“Hope must be grounded in reality; and it must be invested in the right place. When reality gives it the lie, then it must be abandoned.” It was obvious from the moment that Barack Obama appointed Leon Panetta to head the CIA that there was going to be no serious investigation — much less prosecution — of the high crimes of torture committed by the agency at the order of the Bush White House. Panetta, a Clinton retread (who actually began his career in the Nixon administration), has always been a bland, feckless, obedient servant of the Establishment; he has

Yes, the gal I gotI swear she’s the screaming endShe wants me to be a heroSo she can tell all her friends— Bob Dylan, “Hero Blues“ Joan Walsh gives us another bravura performance in a new episode of what will apparently be a very long-running show, “Deep in the Tank for Obama.” In her latest outing, Walsh is transported near to tears by images of the president greeting soldiers during his unannounced visit to Iraq. (Yes, even though the “surge” has been “a success beyond our wildest dreams,” as Obama instructed us last year, American leaders still have to creep

“I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it.” — Bob Dylan While the usual gaggle of sycophants and media hive-minders — along with some ordinarily perspicacious analysts — tell us that Barack Obama literally changed the course of human history by disgorging a great load of thrice-chewed cud about nuclear disarmament in Prague this week, the high-tech drone war the great hero of peace is waging inside the sovereign territory of America’s ally, Pakistan, is helping drive tens of thousands of people from their homes and killing civilians almost daily. I.Obama’s Prague speech was a bold, creative,

“This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms….” — T.S. Eliot I understand there was a conglomeration of global bigwigs recently not all that far from my expatriate digs here in Brenda’s Blighty. I meant to pop round and say cheerio, but couldn’t seem to find the time. The UK newspapers were full of it (no pun intended, of course, oh no, not at all): reams and reams of coverage devoted to the preening trumpery of stuffed shirts and hollow men, headpieces filled with straw. Having missed it all, I positively despaired at the thought of wading through the gray goo

Here’s a purely hypothetical scenario. Let’s say you were a dedicated imperial militarist who believed that your country’s security, prestige and financial interests could best be served by war and the ever-present threat of war. Let’s say you had some really hot and juicy operations going on, endless deadly conflicts that were pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into your war machine and entrenching national policy even more deeply in the militarist philosophy – the machtpolitik – that you believe in. But there’s a problem. The general public – the cow-like herd out there that doesn’t understand grand strategy the

“Their goal is to save what they care about in ways that they know.” — Tom Englehardt “Beyond here lies nothing:/Nothing done and nothing said.” – Bob Dylan The political class has failed us. At every level, they have failed us. Republican and Democrat, they have failed us. Liberal, conservative and centrist, they have failed us. They have lived on lies, and lived by lies, for so long that they no longer know how to comprehend the truth, much less communicate it or – God forbid – act on it. And so they plow on deeper into the darkness, in

Arthur Silber is back, after another terrible downturn in his health which kept him from posting for almost a month. As readers here know, Arthur depends on his blog to keep body and soul together in grinding circumstances of illness and poverty (thanks to the wonderful “safety net” our society provides; but hey, at least we’re not France, right?). It’s a touch-and-go, month-to-month existence, and several weeks of enforced silence are devastating in that regard. I know you are probably saving all your money to help those poor execs at AIG who are suffering so much without their bonuses, or

Hi All Just a quick Public Service Announcement (PSA) or For Your Information (FYI)… Chris Floyd is now available for following here at Twitter and is also now available on the new Kindle reader from Amazon.com Thanks to all who voted in the poll for Chris’ new book and we both really appreciate your valuable input in helping him (and myself as publisher) to make some decisions on a new book. Regards Richard KasteleinPublisherFree Press GroupNetherlands    

The fighters gather to celebrate their victory in a recent campaign against the enemy infidels. Singers are called in to raise an anthem in praise of the warriors. Suddenly, there is outrage, consternation. Dozens of the fighters get up and stalk out of the celebration, along with their commanders. They are all deeply insulted, their religious faith has been assaulted, they have been exposed to a filthy evil which they cannot, will not, abide: Some of the singers are…. women. Just another day in a Taliban encampment? another example of the virulent woman-hatred and primitive fanaticism of Islamofascist zealots? Of

Juan Cole provides some further information on one of the results of the glorious, successful-beyond-our-wildest-dreams “surge” that brought victory and peace to the people of Iraq. Recall that one key aspect of the “surge” was the consolidation of the relentless, ruthless “ethnic cleansing” carried out, with eager American assistance, by the violent sectarian groups that the Americans had installed in power. The “surge” was designed in part to secure the ethnic cleansing gains, particularly in Baghdad, which, as Cole notes, went from being 50 percent Sunni before the war to only 10 to 15 percent Sunni now. What happened to