A half century ago, on Aug. 10, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution though he knew its justification was based entirely on deception. Indeed, it was a continuation of a pattern of deception begun with a series of clandestine acts of war...

Originally posted at TomDispatch. On return from his recent reporting trip to Africa, Nick Turse told me the following tale, which catches something of the nature of our battered world. At a hotel bar in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, he attended an informal...

is impossible to know how many militants were killed in the U.S. airstrikes today; however, the Iraqi military claimed that over 800 militants were killed in a number of operations. Some of them may have involved U.S. forces. Only five people, civilians or security forces, were killed in other violence. Two people were reported wounded. Several thousand Yazidis were treated for dehydration after walking to Syria, and 60 people were airlifted off Sinjar Mountain.

Here’s a thought: The Iraq War boosters who enthusiastically promoted the idea that a violent invasion would deliver a stable democracy should keep their opinions about the next U.S. war to themselves. For many pundits and (mostly) Republican politicians, the...

Most of the 294 killed today were militants. At least 84 other were wounded. There were two suicide bombings in a Shi’ite neighborhood in Baghdad and another two bombings near a Shi’ite mosque in Kirkuk. Meanwhile, U.S. President Obama authorized humanitarian aid and airstrikes in Iraq.

Has anyone noticed how our numerous post-Iraq military interventions – actual and proposed – have nearly always been the result of a sudden "humanitarian crisis"? The War Party – facing popular skepticism, indeed, outright opposition from the American...

American soldiers are not permitted to make moral assessments about the wars in which they are tasked to fight. This is not meant to be an inflammatory statement. The simple fact of the matter is that if a soldier believes a war to be unjust, and decides to act on his...

In some respects, the recent admission by CIA Director John Brennan that his agents and his lawyers have been spying on the senators whose job it is to monitor the agency should come as no surprise. The agency's job is to steal and keep secrets, and implicit in those...

One hundred years ago, along came the long-predicted slide into the First World War. Though it is perhaps second to Vietnam in terms of wars now considered to be a mistake, and in spite of the idea of the horrors of trench warfare, there is still this notion of WWI...

The full extent of the troubles that have befallen the Yazidi people of northern Iraq has not yet come to light, but the fighting for their land continues. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki refused to consider stepping aside for Iraq’s sake. At least 938 people were killed and 107 more were wounded.