The first time I went to remote Yemen, this wild, mountainous nation was just creeping into the 7th Century AD. That was 45 years ago. There was only one hotel in the capital, Sanaa, and it was booked up with European businessmen trying to sell junk to the Yemenis. I had to sleep on a cot in the dining room and be up before breakfast. The ruler back in the day was a despot known to his less than loving subjects as ‘Ahmed the Devil.’ He liked to nail subjects who displeased him to the palace...

Martin Luther King called the U.S. government the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” No one can legitimately deny that he was right. At the time he made his statement, King was referring to the untold death, suffering, and destruction that the Pentagon and the CIA were unleashing on the people of Vietnam. But after that war ended, the U.S. national-security establishment continued wreaking death, destruction, and suffering across the world. Of course, there was lots of death and...