State Department Backpedals on Landmine Treaty

One day after the State Department announced that the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama will not sign the 10-year-old treaty banning anti-personnel landmines, it insisted that Washington's policy on the issue was still being reviewed. Human rights and...

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Why Is the State Department Speaking for JSOC?

Interesting chain of command issues seem to be emerging in the official "denials" being offered about my story in The Nation magazine on Blackwater and the Joint Special Operations Command operations in Pakistan. A few hours before the piece was published, I...

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Thursday: 9 Iraqis Killed, 54 Wounded

Updated at 8:10 p.m. EST, Nov. 26, 2009 On the eve of Eid al-Adha, at least nine Iraqis were killed and 54 more wounded. The holiday, which commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, is set to begin Friday for Sunnis and Saturday for Shi’ites.
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Settlements ‘Moratorium’ Still Short of Freeze

U.S. special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed an announcement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday that Israel will impose a 10-month "moratorium" on settlements, but warned that the...

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Groups Denounce Obama Rejection of Landmine Treaty

Human rights and disarmament activists reacted bitterly Wednesday to the decision by the administration of President Barack Obama, who will receive the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize next month, not to sign the 10-year-old treaty banning anti-personnel landmines. The U.S....

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Government Terrorism Lists Are a Holiday Turkey

As the holiday travel season rolls around again, the government's terrorism watch list and no-fly list get ever more bizarre. Of course, for starters, the list has always been unconstitutional, because the government does not have probable cause to believe the vast...

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