US Military again gets away with murder

The United States military has decided that no service members will face disciplinary charges for their involvement in a NATO airstrike in November that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, an accident that plunged relations between the two countries to new depths and has greatly complicated the allied mission in Afghanistan. “We found nothing criminally negligent on […]

Droning on about American Drones

A commentary on Medea Benjamin’s new book, Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control: Killing individuals (and whoever is near them) via drones (“unmanned aerial vehicles”) has become the primary substitute in U.S. public policy for capture/imprisonment/torture. As Medea Benjamin documents, the United States has avoided detaining people, only to murder them with a drone days […]

Osama Bin Laden what really happened to his body?

Internal emails from the intelligence firm Stratfor, which offers services to major international corporations, as published by WikiLeaks, suggest that Osama bin Laden’s body may have been brought to America after he was killed by US Navy Seals. The emails were obtained in an attack on Stratfor’s servers by the Anonymous movement. In one email, […]

Noam Chomsky on the Iranian Nuclear Threat

In the States, the “threat of Iran” is generally taken to be the primary threat to world order. [--Whereas in Europe, polls show that Israel is regarded as the leading threat to peace.] Before the massive propaganda campaigns of the past few years, a majority of the population agreed with most of the world that, […]

Why the US is no longer the Land of the Free

Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, in the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The list of […]

The changed face of Pakistan US relations

The air strike by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at the Pakistani military post at Salala on the Afghan-Pakistan border last Friday night is destined to become a milestone in the chronicle of the Afghan war. There has been a colossal breakdown of diplomacy at the political, military and intelligence level. Within hours of […]

US Defense Department network of influence websites

Over the past three years, a subdivision of Virginia-based General Dynamics has set up and run a network of eight “influence websites” funded by the Defense Department with more than $120 million in taxpayer money. Over the past two years, the budget for the TRWI websites has increased from $10.1 million to $121 million, according […]

Uzbekistan dubious US ally and major arms purchaser

Gas-rich Uzbekistan, the most populous of the formerly Soviet Central Asian republics, has been ruled since before independence in 1991 by strongman President Islam Karimov, who is regularly condemned in the West for running one of the world’s most repressive and corrupt regimes. Freedom House gives Uzbekistan the lowest possible score, while watchdog groups like […]

Ron Paul Thoughts on Occupation

“Imagine armed Chinese troops in your city.” –Ron Paul Imagine for a moment that somewhere in the middle of Texas there was a large foreign military base, say Chinese or Russian. Imagine that thousands of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling American streets in military vehicles. Imagine they were here under the auspices of “keeping […]

US drone bases throughout the Middle East

The Air Force is now negotiating with Turkey to relocate some of the Predator drones still operating in Iraq to the giant air base at Incirlik next year. Elsewhere in the Greater Middle East, according to Aviation Week, the military is launching Global Hawks from Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, piloted […]