The New York Times reports that American prosecutors, in the wake of the decision against French bank BNP Paribas, have shifted their attention now towards German banks. Just as in its conduct of foreign policy, the US government fails to appreciate the concept of...

Just how independent is the European Union? Given recent events involving the United States and its European allies, one really must wonder.First, there was the US National Security Agency brazenly tapping German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s private cellphone and, very...

This week, I attended a talk here in San Francisco by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, sponsored jointly by The World Affairs Council and The Commonwealth Club.I have never heard remarks before quite like those made by Rasmussen, the former Prime Minister...

When Eduard Shevardnadze died on 7th July the tectonic plates barely moved in the international media. That evening, the anchor on the BBC News 24 network fumbled with his notes — and, obviously his memory — to say something of interest. In the end it all boiled down...

Comedian and movie star Russell Brand recently posted a video in which he played a segment by Fox News host Jeanine Pirro about the rise in Iraq of the terrorist group ISIS, and periodically interrupted the segment to respond to her remarks.Pirro’s segment was a...

The media is not waiting until after the November general election to blame Libertarian Party candidates for Republican Party candidates’ upcoming losses. Indeed, Libertarian candidates are already being blamed for the Republicans’ potential failure to gain a majority...

“The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself… Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable.”—H.L. Mencken, American journalist It’s vogue,...

Twas bryllyg, and ye slythy toves Did gyre and gymble in ye wabe: All mimsy were ye borogoves; And ye mome raths outgrabe. (from Lewis Carroll’s ‘Jabberwocky’) I must admit that I was a little confused when I first heard that Barack Obama was looking for another 500...

Over this July 4th weekend, and as I see the images of Iraq's unfolding civil war, sometimes I think I even recognize a place I had been, having spent a year in the midst of America's Occupation there, 2009-2010.I was a State Department civilian, embedded with an Army...

This week, supporters of religious freedom cheered the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Hobby Lobby case. The Court was correct to protect business owners from being forced to violate their religious beliefs by paying for contraceptives. However, the decision was very...

Former French president Nicholas Sarkozy’s dramatic criminal interrogation last week shows once again that the politics of the French Republic remain waist-deep in sewage. It was also an affront and humiliation of a former – and would be future – French president....

A Chilean court ruled this week that the U.S. national-security state conspired to murder American citizens Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi in Chile in 1973. The brutal act occurred during the violent military coup in which the Chilean military, with the full support...

In his very excellent book, King Leopold's Ghost, Adam Hochschild registers a chapter-long lament near the book's end that even though in the preceding pages he has chronicled in an unprecedented manner the crimes against humanity of Leopold's Congo enterprise, so...

This week Americans will enjoy Independence Day with family cookouts and fireworks. Flags will be displayed in abundance. Sadly, however, what should be a celebration of the courage of those who risked so much to oppose tyranny will instead be turned into a...

The Cold War made a lot of money for the military/security complex for four decades dating from Churchill’s March 5, 1946 speech in Fulton, Missouri declaring a Soviet “Iron Curtain” until Reagan and Gorbachev ended the Cold War in the late 1980s. During the Cold War...

Barack Obama has rekindled 1968. Back then the folly of Vietnam had become so self-evident and omnipresent that the most power-obsessed President in US history was driven from office and his bloody escalation of the war on Vietnam was stopped in its tracks by the...

Iraq is in turmoil — with ISIS controlling large areas of the country — but the truth is that it's been in turmoil since the illegal 2003 invasion. 2013 was Iraq's bloodiest year since 2008, but as I wrote here members of the elite political class and warmongers in...

The Obama Administration is talking too much.Kerry went to Egypt, delivered money and weapons, and was shown the finger over his human rights laments. Kerry went to Iraq, delivered some military support, and demanded a "unity government." Maliki's government already...