Paul Pillar The National Interest http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/lets-be-honest-iran-9658 Here’s a New Year’s resolution that participants in policy debate in Washington, and especially those in Congress, should make: be honest about your position on Iran. Say what you really want, and make your best arguments on behalf of what you really want, and...
Stanley Kutler truthdig http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/israel_can_do_no_wrong_jewish_dissent_jewish_repression_20131230/ American Jews are expected by the Israeli government and by its American lobbying arms, such as AIPAC, to unequivocally support Israel against its very real enemies, but also against any criticism whether from abroad or within the American Jewish community. The prevailing mode is “Israel can...
Kathy Kelly Common Dreams http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/30 Kabul, Afghanistan is “home” to hundreds of thousands of children who have no home. Many of them live in squalid refugee camps with families that have been displaced by violence and war. Bereft of any income in a city already burdened by high rates of...
Amy Goodman Truthdig http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/obamas_new_normal_the_drone_strikes_continue_20131223 There has been yet another violent attack with mass casualties. This was not the act of a lone gunman, or of an armed student rampaging through a school. It was a group of families en route to a wedding that was killed. The town was called...
Stephen Zunes Foreign Policy in Focus Obama Ignores Morocco’s Illegal Occupation and Human Rights Abuses The Obama’s administration’s policy on Western Sahara constitutes nothing less than a rejection of fundamental principles of international law Late last month, President Barack Obama met with Morocco’s King Mohammed VI in Washington for their...
Kathy Kelly Common Dreams http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/11/20 I’ve been a guest in Colorado Springs, Colorado, following a weeklong retreat with Colorado College students who are part of a course focused on nonviolence. In last weekend’sColorado Springs Gazette, there was an article in the Military Life section about an international skype phone call between U.S....
Eric Margolis EricMargolis.com THE MURDER OF YASSER ARAFAT In 2004, shortly after the mysterious death of PLO leader Yasser Arafat, I wrote a column stating my strong belief that he had been murdered by poison. I recalled Stalin’s favorite line, “no man, no problem.” Poison had been a favorite tool...
Mark Weisbrot The Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/07/venezuela-not-greece-latin-america-oil-poverty Predicting a Venezuelan apocalypse won’t make it happen: in this oil-rich country the only thing imploding is poverty For more than a decade people opposed to the government of Venezuela have argued that its economy would implode. Like communists in the 1930s rooting for the...
Robert Parry Consortium News http://66.147.244.69/~consoru7/2013/11/06/kerrys-saudi-israeli-appeasement-tour/ Saudi Arabia faults President Barack Obama for demonstrating a lack of leadership in confronting Middle East crises, by which the kingdom means he should have intervened militarily in the Syrian civil war and fully backed the Egyptian coup d’etat. But Obama’s real lack of spine...
Katrina vanden Heuvel The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-a-surprising-silence-on-success-in-syria/2013/11/05/6c5499e0-45b8-11e3-bf0c-cebf37c6f484_story.html Last week, buried beneath banner headlines blaring about Obamacare hearings, National Security Agency surveillance revelations and the Boston Red Sox’ World Series win, theOrganisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) quietly reported that Syria “has completed the functional destruction of critical equipment for all of its declared chemical weapons...