Nigeria has been a failed state of corruption, outlawry, civil war and unspeakable violence and cruelty for decades. Literally millions have been starved, maimed and butchered owing to ethnic, tribal and religious clashes. And billions more have been stolen from the nation’s long-suffering people by government officials, the military and oppositionists alike in what is surely the most corrupt nation on earth. In this context, the latest episode involving the kidnapped school girls is just...

Voters line up in east Ukraine, May 11, 2014 A few months ago we were being told by supporters of the Kiev putsch that President Viktor Yanukovich had “lost the mandate of heaven” by “killing his own people.” This emotive language avoided any discussion of two important facts. The first was that the Kiev mob had contained seriously violent elements, including armed men. The second was that Mr. Yanukovich had not been lawfully removed by the impeachment process provided for under the...

From YouTubeIn several eastern Ukrainian towns over the past week, the military opened fire on its own citizens. Dozens may have been killed in the violence. Although the US government generally condemns a country’s use of military force against its own population, especially if they are unarmed protesters, this time the US administration blamed the victims. After as many as 20 unarmed protesters were killed on the May 9th holiday in Ukraine, the State Department spokesman said “we condemn the...

Mariupol todayAs most in the former USSR celebrated the 69th Victory Day over Nazi Germany today, the US-backed government in Kiev (which took power after the February coup) decided to launch one of its bloodiest military operations thus far, this time against the anti-coup protesters Mariupol, eastern Ukraine. As much of the Ukrainian military has proven unreliable to the post-coup regime in Kiev, the new interim authorities have assembled their own "national guard" and other militias from...

The attack took place shortly after the first stirrings of trouble in the southern Syrian city of Daraa in March 2011. Several old Russian-made military trucks packed with Syrian security forces rolled onto a hard slope on a valley road between Daraa al-Mahata and Daraa al-Balad. Unbeknown to the passengers, the sloping road was slick with oil poured by gunmen waiting to ambush the troops. Brakes were pumped as the trucks slid into each other, but the shooting started even before the vehicles...

In Germany these days, very many citizens object to the endless Russia-bashing of the NATO-oriented mainstream media. They may point out that the U.S.-backed regime change in Kiev, putting in power an ultra-right transitional government eager to join NATO, posed an urgent threat to preservation of Russia’s only warm water naval base in Crimea. Under the circumstances, and inasmuch as the Crimean population overwhelmingly approved, reinstating Crimea in the Russian federation was a necessary...

Nearly a year ago American whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the global scale of US government spying. With an annual budget of over $50 billion, the National Security Agency has the technology and the highest political backing to tap into any phone call, email or other electronic communication – anywhere and at anytime. Even, said Snowden, a president of the US is vulnerable to the NSA’s invasive spying power. Such is the agency’s totalitarian reach. Perhaps the most famous snoop...

Rep. Walter Jones, 20-year Republican of North Carolina, is one of America’s most courageous and honest politicians—putting him in a company that is virtually non-existent inside the beltway. He originally was an enthusiastic supporter of the Iraq War, but then he learned the facts, discovered the blatant lies the Cheney/Neocon cabal had used to sell it, and did the unthinkable. He broke with the Bush White House and became a relentless, informed, passionate and persuasive critic of not only...

It's a parody of democracy. It will damage the political process and hinder the prospects for peace. This is how Western leaders — their regional allies and also UN bigwigs — have dismissed the presidential elections in Syria set for June 3. It seems that despite having a choice of several candidates, the Syrian people having an election to decide for themselves who should be their country's president is a very bad thing. In the name of 'democracy', elections in Syria should only happen after...

(NY Times screen shot)The New York Times, which has asserted for weeks that the Russian government is behind the unrest in Ukraine’s east, finally sent some reporters to the region to dig up the proof, but all they found were eastern Ukrainians upset by the coup regime in Kiev that replaced President Viktor Yanukovych. The Times, which has been an unapologetic promoter of the “pro-democracy” uprising that ousted the democratically elected president through violent extra-constitutional means,...

Between the east and west of the Ukraine lies a historical highway, paved in unspeakable barbarism and blood. To the west it traverses the blood soaked black earth of the Ukrainian breadbasket where Stalin’s most heinous crime was committed–the savage liquidation of several million independent and enterprising peasants known as Kulaks. To the east it tracks the scorched earth route of Hitler’s Wehrmacht on its way to Stalingrad and the most barbaric military assault ever launched on the...

Last week World Bank economists predicted that China would soon displace the United States as the world’s largest economy. The fact that this one-time economic basket case is now positioned to surpass the US is one more sign of the damage done to American prosperity by welfare, warfare, corporatism, and fiat money. Some commentators have predicted that China’s reign as the world’s largest economy would not last long. This may be true. While China has made great strides since adopting...

Did anyone really think that John Kerry’s nine-month effort to produce a Palestinian mini-state would ever work? If so, they were either ignorant of the Mideast, naïve, or deeply cynical. The best one could say about Kerry’s fiasco was that it was a charade designed to show America’s Arab allies that Washington was really making an effort to resolve the nearly seven-decade suffering of the 5 million homeless Palestinians. In 2002, I wrote that the latest Arab-Israel peace initiative – called...

The Senate is considering legislation to shift the war power largely to the president and a 20-person legislative committee. The result would undermine the constitutional role of 515 other members of Congress and the duty they have to represent the interests of their constituents. The stated purpose of S. 1939, introduced by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Angus King (I-Maine), is to repeal the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and create a procedure that allows for rapid...

It looks like the civil war in Ukraine is getting much worse. Western Ukraine right now is being urged on by its Western supporters, meaning its NATO supporters, the European Union, the United States, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Western Ukraine has moved to take back control of the cities in Eastern Ukraine that have been taken over by supporters of Russia. Of course, it’s said in the major media that Russia has started all of this trouble, and so all this has to be done. The...