Pentagon Wants 20 More Years of War on Terror

The Pentagon wants to extend the 2001 Congressional authorization of war against Al Qaeda, enacted following the 9/11 attacks, “at least 10 to 20 years.” If granted by Congress, that would mean open-ended, executive branch secret war in many parts of the globe. The Nusra Front in Syria could be attacked by the US, as could Islamist fighters in northern Yemen and beyond. Drones and Special Forces operations, under the 2001 blanket authorization to use military force, already target insurgents in Yemen, who had nothing to do with 9/11. 

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Kent State Memorial Milestone

Kent State, last week, commemorated the 43rd anniversary of the National Guard killings of four students and the wounding of nine others on May 4, 1970, by the opening of the official May 4 Visitors Center. It was a significant milestone for activists – some already dead, the rest gone gray – determined to uncover the truth and honor the memory of those who died in an anti-war protest on that fateful day.

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Is Reform Possible in Bangladesh?

With the death of 1,127 innocent garment workers, mostly young women, in a Bangladesh factory collapse, there is hope that conditions will finally improve in the sweatshops where garments are manufactured for Western consumers.

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Elizabeth Warren, Maxine Waters and the Progressive Future

Senator Elizabeth Warren has even Robert Scheer justifiably swooning by standing up for students against Wall Street. Public expectations are soaring around Sen. Warren’s role on the Senate Banking Committee, feeding speculation of a future presidential run. Progressives should be delighted, for the moment. For a perspective on what happens to fighting liberals when they join the insider culture of Congress, no one should miss the New York Times article, “The Mellowing of Maxine Waters.”

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Cause of Benghazi: Western War on Libya

The Benghazi attack, which claimed four American lives, was caused by the French/US/NATO war against Colonel Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya. That is the point no one is making.

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Who Will Scream About Afghanistan?

It is understandable that the mass movement for ending the Afghanistan War has disappeared amidst promises of peace and the compelling demands of other crises. Nevertheless, there will have to be serious monitoring and focus, especially by local peace networks, Congressional opponents and the mainstream media, to prevent the “winding down” from becoming stalled in a political and military bog. 

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Obama Refuses to Recognize Venezuela Election

President Barack Obama’s unwillingness so far to accept the two percent victory margin of Nicholas Maduro as Venezuelan president, endorsing instead the Venezuelan opposition’s demand for an audit, hints at the permanence of a US desire for hegemony over Latin America. In an undiplomatic but revealing remark, Secretary of State John Kerry’s, at an April Senate committee hearing, said, "the Western Hemisphere is our backyard," summing up the lingering legacy of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine at a time when all of Latin America is striving for peaceful development on an equal basis with the United States.

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Obama Shifting Rhetoric, Policy on Cuba, Drug War

While media attention was focused elsewhere, President Barack Obama made an important though low-keyed shift in rhetoric and policy toward Latin America last week. One of the Cuban Five, Rene Gonzalez, was returned home from Florida, where he was kept on probation after serving 13 years in prison. Obama’s decision, criticized as too little, too late by American supporters of Cuba, may be a step toward further diplomatic action for the rest of the Cuban Five and Alan Gross, an American contractor held in Cuba since 2009 for smuggling illegal communications equipment. 

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Democracy Versus Elite Secrecy

The ultimate battle ahead – transcending while affecting struggles over race, inequality, climate crisis and war – will be between democracy and secrecy.

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The War on Whistleblowers

Updated on Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 7:58PM by Tom Hayden

Robert Greenwald’s documentary, “War on Whistleblowers,” provokes an important question as to why President Barack Obama, a constitutional lawyer, has gone to the lengths he has to suppress whistleblowers, especially those providing important questions about torture and national security policies which the president himself has at times questioned.

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