One Nation Under a Cop
- April 28, 2015
- by
- Matt
Riots are not generally much good for the people on the receiving end of them, and the people who are on the receiving end of them are often the same people who are rioting in the first place. But moralising about their futility and destructiveness is not much use in societies that aren’t prepared to address the other forms of violence that sometimes cause them. Most people who have paid any attention to the disturbances in Baltimore will be aware that the death of Freddie Gray is only the latest...
Killing the Messenger
- March 29, 2015
- by
- Matt
I first came across the name Gary Webb some years ago, when I was researching a section about the Reagan administration’s first ‘war on terror’ in the 1980s for my book on terrorism. Webb was a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, who stumbled on a story that the CIA-supported Contras were...
Joshua Muravchik: War Zombie
- March 16, 2015
- by
- Matt
You have to admire the neoconservative imagination. Alright, maybe not admire exactly. But in any case you have to acknowledge that these guys are in it for the long haul. Neither age nor failure can wither them. No amount of death and destruction can ever dampen their ardor...
Look out America: the Venezuelans are coming
- March 13, 2015
- by
- Matt
A long time ago back back in the 1980s I was living in New York, when I read a story in the New York Times about a group of armed Nicaraguan exiles, consisting mostly of former members of the Somoza National Guard, who were conducting military exercises in the Florida Everglades and receiving training...
The United States of Israel
- March 04, 2015
- by
- Matt
There is no polite way to say this, but Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the most repellent and dangerous politicians in the world today. He is a man who trades on fear and war, a cynical and amoral manipulator without a trace of honesty in his entire body, who lies as easily...
Clinton and Bush: Hawk versus Hawk
- February 19, 2015
- by
- Matt
If you take seriously the premise that US military power is a force for international stability and global good, then a number of events over the last two weeks ought to give pause for thought. In Kosovo, nearly 16 years after NATO bombed Yugoslavia, UNCHR reported that 10,000 people had filed for asylum...
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