Today, October 23, 2013, marks the 30th anniversary of the US Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. Some 241 American servicemembers were killed. These deaths were the direct result of US intervention in an area where there was neither US interest nor any threat to the United States. Although after the bombing President Ronald Reagan initially pledged to stay the course in Lebanon, within months, facing waning support and a realization that his was a futile policy, he decided to withdraw...

The year 2014 could be shaping up as the year that the chickens come home to roost. Americans, even well-informed ones, don’t know all of the mistakes made by neoconized and corrupted Washington in the past two decades. However, enough is known to see that the US has lost economic and political power, and that the loss is irreversible. The economic cost of this loss will be born by what remains of the middle class and the increasingly poverty-stricken lower class. The one percent will have...

“Democracy means that if the doorbell rings in the early hours, it is likely to be the milkman.”—Winston Churchill It’s 3 a.m. You’ve been asleep for hours when suddenly you hear a loud “Crash! Bang! Boom!” Based on the yelling, shouting and mayhem, it sounds as if someone—or several someones—are breaking through your front door. With your heart racing and your stomach churning, all you can think about is keeping your family safe from the intruders who have invaded your home. You have mere...

It is no longer possible to conceal the obvious. The West, in its attempts to remove Bashar al-Asad from power during the years of the war in Syria, has nurtured a force so sinister that its tentacles are now reaching to the Western capitals themselves. Al-Qaeda is at the peak of its influence in the Middle East. In Somalia, the group al-Shabaab has announced its complete merger with this organization. In Libya its members unceremoniously arrested the prime minister, and then let him go. In...

As the second most populous former Soviet republic, Ukraine has seemed uncomfortable with its independence since 1991 and less than committed to making it work. The fundamental issue has always been, does the country remain entwined with its larger neighbour Russia, or does it succumb to the blandishments of the West and distance itself completely from a country with which it was co-joined for over 1000 years? Within the USSR Ukraine was an economic power house with a large heavy industrial...

The Times of London yesterday published a sensational Syria story based on an interview with British doctor David Nott, who had volunteered his medical expertise in Syria over the past several weeks. Dr. Nott said that he had seen several pregnant women come in with abdominal wounds. He speculated that snipers must have been playing some sort of game where they would target the fetuses of pregnant women -- a grisly business to be sure. Said Dr. Nott: It seemed to me that it was some sort of a...

Below the radar, the tortuous process leading to an Iran nuclear deal may have got under way in Geneva where the two-day talks between the protagonists – P5+1 and Iran – ended on a positive note on Wednesday. The joint statement issued after the talks was a “first” of its kind, symbolizing that there is reason to believe in the strong likelihood of a critical mass forming.  The other good signs are that the next round of talks has been slated for an early date within the coming three weeks...

The ill-advised launching of a few barrages of cruise missiles at Syria, which was the White House’s fervent desire back in August could have cost as much as five billion dollars or so by the time it was all over, an act of war carried out just to establish the "credibility" of the White House. Would it have been money well spent to kill a few hundred Syrians? The Navy meanwhile keeps building multi-billion dollar aircraft carriers even though they are highly vulnerable to much cheaper...

This month Ryan Loflin, along with a group of volunteers, completed on his Colorado farm the first public hemp harvest in the US since Colorado voters approved legalizing the farming and distribution of both marijuana and hemp last November. The Loflin farm harvest is one of several recent developments that suggest American hemp farming that has been suppressed by the US government for decades may soon enjoy a resurgence. While the Colorado government says legal hemp farming is on hold until...

The award of the Nobel Peace Prize has gone to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons based in The Hague. This has come as a surprise – even to the OPCW. So far, according to the OPCW’s own records, only Albania and India have completely destroyed their chemical weapon stockpiles. The OPCW has a long way to go and why now? The answer lies in a five-letter word – Putin. The OPCW got the Nobel by default. The only way to dodge the claim of Russian president Vladimir Putin for a...

As we move toward a new round of nuclear talks in Geneva this week between Iran and the P5+1, it is important to look soberly at each side’s approach to renewed nuclear diplomacy and what that implies about the prospects for real diplomatic progress. On the Iranian side, the public diplomacy carried out by President Hassan Rohani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif during their visits to New York for the United Nations General Assembly—along with Zarif’s meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John...

The US federal government and the various agencies, media organizations, individuals, foreign governments, non-governmental organizations, lobbies, forces, and other entities that are tied to it have done everything in their power to obscure the details involving the chemical attacks in that took place in Syria on August 21, 2013. The aim has been to justify the US-led foreign campaign that was launched against Syria in 2011 by making the Syrian government appear culpable of grievous crimes....