… Any serious analysis of Obama’s policies must begin with his pragmatism. That’s how he functioned throughout his political career, and especially over the last four years. Despite his vision of change, he is a realist to the core. He sounds like an idealist but leads pragmatically. [...] Be that as it may, Obama’s visit [...]
Tag Archives | war crimes
The Legacy of George W. Bush *Updated*
Also see Showtime’s Dick Cheney Doc Reveals What Obama and Hillary Clinton Did in Resurrecting America’s Foreign Policy Brand. Even though the benefits outweighed the costs, that does not mean we simply leave Iraq once we depose the Husseins. The legal system in such situations might still require a benefiting party to compensate a harmed [...]
Benghazi? We’re Still Waiting for Bush and Cheney to be Held Accountable for Iraq. [Rachel Maddow Videos]
Hagel saw that, in Iraq, America was taking on an already weakened leader who the senator said probably didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, and at the same time empowering another regime (Iran) that badly wanted WMDs–a dire development further documented on Monday by The Washington Post, which reported that the Iranian-backed Shiite group Asaib [...]
A Question From Glenn Greenwald: ‘How Can Anyone Still Believe That America Is the Greatest Country on Earth?’
About a year ago (March 7, 2012, to be exact), I was thinking about, and still consider accurate, “the American Exceptionalism myth.” Nothing has happened in the last (almost) year to change my mind. Greenwald’s essay – How Can Anyone Still Believe That America Is the Greatest Country on Earth? – has a related focus, [...]
Top Story — NBC Obtains Targeted Assassinations White Paper on Classified Memos that Remain Out of Reach
YOU COULD ask why President Obama and his administration think they have the legal right to refuse Congress their oversight duties. Ignoring the responsibilities they have by keeping classified memos away from senators, documents which describe the White House’s legal rationale for targeted killings of Americans believed to be terrorist affiliated or worse, but who [...]
News Desk: Bush-Cheney and the Report on “Globalizing Torture”
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency embarked on a highly classified program of secret detention and extraordinary rendition of terrorist suspects. The program was designed to place detainee interrogations beyond the reach of law. Suspected terrorists were seized and secretly flown across national borders to be interrogated by foreign [...]
News Desk: Bashar al-Assad War Crimes Mount
“This is another new massacre that has been committed in Syria, adding to the constant massacres that have been occurring, while the world watches silently and the international and Arab community are being hypocrites,” the Syrian Observatory said in statement. [New York Times] ACTIVISTS ARE claiming today that a “massacre” has occurred, adding to the [...]
News Desk: “Compelling Case” Syria’s Assad has Used Chemical Weapons
THE EXCLUSIVE report is from Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy: A secret State Department cable has concluded that the Syrian military likely used chemical weapons against its own people in a deadly attack last month, The Cable has learned. United States diplomats in Turkey conducted a previously undisclosed, intensive investigation into claims that Syrian President [...]
Palestinians Win Nonmember Observer Status in United Nations General Assembly Vote
…the General Assembly vote — 138 countries in favor, 9 opposed and 41 abstaining — showed impressive backing for the Palestinians at a difficult time. It was taken on the 65th anniversary of the vote to divide the former British mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, a vote Israel considers [...]
News Desk — Report: Car bomb kills 50 in Syria as air strikes pound rebels
Car bomb kills 50 in Syria as air strikes pound rebels (via AFP) Syrian rebels launched a devastating car bomb attack Monday that killed 50 pro-regime fighters, a watchdog said, as air strikes pounded rebel positions and the opposition met for talks on an overhaul. The suicide car bomb attack on a military post in [...]
Paul Ryan Sees Himself as the Next Dick Cheney, While Trying to Avoid the Sarah Palin Curse
DELUSIONS OF Darth Vader dance in Paul Ryan’s head. The New York Times tells quite a different story from the recent AP item that dripped of desperation of what to do after a Mitt Romney loss. That is why some of Ryan’s biggest boosters are considering whether it wouldn’t be better for Ryan to resign [...]
News Desk: Turkey Fires on Syria After Shelling Kills 5
FROM CNN INTERNATIONAL, NATO is convening an emergency meeting. Syrian shells landed inside Turkey killing civilians, and PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan released a statement confirming that Turkey has fired on Syrian targets in retaliation. From the BBC: Turkey says it has fired artillery against targets inside Syria after Syrian shells killed five people in a [...]
News Desk: Bambuser Streams Live from Syria and the World
THE LITTLE start-up that’s broadcasting the Syrian unraveling is getting big time press today. “Foreign correspondents” gets redefined in the new-media era. Syria’s civil war has made Friday afternoons a busy time at Bambuser, a tiny Swedish IT startup in an old bicycle factory which streams live video from the latest uprisings. The Muslim day [...]
Syrian Slaughter Continues, Syrian Army HQ in Damascus Hit by Rebels
REPORTS COMING out of Syria claim as many as 700,000 people will be displaced by the end of the year. The death toll on Wednesday was reportedly 300. From the Christian Science Monitor today: Yesterday was one of the deadliest days in Syria so far, with a human rights group reporting more than 300 people [...]
War Crimes as Strategy in Syria
IF YOU MASSACRE enough people can it keep you in power? It’s no longer a hypothetical question in Syria. Hassan Hassan, an editorial writer for UAE-based The National newspaper, ponders the question over at Foreign Policy. These bottom-up dynamics are important to explaining the situation on the ground. Rank-and-file security officers and ragtag shabbiha militias, [...]
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