Originally posted at TomDispatch. You want ominous? Then offer a deep bow to conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a man eager to turn the Japanese military into an ever less defensive force, fully breach his country’s “peace constitution,” and...

They call it the "Good War," one supposes, in order to differentiate it from all the really bad wars we’ve been fighting – and losing – lately: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and all the future wars our political class has up its collective sleeve. I call it...

President Obama cares more about the feelings of foreign leaders than he does about the constitutional rights of Americans. In his attempt to stanch the political bleeding from Edward’s Snowden’s revelations on National Security Agency (NSA) spying, Obama made a...

At least 26 people were killed and 24 more were wounded during a relative break in the violence. Though, the figures may be low due to the difficulty of reporting from Anbar province.

The National Security Agency depends on huge computers that guzzle electricity in the service of the surveillance state. For the NSA’s top executives, maintaining a vast flow of juice to keep Big Brother nourished is essential – and any interference with that flow is...

Supporters of warfare, welfare, and Wonder Woman cheered last week as Congress passed a one trillion dollar “omnibus” appropriation bill. This legislation funds the operations of government for the remainder of the fiscal year. Wonder Woman fans can cheer that buried...

Does John Kerry understand the world he inherited? Is he in denial? Consider. At Davos, Switzerland, Kerry called it a "myth" that America is withdrawing, and "the most bewildering version of this disengagement myth is about a supposed U.S. retreat from the Middle...

Even though there were few good reasons to vote for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, the Republicans provided plenty of better reasons not to vote for their candidates, allowing Obama to benefit from the political vacuum. I was particularly concerned in both election...

The high casualty numbers of late held steady today thanks to the ongoing violence in Anbar. At least 63 people were killed, and 75 more were wounded.

The response of self-identified progressives to the Edward Snowden revelations has been ambiguous from the beginning. On the one hand, there are the ACLU-type liberals, epitomized by Glenn Greenwald – the reporter most responsible (along with Laura Poitras) for...