Category: Foreign Policy

Recalling the Slaughter of Innocents

From the Archive: The quarter-century anniversary of an early U.S. war crime in Iraq passed largely unnoticed this week, the bombing of a civilian air-raid shelter in Baghdad during President George H.W. Bush’s Persian Gulf War, an atrocity that killed more than…

Lost Lessons of Libya

Exclusive: Despite months of Western diplomatic efforts, Libya remains an object lesson in “regime change” arrogance, a failed state beset by rival militias and becoming a new base for Islamic extremists as the movie “Thirteen Hours” graphically depicts, writes James…

The ‘Downton Abbey’ Generals

As Official Washington lusts for a new Cold War all the better to fleece the taxpayers on behalf of the Military-Industrial Complex there are also smaller perks that the powerful prefer, like U.S. generals having enlisted soldiers perform as their…

France Dumps Liberté for Security

Exclusive: France’s response to last year’s terror attacks in Paris imposed draconian measures that waived basic civil rights during the immediate “emergency,” but the French parliament is now considering making those rules permanent, as Jonathan Marshall explains.

Obama’s ‘Moderate’ Syrian Deception

Exclusive: President Obama, who once called the idea of “moderate” Syrian rebels a “fantasy,” has maintained the fiction to conceal the fact that many “moderates” are fighting alongside Al Qaeda’s jihadists, an inconvenient truth that is complicating an end to…

Obama’s Most Momentous Decision

Exclusive: President Obama must decide if he will let the Syrian civil war come to an end with Russian-backed President Assad still in power or if he will escalate by supporting a Turkish-Saudi invasion, which could push the world to…

Pro-War GOP Boos Donald Trump

His bigoted comments about Mexicans and Muslims aside, billionaire Donald Trump actually makes some common sense when he talks about working with Russia, Iran and other powers to bring the Mideast wars to an end, rather than pushing for endless…

New GOP Plans for Torture

President Obama’s failure to prosecute Bush-era torturers created an impunity that has encouraged some Republican presidential candidates to tout new plans for more torture if they reach the White House, a grotesque example of “American exceptionalism,” as Nat Parry explains.

Bungling the New World Order

By relying on NATO interventions and other military strategies, the U.S. is bleeding itself economically and crippling its ability to cooperate with Russia, China and other emerging forces in the multi-polar world that is taking shape, a grave geopolitical mistake, says…

NATO’s Provocative Anti-Russian Moves

Exclusive: Official Washington’s demonization of Vladimir Putin and the neocon “group think” about “Russian aggression” have fueled a reckless drive to move NATO forces up to Russia’s border, thus heightening risks of nuclear war and not serving real U.S. national interests, writes Jonathan…