The International Criminal Court brought hope that victims of serious crimes of state could finally get some justice, but instead the truly powerful have retained their impunity while alleged violators from weak countries are dragged before the ICC, a reality that may yet change,…
Category: Foreign Policy
The One-Sided US Narrative on Iran
In the preferred U.S. narratives, American leaders are always wise and rational but must deal with pigheaded and crazy adversaries. That is the way the current U.S.-Iranian nuclear negotiations are presented inside Official Washington but there is a very different…
The Putin-Did-It Conspiracy Theory
Exclusive: A new truce agreement in Ukraine rekindles hope that the bloodshed can be reduced if not stopped, but Official Washington’s gross misunderstanding of the crisis, blaming everything on Russia’s President Putin, raises doubts and portends a potentially grave catastrophe, writes Robert…
A Vague War Declaration on ISIS
President Obama has tossed Congress a draft resolution on using force against Islamic State militants but the vague language is something of a hot potato that neither the White House nor Congress is comfortable with, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R.…
Pressuring Obama toward More War
Still fearing of accusations about a lack of patriotism, Hollywood keeps making movies like “American Sniper” that ignore the criminality of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an attitude that, in turn, makes it harder for President Obama to show restraint in…
NYT Whites Out Ukraine’s Brown Shirts
Exclusive: The New York Times has been more biased on the Ukraine crisis endlessly promoting State Department propaganda than when it published false Iraqi WMD stories last decade. Case in point: a story from Mariupol hailing the Azov battalion without noting its neo-Nazi fighters, writes Robert…
‘Christianists’ Howl at Obama’s Truth-telling
Though founded by a pacifist who spoke for the oppressed, Christianity has contributed to more wars, injustices and genocides in all corners of the world than any other religion. But President Obama’s glancing reference to this reality prompted howls of…
A Peace Activist in Federal Prison
The U.S. incarcerates its people at the highest rates in the world and many times what other developed nations do, including citizens who engage in non-violent protests against America’s war policies, as Kathy Kelly experienced both in her youth and now as she returned to…
‘Realists’ Warn Against Ukraine Escalation
Exclusive: The neocons’ war-and-more-war bandwagon is loaded up again and rolling downhill as “everyone who matters” in Washington is talking up sending sophisticated weapons to Kiev to escalate Ukraine’s civil war, but some “realists,” an endangered species in U.S. foreign policy, dissent, notes Robert…
Finding Creative Ways to Torture
After World War II, Americans led the way in establishing landmark human rights principles, including a repudiation of torture. But more recent U.S. leaders have chosen to disgrace those ideals by devising euphemisms and end-runs to continue the barbaric practices,…