War Is A Crime

US official: IS putting up stiff resistance in Syria’s Raqqa, advances have slowed down – Fox News

Raqqa: IS militants burst from tunnels, hit weak points in a bloody battle of attrition from street to street – ABC News

ISIS using motion detector IEDs in battle for Raqqa – DoD Buzz

In pictures: ISIS fires rockets on pinpoint Kurdish targets in Raqqa city – almasdarnews.com

At least 15 Kurdish YPG fighters killed by ISIS fire in Raqqa: official – ARA News

US sends in mine-proof trucks for battle in Raqqa – theaustralian.com

Armored US combat vehicles have been spotted pouring into Syria (PHOTOS, VIDEO) – taskandpurpose.com

US special operators are moving closer to the fighting in Raqqa – The Drive

VIDEO: US Marine Corps artillery destroys ISIS tunnel entrance in support of SDF in Raqqa on June 19 with little to no collateral damage – Mutlu Civiroglu on Twitter

VIDEO: read more

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

Empire of Destruction 
Precision Warfare? Don’t Make Me Laugh 
By Tom Engelhardt

You remember. It was supposed to be twenty-first-century war, American-style: precise beyond imagining; smart bombs; drones capable of taking out a carefully identified and tracked human being just about anywhere on Earth; special operations raids so pinpoint-accurate that they would represent read more

Turkey leaks secret locations of U.S. troops in Syria – thedailybeast.com

US increases number of military posts in PKK/PYD-held territories in Syria to ten – anadoluagency.com

MAP: Turkish wire Anadolu published this map showing US bases in Syria. The US-led coalition in response slammed the story as irresponsible – Ragıp Soylu on Twitter

Turkey set to launch military operation against Kurds in northern Syria, says weapons given to the YPG “by various allied countries” have wound up in the hands of the PKK – Xinhua

Arab-Kurdish feud deepens as fears mount over battle for Raqqa, This week Turkish-backed Arab militias clashed with SDF units north of Aleppo – VOA

Turkish-backed rebels fail to capture northern Aleppo town – almasdarnews.com

Turkish Army suffers heavy casualties in latest attack on Kurdish-held northern Aleppo – almasdarnews.com

Turkish forces shell villages in Afrin and northern of Aleppo after the death, injury and capture of a large number of members of both parties in the first round of clashes – SOHR

After Russian mediation by a Turkish request… read more

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

If you’re looking for fairy tales that are on the grim (not Grimm) side, things that once might only have been in dystopian fiction, look no further than our present planet at our present moment. What about, for instance, that trillion-metric-ton iceberg — read more

We are in some difficult times right now. There are too many people living in poverty and too many suffering from racism. We don’t have a system of health care or education that supports the citizens of this country. We are polluting the earth and this could lead to the end of us all.

We have a madman in the White House, but as S. Brian Willson posts to Facebook, “focusing on Trump is a distraction…. Trump is an avatar (or caricature), an undisguised buffoon serving as a mirror revealing read more

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

I was 12. It was 1956. I lived in New York City and was a youthful history buff. (I should have kept my collection of American Heritage magazines!) Undoubtedly, I was also some kind of classic nerd. In any case, at some point during the Suez crisis of that year, I can remember going to the U.N. by myself and sitting in the gallery of the General Assembly, where read more

An awful lot of Americans are skeptical about the value of their nation’s corporate executives.

As a 2016 nationwide survey reveals, 74 percent of Americans believe that top corporate executives are overpaid.   This public dismay with CEO compensation exists despite the fact that Americans drastically underestimate what top corporate executives are paid every read more

Ominous developments in three states this summer – Oregon, Texas, New Jersey, and one city – Chicago, provide a glimpse into the Pentagon’s new playbook to recruit soldiers from high schools across the country. In brief, the military has been engaged in a robust lobbying campaign to lower academic standards to make it easier to recruit youth.

New recruits have long been required to hold a high school diploma or a GED certificate. This requirement is a major impediment to finding enough read more