deadly pandemic make. Although the U.S. and People’s Republic of China long had been at odds over important issues, the bilateral relationship remained civil if not always friendly. Despite occasional spats, no one imagined a cold war, let alone actual hostilities. But 2020 changed everything. Today the possibility of conflict is on many Americans’ minds. Moreover, the chance of […]

“Both sides need to de-escalate.” “No one benefits from this. ” You’ll hear a lot of statements like that from pundits, elected officials, government spokespeople, and mainstream media anytime there’s violence in Israel-Palestine. In the last few days, Israeli war planes, armed drones, and artillery mounted on tanks have killed more than 119 Palestinians in the besieged and blockaded Gaza Strip. Thirty-one of […]

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” ~ James Baldwin No system of power maintains itself forever and the fight for freedom knows no borders. Ideas such as these are uniting Black Americans and Palestinians. Admittedly, their experiences are distinct. Through the presentation of parallels, however, the depth of the pain and grievances of […]

On May 5, Hamas commander Mohammed Deif issued a warning to Israel’s government: Unless Israeli police and troops stopped attacking Palestinians in Jerusalem — including not just those protesting against the regime’s theft of their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood on behalf of Israeli “settlers,” but also worshipers at al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam’s most sacred sites — rockets would […]