With Assad on the verge of retaking Aleppo, and with it, regaining full control in the ongoing Syrian proxy war, we asked last week in "With Assad On Verge Of Historic Victory, Syrian Rebels Request A Ceasefire" how long before the US intervenes in an attempt to derail the sudden Syrian (and Russian) momentum. We got the answer this morning, when US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Saturday that the US is sending 200 additional military personnel to Syria to help drive Islamic State from...

Seven decades after Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor some truth is finally beginning to emerge from the miasma of propaganda that still clouds our vision of World War II.It seems clear by now that President Franklin Roosevelt’s White House knew from deciphered codes that Japan was planning an attack on America’s key naval base in Hawaii. Shamefully, the senior US Navy and Army commanders at Pearl Harbor were not informed of the impending attack. The US Navy’s three aircraft carriers...

Here’s what’s left of democracy in America.We had an election, and the candidate favored by Washington, media, and many business elites did not win. Here’s what happened next. — CIA unambiguously but without documentation or evidence presented says, via anonymous leaks, that Russia interceded in the election to help elect Donald Trump. — Democratic Congresspeople, alongside several media outlets, have called for investigations into whether or not Trump colluded with the Russians to influence...

The Washington Post has been under fire for its publication of an article entitled, “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say.” The article by Craig Timberg relied on a controversial website called PropOrNot, which published what is little more than a black list of website that the authors deemed purveyors of fake news including some of the largest sites on the Internet like Drudge Report. However, the previously unknown group was itself criticized for...

Having disappeared from the public scene for almost a month (with the occasional backwood spotting thrown in for dramatic effect), today Hillary Clinton reemerged from a self-imposed social quarantine, and in a exquisitely choreographed Podesta special, addressed the nation from Capitol Hill. What was first and foremost on the mind of person who the "impartial" media declared had a 90 percent chance of being America's next president: was it some intense introspection; perhaps it was some idea...

Two seemingly unrelated stories in the New York Times yesterday serve as potent reminders of the deadly and disastrous consequences of US interventionism in the Middle East. The stories involve Iran and Libya.Referring to Donald Trump’s campaign vow to tear up the nuclear agreement entered into last year between the United States and Iran, Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, told an audience at Tehran University, “America cannot influence our determination, this nation’s resistance and its...

The problems many are now predicting under the Trump administration did not start on November 8. The near-unrestrained executive power claimed by the Obama administration will be transferred to the president-elect. Here’s what that means. Torture Obama did not prosecute, fire, or discipline anyone for torturing people on behalf of the people of the United States. He did not hold any truth commissions, and ensured almost all of the government documents on the torture program remain classified....

The summary report on an investigation into US and allied air strikes on Syrian government troops has revealed irregularities in decision-making consistent with a deliberate targeting of Syrian forces. The report, released by US Central Command on 29 November, shows that senior US Air Force officers at the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) at al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar, who were responsible for the decision to carry out the September airstrike at Deir Ezzor: misled the Russians about where...

PropOrNot is the outfit that produced “The List” of 200 “Russian propaganda outlets.” The strange thing is that their published materials do not identify and prove a single vital case of Russian propaganda that actually had a vital effect on a matter of vital foreign policy or on a matter of momentous domestic concern. What do I mean by a vital case with a vital effect on a vital matter? An example is the momentous propaganda campaign running many months and conducted by the Bush...

President-elect Donald Trump told a Cincinnati audience this week that he intends to make some big changes in US foreign policy. During his “thank you” tour in the midwest, Trump had this to say: We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past. We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments. …In our dealings with other countries we will seek shared interests wherever possible...” If this is really to be President Trump’s foreign policy,...

The Obama administration has decided to stretch the 15-year old congressional authorization for war against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, or those harboring them, to include an illegal war against a group in Somalia—al-Shabab—that wasn’t even in existence at the time of the attacks in 2001.In fact, as with many of its Islamist terrorist opponents worldwide—including the original al Qaeda, the perpetrator of 9/11 that arose from US arming of Mujahideen guerrillas against the Soviet...

President-elect Donald Trump vows to either tear up or rewrite the recent international nuclear deal with Iran, calling it "disastrous," and "the worst deal ever negotiated by Washington."Iran, which has closed important nuclear facilities, shut down half its centrifuges, and neutralized its stores of nuclear material under the international agreement, must be wondering if it’s nuclear deal was not really, really disastrous.In his rush to condemn the Iran deal, Donald Trump seems to be...

Those who keep hoping that gun control will protect them from terrorist retaliation for U.S. interventionism in the Middle East had their hopes dashed last week at Ohio State University. That’s because the lack of a gun didn’t stop Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a Somali-born Ohio State student, from intentionally driving a car into pedestrians and then slashing people with a butcher knife.This is what all too many Americans just don’t yet get — that local, state, and federal government officials...