Originally posted at TomDispatch. The question Senator Ron Wyden asked on March 12th of last year was straightforward enough and no surprise for Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. He had been given it a day in advance of his testimony before the Senate...

"If these negotiations [with Iran] fail, there are two grim alternatives," said Sen. Richard Durbin, "a nuclear Iran, or war, or perhaps both." Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham returned from the Munich security conference saying that even John Kerry agrees that...

For years, this space has been arguing – railing, really – that the ideological and legal currents unleashed by America’s response to the 9/11 attacks have been leading us down the road to dictatorship: see here, here, here, and here. Back in those halcyon days, circa...

Throughout the Cold War, the West (calling itself the "free world") argued that the Communist bloc wanted to conquer the world, because for Communism to triumph it could allow no alternatives. Yet the Communist faction advocating a global revolution –Trotsky...

At least 20 people were killed, and another 97 were wounded in today’s attacks. Also, an unknown number of women are being abused, raped, or tortured while in detention within Iraq’s penal system. Some of them are being held illegally.

Two weeks ago in a room in Kabul, Afghanistan, I joined several dozen people, working seamstresses, some college students, socially engaged teenagers and a few visiting internationals like myself, to discuss world hunger. Our emphasis was not exclusively on their own...

When Western intelligence agencies began in the early 1990s to intercept telexes from an Iranian university to foreign high technology firms, intelligence analysts believed they saw the first signs of military involvement in Iran’s nuclear program. That suspicion led...

As U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry hurried to his helicopter ready to take off at the end of a visit to Iraq last year, it was becoming clearer that the Americans have lost control of a country they wished to mold to their liking. His departure on March 24, 2013...

At least 71 people were killed and 141 more were wounded in attacks across Iraq. A series of bombs, several in critical areas downtown, terrorized Baghdad. The government also reported the deaths of 35 ISIS/DAASH militants in Anbar province.

Why is the talented journalist Barrett Brown in jail – awaiting trial on charges that could keep him there for one hundred years? A writer for Vanity Fair, the Guardian, and at one time an unofficial spokesman for the internet pirates known as "Anonymous,"...