Iraq War

By Ibrahim Al-Marashi | ( San Francisco Chronicle ) – If someone had asked the students at my Monterey high school which one of us would be the first to go to Iraq, everyone would have probably said me. After all, my parents were the ones who emigrated from Iraq in the 1970s to escape […]

Barack Obama

Juan Cole: The Rise and Fall of Oil and the US Invasion of Iraq

Juan Cole

Here is the closing plenary panel of a conference held in mid-September by the Qatar branch of Georgetown University on “The Invasion of Iraq: Regional Reflections.” Juan Cole is the first speaker in the video below, on the changing relationship of the United States to Iraq and to energy markets in the Bush, Obama, Trump […]

Featured

Iraqis Tortured by US at Abu Ghraib have Never Received Justice or Compensation

Human Rights Watch

The US government has apparently failed to provide compensation or other redress to Iraqis who suffered torture and other abuse by US forces at Abu Ghraib and other US-run prisons in Iraq two decades ago. Iraqis tortured by US personnel still have no clear path for receiving redress or recognition from the US government though […]

Climate Crisis

The Era of Rupert Murdoch, a Blight on our Heating Planet and a Fomenter of War and Racial Hatreds, is Passing

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Australian-American press lord Rupert Murdoch, 92, announced Thursday that he would step down as the CEO of both News Corp and Fox News as of November. It would take a multi-volume book to detail all the horrible and catastrophic things Murdoch has done to the world. In Informed Comment, which […]

Afghanistan

How War Divides Us: All the Ways our 21st Century Wars have Polarized Americans

Andrea Mazzarino

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Blame Donald Trump and all too many of his followers, but don’t just blame him or them. Yes, he was indeed responsible for the nightmare of January 6, 2021, and, in his own fashion, for the incitement of right-wing militia (terror!) groups like the Proud Boys. (“Stand back and stand by!”) […]

Afghanistan

The Forever War’s Forever Legacy: Shutting down Gitmo is Hardly the Last Step

Karen J. Greenberg

( Tomdispatch.com ) – There can be little question that the grim prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which still shows no sign of closing anytime soon, is a key legacy — in the worst sense imaginable — of America’s post-9/11 forever wars. I’ve been covering the subject for decades now and that shameful legacy has […]

Central America

The Crimes and Dangers of Elliott Abrams: Why Biden Should not Appoint Him

Waging Nonviolence

Ariel Gold and Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler ( Waging Nonviolence ) – It was a bright sunny March morning in 1980. Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was saying mass at a church hospital in San Salvador when a bullet from a sniper rifle ripped through his heart. He stumbled and fell to the ground, […]

Bush

Iraq’s Climate Crisis: America’s War for Oil and the Great Mesopotamian Dustbowl

Juan Cole

( Tomdispatch.com ) – It was one of the fabled rivers of history and the Marines needed to cross it. In early April 2003, as American forces sought to wrap up their conquest of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and take strongholds to its north, the Marine Corps formed “Task Force Tripoli.” It was commanded by […]

al-Qaeda

When Foreign Policy Elites Manipulate the Public into War, the First Amendment is the First Casualty

Ali Abootalebi

Eau Claire, WI (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – United States presidents have repeatedly waged wars with tacit congressional approval and distorted narratives at the expense of citizens’ political participation in the political process and to the detriment of their first amendment rights. the seemingly popular support for such interventions is constructed and deprives millions […]