Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has declared that there will be a thorough investigation of the recent US destruction of a hospital in Afghanistan that killed 22, including 12 of the medical staff, with more than thirty still missing in the rubble. The hospital, run by Geneva-based Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders), had informed the US headed international military force of both its location and its activities in order to avoid becoming a target for either side in fighting...

Following the recent Oregon school shooting, many politicians rushed to the microphones to call for new gun control laws. President Obama even called on gun control supporters to “politicize” the shooting, while some members of Congress worked to establish a special commission on gun violence. The reaction to the shooting stands in stark contrast to the reaction to the US military’s bombing of an Afghanistan hospital run by the international humanitarian (and Nobel Peace Prize winning) group...

With Belarusian president Aleksander Lukashenko elected to a fifth term in office on Sunday, the ritual western hate-fest against the former Soviet Republic shifts into high gear. The regular march of western journalists to Minsk to report on "Europe's last dictatorship," has already begun, with Buzzfeed's Max Seddon being neither the first nor the last. But like the others, he ticks all the right boxes that keep him in a rare paid journalism job these days.In Buzzfeed's foray into foreign...

The world is beginning to realize that a sea-change in world affairs occurred on September 28 when President Putin of Russia stated in his UN speech that Russia can no longer tolerate Washington’s vicious, stupid, and failed policies that have unleashed chaos, which is engulfing the Middle East and now Europe. Two days later, Russia took over the military situation in Syria and began the destruction of the Islamic State forces. Perhaps among Obama’s advisors there are a few who are not...

The US Treasury has recently opened an inquiry about the so-called “Islamic State’s” (ISIS/ISIL) use of large numbers of brand-new Toyota trucks. The issue has arisen in the wake of Russia’s air operations over Syria and growing global suspicion that the US itself has played a key role in arming, funding, and intentionally perpetuating the terrorist army across Syria and Iraq. ABC News in their article, “US Officials Ask How ISIS Got So Many Toyota Trucks,” reports: US counter-terror officials...

Washington’s impulsive use of power is a danger to America and to the world. Arrogant Washington politicians and crazed neoconservatives are screaming that the US must shoot down Russian aircraft that are operating against the US-supplied forces that have brought death and destruction to Syria, unleashing millions of refugees on Europe, in Washington’s effort to overthrow the Syrian government. Even my former CSIS colleague, Zbigniew Brzezinski, normally a sensible if sometimes misguided...

The two incidents involving Turkey and the Russian aircraft operating in northern Syria on successive days in the weekend throw into bold relief the single most crucial template of the Syrian conflict in the coming months. Turkey happens to be the only regional power that could actually create a “quagmire” for Russia in Syria – similar to the role Pakistan performed in the eighties vis-à-vis the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Like in the case of Pakistan (which started nurturing Islamist...

In his comment on the mass shootings at the Oregon community college, President Obama said: “This has become routine.” So have police shootings of unarmed and unresisting Americans. So have numerous other undesirable and deplorable happenings, such as the foreclosure on the homes of millions of Americans, while the “banks too big to fail” are bailed out with trillions of dollars, and such as foreign policy lies that have destroyed seven countries, bringing the US and Europe millions of...

The same people that got us into a very unnecessary war in Iraq are now clamoring for military action in Syria. These same people that have opposed us getting out of Afghanistan, even though our troops have been there more than three times longer than World War II, now demand action in Syria. These same people seem to want us to be at war in almost every country in the Middle East even though things are worse now than when we started fighting there many years ago. Surely we have learned a very...

Sustaining America’s state of post-9/11 perpetual war requires skillful manipulation of the public at home. The key tool used for this purpose is the bloodless narrative, a combination of policy, falsehoods and media manipulation that creates the impression that America’s wars have few consequences, at least for Americans. How can the American government sustain its wars in the face of dead soldiers coming home? Why is there no outcry among the American people over these losses? The answer is...

Israel lacks a national motto. If its leaders are looking for a Latin one, “carpe chaos” would be an apt and honest choice. “Seize the chaos” is half of Israeli foreign policy in a nutshell (the other half being the instigation of that chaos in the first place). Indeed, even its friends in the media cannot help but put it in such terms. For example, The New York Times recently reported about the: …many Israeli leaders and thinkers seizing on the chaos in Syria to solidify Israel’s hold on...

Frankfurt, Germany –Could anyone in the Obama administration have been so slow-witted to imagine that Russia wouldn’t move hard to counter US efforts to overthrow Moscow’s ally, Syria? The Syrian war began almost five years ago by the US, France, Britain and Saudi Arabia to overthrow Syria’s Iranian and Russian-backed government. The result so far: 250,000 dead, 9.5 million refugees flooding Europe and Syria shattered. This is nothing new: the first CIA coup attempt to overthrow a Syrian ruler...

The US regime change policy for Syria has been a catastrophe. More than 200,000 killed and an entire country reduced to rubble at least partly because President Obama decided that “Assad has lost his legitimacy.” How is it that the president of a country 6,000 miles away has the authority to decide whether another leader belongs in office or not? What if Rouhani in Iran decided that Obama had lost his legitimacy for killing a number of American citizens by drone without charge or trial? Would...