War Is A Crime

Ken Hughes is an expert on secret presidential recordings, especially those of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Hughes has spent two decades mining the Secret White House Tapes and unearthing their secrets. As a journalist writing in the pages of the New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, and Boston Globe Magazine, and, since 2000, as a researcher with the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, read more

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s new book, Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment, could be criticized for how little it seems to focus on the Second Amendment, and how much on topics familiar from the author’s past writing. But the topics are radically unfamiliar to most U.S. Americans and extremely relevant to understanding what the Second Amendment was and is.

I’ve argued in the past that the Second Amendment read more

Photo: U.S. Speaker Ryan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – U.S. House Speaker’s Office

January 30, 2018

On January 23rd an overcrowded smuggling boat capsized off the coast of Aden in Southern Yemen. Smugglers packed 152 passengers from Somalia and Ethiopia in the boat and then, while at sea, reportedly pulled guns on the migrants to read more

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

I recently read Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. No book — that antiquated object that displays writing on pages of paper — has gotten news attention quite like it in a long time. Of course, that’s what happens when only one person truly matters read more

The United States is a global leader in putting people in cages (#1 in prisoners, second in prisoners per capita to the Seychelles, where the United Nations locks up “pirates,” and whose whole population is a fraction of the U.S. prison population). The U.S. is also in the top 10 for state executions.

How’s this method of crime prevention working for us?

Well, the United States is #11 in gun deaths, read more

In the aftermath of World War II, the U.S. occupation authorities in Germany, checking on the effectiveness of their “denazification” program, polled Germans on whether they believed a civilian was “less worthy than a soldier.”  One wonders what they would think of the exalted status that many Americans currently accord to anyone serving in the U.S. armed forces, as announcements ring out―from airline flights to sporting events―with calls to applaud “Our Heroes.”

This adulation read more

I was afraid that The Post would give us a Hollywood film version of the publication of the Pentagon Papers and manage never to say what was in the Pentagon Papers. I was afraid it would be turned into a pro-war movie. I was afraid we’d be told that the Washington Post was a courageous institution while Daniel Ellsberg was a dirty traitor. I am pleased to have had no reason for such concerns.

The Post is not exactly an anti-war movie, Ellsberg is not a main character, the peace movement read more

Erdogan says he’s ready to risk confrontation with US over Turkey’s military incursion into northern Syria – VOA

Referring to the U.S. support provided for the Kurdish YPG, Erdoğan says arms still flowing to Syria under pretense of fighting ISIS – hurriyetdailynews.com

Turkish operations in Syria to reach up to Manbij and Iraqi border: Erdoğan – hurriyetdailynews.com

VIDEO: Erdoğan says that the Armed Forces will not show mercy to those who harm Turkey’s future, whether is the PKK, PYD or YPG – alaraby.co.uk

VIDEO: President Erdogan visits troops on Syrian border – YouTube

U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster stated U.S. to end weapons support for Syrian Kurdish YPG, Turkey presidency says – Reuters

Statement on the phone call between Presidential Spokesperson Ambassador İbrahim Kalın and US National Security Advisor General H.R. McMaster – Presidency Of The Republic Of Turkey

PM: Turkey not to allow terror no matter who is behind it – hurriyetdailynews.com

Turkey FM says US needs to withdraw from Syria’s Manbij region immediately, wants to see concrete steps by the Americans to end its support for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia – VOA

FM Çavuşoğlu discusses Afrin operation with Russian counterpart – Daily Sabah

FSA read more

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

Creating an Empire of Graveyards?
At the Circus with Donald Trump
By Tom Engelhardt

Recently, a memory of my son as a small boy came back to me. He was, in those days, terrified of clowns. Something about their strange, mask-like, painted faces unnerved him utterly, chilled him to the bone. To the rest of us, they were comic, but to him — or so I came to imagine anyway read more

On January 20, 2018, in Columbia, Missouri, more than 1600 people participated in the Solidarity Rally and March, hosted by Our Revolution: Mid-Missouri. I was one of five speakers invited to address the gathering, my contribution on the topic of foreign policy. This is, more or less, what I said-

Friends, I am honored to be here with you today as we rally to “oppose the Trump agenda,” one year into his extraordinary and even terrifying administration. Not for generations has the public discourse read more