The first to suffer was Syria and since then the gruesome effects have been spreading in the region and beyond, to Africans and Europeans, writes Mark Curtis.
Fifteen year ago Donald Rumsfeld said Afghanistan was pacified and George W. Bush said the U.S. mission in Iraq was “accomplished.” Fifteen years later the disastrous neoconservative assumptions are in full view, says Chas Freeman.
Britain’s new counter-terrorism initiative builds on Stasi-like methods to create a potentially Orwellian present for British citizens, as former MI-5 officer Annie Machon explains.
Years after George W. Bush created a secret “kill list” of alleged terrorism suspects, it remains murky how one gets on the list, and just as complicated to try to get off it, as Marjorie Cohn explains.
In the new U.S. National Defense Strategy, military planners bemoan the erosion of the U.S.’s “competitive edge,” but the reality is that they are strategizing to maintain the American Empire in a chaotic world, explains Nicolas J.S. Davies.
The U.S. government has long abused its “terrorism list” by including disfavored nations while leaving off “allies” implicated in 9/11 and other terror attacks, a practice President Trump has resumed, notes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
President Trump’s simplistic siding with Saudi Arabia and Israel – and his callous reaction to a terror attack on Iran – are fueling new tensions in the Middle East, including the Qatar crisis, as ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke explains.
Russians responded with relative calm to the lethal terror attack on St. Petersburg’s metro but stressed that the incident underscored the need for counter-terror cooperation despite other disagreements, writes Gilbert Doctorow.
The bloody truck attack on Berlin’s Christmas market is a reminder how the West’s destabilization of the Mideast and North Africa now destabilizes Europe and Chancellor Merkel, as Gilbert Doctorow describes.
Many downwardly mobile Americans are confused about what happened to them, which explains the attraction of Donald Trump, who offers few coherent solutions but may have a lasting impact on U.S. relations with the world, says Michael Brenner.