Cynicism Around Syria

Rehearsed statements filled the stale air of the UN Security Council on the last day of January. The Arab League’s Nabil el-Araby pleaded with the Council to adopt a draft resolution on Syria furnished by…

Fingers Itch for a War on Iran

If you ask Iranians, they will tell you that the war against Iran has already begun. Some will take you back to 1953, when the US fired its first shot across the bow, taking out…

Obama and the 2012 Elections: Primary Lessons

The Congressional Black Caucus’ Chairman Congressman Emanuel Cleaver called the “debt-ceiling” deal a “sugar-coated Satan Sandwich.” Effectively the deal allows for $2.4 trillion in spending cuts, and $0 in new revenues via taxation of the…

Palestine’s Norwegians

Sitting on an Amtrak train from New Haven to Washington, DC on Friday, I was enjoying my thriller, Kjell Ola Dahl’s The Man in the Window. Dahl’s police procedural novels are set in Oslo, Norway,…

Droneland

“Bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended, is prohibited.” (4th Hague Convention, 1907). A new continent has emerged on our atlas: it is Droneland. The borders of Droneland run…