Exclusive: President Obama’s Mideast policy is such a confusing mess that he is now supporting Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria although it’s primary target is not ISIS but another U.S. ally, the Kurds, explains Daniel Lazare.
Exclusive: The ugly legacy of George W. Bush’s torture program continues to haunt U.S. foreign policy as the “poster child” for waterboarding, Abu Zubaydah, makes an appeal for his release from Guantanamo, writes Marjorie Cohn.
Exclusive: A New York Times columnist writes Americans are so “dumbed-down” that they don’t know that Russia “invaded” Ukraine two years ago, but that “invasion” was mostly in the minds of Times editors and other propagandists, says Robert Parry.
California voters will get a chance to abolish the state’s expensive and flawed death-penalty system, a step that could reduce America’s death-row population by almost a quarter, writes Marjorie Cohn.
Americans have paid a very high price for the Establishment’s imperial ambitions, a price passing a breaking point in blood and money, a problem that must be addressed with realism and humility, explains Natylie Baldwin.
Iran’s annoyance that Russia over-played its hand in going public about its use of an Iranian airbase shows the risk of offending potential allies, a lesson that U.S. officials also need to learn, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
Across the globe, cultural norms often clash with individual expression, from topless beaches in secular societies to gender-segregation in some religious places, with today’s clash over Muslim burkinis, observes ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller.
The New York Times greeted Bernie Sanders’s launch of Our Revolution with a report on staffing problems while other outlets ignored it, but a real problem was the senator’s silence on perpetual war, says Norman Solomon.
NATO’s war on Serbia in 1999 was the template for other “humanitarian” wars – in Iraq, Libya and now Syria – but it wasn’t “news” when the Serbian leader was cleared, notes John Pilger.
Exclusive: The transformation of the Democratic Party from the relative “peace party” to a belligerent “war party” occurred during Bill Clinton’s presidency and is likely to resume if Hillary Clinton is elected, writes James W Carden.