Russia and the West are at war – over fruits, veggies, pork, and bank loans. The cause is Ukraine, a vast emptiness formerly unknown to the western world, but now deemed a vital national security interest worthy of a risking a very scary war. Economic embargos such as those launched by the US against Russia may seem relatively harmless. They are not. Trade sanctions are a form of strategic warfare that is sometimes followed by bullets and shells. Think, for good example, of the 1940 US embargo...

The late, great critic of the American Imperium, Chalmers Johnson, popularized the salient concept of “blowback”. That is, the notion that if you bomb, drone, invade, desecrate and slaughter—collaterally or otherwise— a people and their lands, they might find ways to return the favor. But even Johnson could not have imagined the kind of blowback coming ferociously Washington’s way now. Namely, the mayhem being visited on much of Iraq by American tanks, armored personnel carriers, heavy...

Western media has ignored it, but protesters have occupied the Maidan square in Kiev since last October. They were successful in overthrowing the elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, but they didn’t go home. They kept their tents, remained in occupied government buildings, and hunkered down. Boxer-turned-revolutionary Vitali Klitschko was in the thick of the protests at the time, supported by the United States and its Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland. In fact, Nuland posed with...

When I saw the headline about the U.S. government and Cuba in my newspaper the other day, I thought I’d awoken in 1961. It was a Twilight Zone moment for sure: “U.S. program aimed to stir dissent in Cuba.” I expected Rod Serling to welcome me to “another dimension.” But it was 2014. The AP news report said President Barack Obama and presumably then–secretary of state Hillary Clinton had plotted to incite a popular uprising — to “gin up opposition” — against the Cuban government by sending in...

Former president Bill Clinton continues to be feted around the world as a progressive champion of human rights. But a European Union task force last week confirmed that the ruthless cabal he empowered by bombing Serbia in 1999 has committed atrocities including murdering individuals to extract and sell their kidneys, livers, and other body parts. Clint Williamson, the chief prosecutor of a special European Union task force, declared that senior members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had...

Contrary to the Obama administration’s public claims blaming eastern Ukrainian rebels and Russia for the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, some U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded that the rebels and Russia were likely not at fault and that it appears Ukrainian government forces were to blame, according to a source briefed on these findings. This judgment – at odds with what President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have expressed publicly – is based largely on...

Late last week, the White House decried Israel’s attack on a UN school in Gaza as “totally unacceptable” and “totally indefensible”, then proceeded to approve $225m in funding for its Iron Dome. On Monday, the US state department went further, calling the airstrikes upon a UN school “disgraceful” – and yet America provides Israel with more than $3.1bn every year, restocking the ability of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) to hit more schools, and to wage total war against an imprisoned people,...

“Never in the civilised world have so many been locked up for so little.”—“Rough Justice in America,” The Economist Why are we seeing such an uptick in Americans being arrested for such absurd “violations” as letting their kids play at a park unsupervised, collecting rainwater and snow runoff on their own property, growing vegetables in their yard, and holding Bible studies in their living room? Mind you, we’re not talking tickets or fines or even warnings being issued to these so-called...

“The lamps are going out all over Europe,” Sir Edward Grey famously said on the eve of World War I. “We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.” It was 100 years ago this week that Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, setting in motion the unspeakable calamity that contemporaries dubbed the Great War. Well in excess of 10 million people perished, and by some estimates, many more. Numbers, even staggering ones like this, can scarcely convey the depth and breadth of the destruction. The...

President Obama announced last week that he was imposing yet another round of sanctions on Russia, this time targeting financial, arms, and energy sectors. The European Union, as it has done each time, quickly followed suit. These sanctions will not produce the results Washington demands, but they will hurt the economies of the US and EU, as well as Russia. These sanctions are, according to the Obama administration, punishment for what it claims is Russia’s role in the crash of Malaysia...