Bush

(By Juan Cole) The Republicans in Congress keep beating the dead horse of Benghazi. Now they have sprung a briefing memo for Susan Rice, based on CIA talking points. I shows that the briefing hewed to the CIA line of the time, which was that the Benghazi disturbances were copy cats of those in Cairo, […]

Bill of Rights

The Impunity of American Torture: From Abu Ghraib to Sen. Feinstein’s Brawl with the CIA

Juan Cole

(by Karen J. Greenberg via Tomdispatch.com) It’s mind-boggling. Torture is still up for grabs in America. No one questions anymore whether the CIA waterboarded one individual 83 times or another 186 times. The basic facts are no longer in dispute either by those who champion torture or those who, like myself, despise the very idea […]

Barack Obama

Donald Rumsfeld: A “Trained Ape” would be better at U.S. diplomacy than Obama

Juan Cole

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Monday blasted President Barack Obama’s diplomacy, saying a “trained ape” could do a better job. In an interview with Fox News host Greta Van Susteren, Rumsfeld complained that relations with…

Barack Obama

Dick Cheney Broke US Military, now blames Obama for Cuts

Juan Cole

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has lambasted the Obama administration for its announcement that it will cut 8% out of the military budget and reduce standing army troop levels to the lowest level since before World War II (from 550,000 at the height of the Iraq War to 440,000). Cheney told CNN he believed that […]

Afghanistan

Colbert: Christie Bridgegate a diversion from Obama’s Afghanistan War

Juan Cole

Stephen Colbert reports on Robert Gates’s criticisms of President Obama, noting that Gates said he though Obama made the right decisions, but was beset by second thoughts. He contrasted him to President George W. Bush in this regard. Colbert: Yes, Bush had no second thoughts. He had no first thoughts, either.

Bush

About that Country you Destroyed: A Letter to George W. Bush

contributors

(By Ralph Nader) George W. Bush Presidential Center PO Box 560887 Dallas, Texas, 57356 Dear Mr. Bush: A few days ago I received a personalized letter from your Presidential Center which included a solicitation card for donations that actually provided words for my reply. They included “I’m honored to help tell the story of the […]

Africa

Can Mandela’s Truth and Reconciliation Heal the Middle East?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Every transition from an authoritarian government to democracy is different. Some go relatively smoothly (Poland, South Korea). Others are rocky (Taiwan, Bosnia, Tunisia). In some instances, authoritarianism reasserts itself to a lesser (Russia) or greater (Ukraine, Egypt) extent. In some cases, the country falls into chaos (Iraq, Yugoslavia). What to do with […]

Bush

Uygur: Bush Targetting of Juan Cole proves that NSA can’t be trusted with our Personal Data

Juan Cole

Cenk Uygur at Young Turks makes the point that the National Security Agency and other US intelligence (services who are ending up with massive amounts of electronic surveillance information on Americans –whether that is what they were mainly going for or not) keep saying we should trust them with the information. They maintain that they […]

Bush

US tries to Censor British Report on Secret Bush-Blair Push for Iraq War (Lazare)

Juan Cole

Sarah Lazare writes at Commondreams.org If the U.S. gets its way, the world will never know the details of top-level discussions between George W. Bush and Tony Blair that paved the way for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. An exclusive report released Thursday by The Independent reveals that the White House and U.S. State […]