Time Is Running Out to Avert Climate Wars
WIB politics May 31, 2017
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch on Nov. 3, 2015. At the end of November 2015, delegations from nearly 200 countries will convene in Paris for what is billed as the most important climate meeting ever held. Officially known as the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP-21) of the... Read more
When Your President Incites Violence …
WIB politics May 31, 2017
How do we hold bombastic leaders accountable for violence done in their name? It’s a question with increasing relevance as right-wing populism rises around the globe. Matthew Heimbach, a white supremacist, has been charged with assaulting protesters at Donald Trump campaign rally in the fall of 2016, claimed he... Read more
On March 17, 2017, soldiers from Iraq’s special forces fighting in the Mosul Jidideh neighborhood called in U.S. air strikes on three buildings being used by Islamic State snipers. One of the buildings collapsed, and between 61 and 150 civilians died in the strikes. U.S. officials now admit that... Read more
The same week that U.S. Pres. Donald Trump inaugurated a new effort to enlist the Sunni Arab world’s help in bringing jihadist terrorism to an end, a troubled young British man blew himself up at a pop singer’s concert in Manchester, killing 22 people—mostly young girls. This was the... Read more
Trump’s Budget Is a Blow to U.S. Soft Power
WIB politics May 28, 2017
This article originally appeared at InSight Crime. U.S. Pres. Donald Trump’s proposed budget for 2018 is a clear demonstration of his security priorities and policy plans that will spark concern and anxiety among key strategic U.S. partners in the country’s efforts against organized crime in the Americas. The president’s... Read more
Zbigniew Brzezinski, the U.S. national security adviser to Pres. Jimmy Carter, died on May 26, 2017. A refugee from Poland, his family fled to Canada via France after the 1939 German invasion, and stayed after the Red Army swept into the country at the end of World War II. As... Read more
U.S. domestic counter-intelligence and foreign espionage are supposed to be divided between the FBI at home and the CIA abroad. In practice, however, the lines between threats foreign and domestic are often difficult to discern, and allegations that Russian intelligence collaborated with Pres. Donald Trump’s campaign to illegally influence... Read more
U.S. president Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to expand the U.S. Navy to 350 front-line warships — a major boost over today’s 275-strong combat fleet. But the Trump administration’s first Navy budget proposal, for the 2018 fiscal year that begins in late 2017, adds no ships to the... Read more
Much outrage has been expressed in recent weeks over Pres. Donald Trump’s invitation for a White House visit to Rodrigo Duterte, president of The Philippines, whose “war on drugs” has led to thousands of extrajudicial killings. Criticism of Trump was especially intense given his similarly warm public support for... Read more
Ukraine is blacklisting the country’s most popular social network VKontakte, email provider Mail.Ru and a host of other companies — all because they’re Russian businesses. Pres. Petro Poroshenko updated the official sanctions list, banning more than 400 companies from doing business for three years in the Ukraine. The government... Read more