Crime Without Remorse: A USA Specialty

Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is about an individual student in 19th century Russia who murders an old woman. But it also tells the story of the USA . . . .

Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

I sat at an antiracism training sponsored by the ELCA Sierra Pacific Synod last week. One of the participants said, "Our country - we adopt the attitude that nothing we do is ever wrong." I thought it was a simple, elegant explanation of what is meant by "American exceptionalism." It certainly resonated with me, as I have been thinking about the question, "What is it that we as Christians need to face up to in this country? at the most fundamental level?"

I've been reading Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment again. This time I'm enjoying reading it in an old paperback edition -- the same one that was around our house when I was growing up. Every time I read it I'm struck by layers of meaning that I can't remember noticing before. 

As I began reading, I recalled that a few years ago Edward Snowden was given a copy of Crime and Punishment by his Russian lawyer. At the time I suggested the attorney was using the book to subtly raise the question, "Where are the real crimes that we should be focusing on?"

I noticed three things as I read Crime and Punishment this time:

Jacques-Louis David,
The Emperor Napoleon in His Study
at the Tuileries (Art Institute Chicago)

(1) It's about politics. I had never before taken seriously the importance of Napoleon as a model for the kind of actor on the world stage who is "entitled" to bring about suffering, because it is offset by his great accomplishments. Perhaps to us readers today, Napoleon is a caricature; but at the time the novel was written, he had transformed society, and people who wanted to do things in the world pondered his example very seriously. (Consider: who are the "big players" that people look up to today?)

(2) It's about relativism. The murder committed by the book's protagonist is about as horrible as you could imagine. The book relentlessly zeroes in on him and his physical, emotional, and moral state. And yet . . . . I was struck by this statement, a kind of throwaway line from another character in the book: "It's as well that you only killed the old woman. If you'd invented another theory you might perhaps have done something a thousand times more hideous." (Bantam paperback, p. 396) (Consider: what are the theories we use to justify suffering by other people at our hands today?)

(3) It's about our resistance to remorse. Up until the very last pages, the protagonist is unable to simply say, "I was wrong." (Consider: why can't we admit we were wrong? what are we afraid might happen?)

I wonder: what would happen if students were encouraged to read this book and given the following guidance:  "Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment is about an individual student in 19th century Russia who murders an old woman. But it also tells the story of the USA . . . . " ? ? ?


Related posts

With drones, people become just dots. "Bugs." People who no longer count as people . . . .

(See Drone Victims: Just Dots? Just Dirt? )











Now that it is available online, every American should read the Justice Department memo approving the targeted killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki. Let's face it: the Obama administration and the rest of the U.S. government know that they have a big problem: they want to go to war against anyone they suspect is an enemy -- and skip the rule of law. They wish that a miracle could happen and everyone would just let them do it.

(See A Layman Reads Obama's "Targeted Killing" Memo )

A big Hollywood production of Ender's Game is scheduled for release on November 1. It's a perfect opportunity for us to ask: Are we happy seeing our schools turned into "Battle Schools"?

(See "Ender's Game" and the Militarization of Youth: Can We Talk About This? )




"Once the boat went to full pressure, there was really no other option."

(See In Whose Machine Will YOU Be a Cog? )








Svetlana Geier, translator of Dostoevsky's "elephants" (The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Devils, and Raw Youth) into German.

(See Would You Buy an Elephant from This Woman?)

U.S. "Precision Strikes" in a Nutshell

Signe Wilkinson's latest cartoon for the Philadelphia Daily News is brilliant:

Cartoon by Signe Wilkinson

It depicts a U.S. warplane (or drone) coming in for the attack, with the Barack Obama at the controls, saying, "Target is in sight!"

The only problem is that the "target" is really multiple targets:

* good terrorist
* bad terrorist
* despicable terrorist

. . . as well as . . . 

* lives near a terrorist

. . . and . . . 

* deciding whether to be a terrorist

In other words, pretty much anybody and everybody gets lumped together with "terrorists"; the vaunted "precision" of U.S. military strikes isn't precise at all.

And if those people on the ground weren't our enemies before the Hellfire missile strikes, you can be sure they will be afterwards.

My only quibble with this cartoon is that instead of depicting Obama in the driver's seat, it should make it clear that the warplane is controlled by "Americans." ('Cause we all get to share in the responsibility, the blame, and the consequences of our government's killing spree in the Mideast.)


Related posts

The U.S. has a modus operandi for conducting military strikes while slipping past any genuine public accountability. It's worth a look at the Tuesday, October 29, 2013, New York Times account of a drone strike in Somalia the previous day: "Pentagon Says Shabab Bomb Specialist Is Killed in Missile Strike in Somalia." It's a case study in what's wrong with the U.S. drone wars.

(See October 28 in Somalia: Another Day, Another Drone Killing)




A September 5, 2013, U.S. drone strike in Pakistan killed six people - including Sangeen Zadran -- a "senior militant commander" who was "implicated in a long-running kidnapping drama involving an American soldier."

(See September 5 in Pakistan: Another Day, Another Drone Killing)

The press announced a flurry of drone killings in Yemen over the April 19/20 weekend -- that is, while the rest of us were observing Easter -- and just as with U.S. drone killings in Pakistan and Somalia, the U.S. modus operandi was on full display.

(See April 19 in Yemen: Another Day, Another Drone Killing )

A Layman Reads Obama's "Targeted Killing" Memo

Memo author Barron: Lots and lots of "trees"

Now that it is available online, every American should read the Justice Department memo approving the targeted killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki.

There is a lot in the memo, much of it recitation of precedents, and teasing apart of legal categories like "non-international armed conflict" and "public authority," and the parsing of the precise definition of terms like "taking no active part in hostilities" and "unlawful killing."  Readers with law degrees could spend years dissecting it.  And once you get into it, it can be easy to miss the forest for the trees.

That's where being a non-lawyer comes in handy. Because if you don't know enough about legal theory to become fascinated with the minutiae, you are more inclined to sense the big thing that is missing here, namley, the "facts" upon which the government based its decision to go to war against Anwar Al-Awlaki.

The memo seeks to circumvent the rule of law -- in which a person is charged with a crime, a trial is conducted (including presentation of evidence, contesting of evidence, and findings of fact and findings of law), a verdict is reached, and in the event of a guilty verdict a sentence is passed, after which the sentence is carried out -- and replace it with a justified act of war.

But what is missing in the "targeted killing" memo are the evidence, the contesting of the evidence, and the finding of fact. And by offering nothing to make up for the jettisoning of these parts of the process, the U.S. government leaves us unconvinced that abandoning legal process can be justified.

Let's face it: the Obama administration and the rest of the U.S. government know that they have a big problem: they want to go to war against anyone they suspect is an enemy -- and skip the rule of law. They wish that a miracle could happen and everyone would just let them do it.

The closest they can come is some hand-waving and fast talk, ending with the words, " . . . and that's why we can skip legal process and go to war against (fill in name here)," and then hoping like hell that Americans fall for it.

But Americans aren't such pushovers.  Sure, not every American has figured out what's going on yet. But they will. And when they do, there will be political consequences for the leaders that have been trying to pull the wool over all of our eyes.

Related posts

If the public will join us in asking the question "Who decides?" about drone executions, I believe they will rapidly come to realize that they are utterly dissatisfied with what the government is saying.

(See Who Decides? (When Drones are Judge, Jury, and Executioner) )











Eric Holder addressed a group of Northwestern Law students and others. Afterward one audience member summed up the speech as he left: "He pretty much said he can kill anyone he wants." The details of that speech will turn you more topsy-turvy than anything Alice experienced when she ventured through the looking glass.

(See Eric Through the Looking Glass)

By now, everyone knows about the New York Times article describing Barack Obama's personal administration of drone killing around the world. What few people are willing to face up to is that Obama 2012 partisans actually see this as a way to get a lot of Americans to like Obama: "This is the candidate; you MUST support him!"

(See Being a Team Player for "Mr. Forceful": Obama and the Dems )

Drone Gaze, Drone Injury: The War on Communities of Color

Here's what I was thinking about as the 2013 CODEPINK Drones Summit concluded: "There is a wing of this movement that is concerned about surveillance; there is a wing of this movement that’s concerned about physical injury to people. If there is one area where there is not always full communication, coordination or agreement, that’s it. . . . If the people who feel most concerned about surveillance are actually successful at sitting together with the people concerned about physical injury, this is going to be an incredibly powerful movement." (See Drone Free Zone: At the second annual Drone Summit, Code Pink and Cornel West argue that all lives are equal. in In These Times quoted me the day after)

"This movement," of course, is the movement to stop drone surveillance and warfare. During the summit we need an enormous amount of progress in building the national (and soon-to-be global) network to stop drone surveillance and warfare. Are there really two different wings -- two different struggles -- or is it, in fact, a single struggle?

What do we mean by "surveillance"?

There is a full-blown effort by individuals and organizations to rein in the use of drones to do surveillance, with some notable recent successes.  A lot of this revolves around words like privacy, search, and warrants; and it is closely tied to NSA abuses and the ubiquitous stationery surveillance cameras in many cities.

Some activists are recognizing the important connections to the use of drones and other technology on the US border, and by government agencies working to repress political dissent.  People are even grudgingly recognizing the centrality of monster data storage and data processing capabilities in making the entire surveillance "octopus" functional.

I wonder if we don't need to go yet another level deeper. When I first began thinking about drones, I asked, "Does this possibly have something to do with what Foucault talked about?"

I'm not a very good philosopher, so it's taken me a long time to really understand the role of surveillance -- of the uninterrupted gaze -- within a large system of power and control.  I'm now beginning to understand that the idea that there are standards of "normal" or "right" or "acceptable" behavior, and that someone (who?) gets to set those standards, and then enforce those standards, is the inherent root condition that manifests itself in ubiquitous surveillance. (See Foucault and Drones: "Surveiller et Punir" Indeed!)

Think of that -- the desire and determination to be the "decider" about standards of "normal" or "right" or "acceptable" -- as the kernel that sits at the absolute center of the surveillance problem.

What do we mean by "injury"?

As I departed from the first drones summit -- the one held in April, 2012 -- the biggest realization for me was that the physical injury that the US inflicts on others is hidden from view, rendered invisible; and that the number one job of activists was to reverse that situation -- to make those injuries visible to everyone -- 100% visible!

The central importance of physical injury must never be lost.  At the same time, we are beginning to recognize the broader impact of drone strikes, and the daily presence of the hovering drone threat, in traumatizing whole communities, and whole sections of countries.  (See Living Under Drones.)

Salima by Nanna Tanier

Years ago, my sister wrote a book called The Body in Pain. The subtitle was "the making and unmaking of the world."  The book said many things, one of which was that the behavior of power when it inflicts pain and injures bodies is often combined with efforts to more broadly destroy the world of the victim -- and by extension, those connected to the victim -- and that the physical manifestation (pain and injured bodies) and the more abstract manifestation (individuals and communities whose are destroyed) should be understand to be inextricably interconnected, and in the service of a single end: the exercise and reinforcement of power.

What happens to communities under the gaze of drones?

One of the biggest ideas coming out of the 2013 Drone Summit, in my opinion, is that we will only deal successfully with the crimes being committed using drones when we understand them as part of the much larger war against communities of color.  This message was brought home in presentation after presentation -- starting with the inspirational words of Cornel West, continuing with the testimony of representatives of Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries who came to tell their stories-- and reinforced by comment after comment by conference participants.

We need to commit totally to resisting that larger war.

There is a small number of people who enjoy privilege and supremacy.  They are a useful category for those who decide what is "normal" or "right" or "acceptable." Often, they image that they are autonomous actors in the power structure. But they are just a useful category.

A far larger number of people are marked for exclusion and deprivation -- and worse -- because they have characteristics that are susceptible to the whole apparatus of power:  they are easily recognizable as  NOT "normal" or "right" or "acceptable" . . . under the gaze of surveillance this condition is recorded and propagated . . . for perpetual recording and processing within the data centers of power . . . accompanied by intermittent acts of physical and cultural injury -- random, senseless -- to reinforce their unshakeable status.  

THIS is the war on communities of color.

(Thanks to Noor Mir at CODEPINK for inspiring this post with her recommendations about the direction of the national and global movement against drones.)


Related posts


Palestine 30 CE - were Jews a "community of color?" And what was Empire doing to keep the community within "normal" or "right" or "acceptable" bounds? And what happened to people who looked like the "wrong" type?

(See Was the Crucifixion a "signature strike"?)

In the city where I live, "normal" or "right" or "acceptable" has been given a brutal construction by the power structure:

Police encounter black man on street
Police shoot black man
Black man dies
(Business as usual in Chicago.)

 (See We need to get the police off the streets of Chicago. QED.)

In 2013 America, we have been conditioned to feel anything associated with Middle Eastern and/or Muslim men should trigger feelings of suspicion, fear, and hatred. And when those cues are triggered, all of our objectivity and healthy skepticism goes out the window.

(See Orwell and the Uses of Hate)









The outstanding aspect of the "global hibakusha" phenomenon that I learned about at the World Nuclear Victims Forum in Hiroshima was that in situation after situation, great harm is done because someone has the attitude that "these people don't matter."

(See GLOBAL HIBAKUSHA: The Result of the "People Who Don't Matter" Mindset )


We live in a 24/7 entertainment and media culture, and it is a constant struggle to shift from being a passive participant in the dominant cultural narrative to being an active influence on the ideas circulating in our communities.

(See In 2016, Walk the Talk: "Anti-Islamophobia." (You can do it.) )

OK, You Have Our Attention. Let's Put a Stop to ALL These Criminal Weapons!

More on Syria: Where Have We Ended Up?

How many of Barack Obama's words about Syria will be used against him when the U.S. is indicted for its crimes using drones?

As President Obama insisted two nights ago:

When dictators commit atrocities, they depend upon the world to look the other way until those horrifying pictures fade from memory. But these things happened. The facts cannot be denied. The question now is what the United States of America, and the international community, is prepared to do about it. Because what happened to those people -- to those children -- is not only a violation of international law, it’s also a danger to our security. (Emphasis added. Full transcript from Washington Post.)

The UN is on the verge of taking action on U.S. extrajudicial executions using drones, and the movement against drone warfare is preparing for another wave of nationwide protests. Person after person is noticing the eerie resonance of Barack Obama's accusations against Syria with the crimes of his own administration against people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere.

A friend wrote to me from Wisconsin:

Yesterday evening I watched Obama fill the air with hypocrisy. It struck me he mentioned children dying 3 times. He also talked of them writhing. Obviously this is a ploy to pull the heartstrings of Americans. Of course it struck me that he is killing children in Pakistan and elsewhere and the fact thousands are being killed, and hundreds of thousands killed by the U.S.

Bob Koehler, the syndicated columnist based here in Chicago, calls Obama's behavior "cherry-picking evil":

So Barack Obama, in his role as president, belies both his own intelligence and that of — my guess — most of his constituents when he asks us to play along with the game. Yes, poison gas is a ghastly evil (though who actually used it in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta remains uncertain), but what a ruse to muster all one’s outrage over images of “men, women, children lying in rows, killed by poison gas, others foaming at the mouth, gasping for breath, a father clutching his dead children, imploring them to get up and walk” — and then use that outrage as the pretext to justify counter-actions on our part that are equally indiscriminate in their delivery of hell to the same people. Virtually every aspect of modern warfare fits the description Obama drew as a sort of “red line” of bad behavior: the use of weaponry that kills on a mass scale, making no distinction between soldier and infant. We are, after all, the nation that developed nuclear weapons and, over the next half century, spent some $5.5 trillion playing arms race with the Soviet Union and, ultimately, with no one at all. We’re still developing further generations of “tactical” nukes, bleeding more than $30 billion annually into this insanity. (Read Bob's entire column: Cherry-Picking Evil)

Sure, the world needs to stop Syria's chemical weapons. But what about the United States' drones? Which leads me to another metaphor -- one that found resonance with my friends from Pakistan on Twitter -- "what's good for the goose is good for the gander."

Isn't it time we put a stop to ALL these criminal weapons? And the criminals who use them?

Get involved in the movement to stop drone warfare.

More on Syria: Where Have We Ended Up?

Related posts

In my opinion, the reason to focus on drones is this: when we focus on drones, the general public is able to "get," to an unusual extent, the degree to which popular consent has been banished from the process of carrying out state violence. (Sure, it was banished long ago, but the absence of a human in the cockpit of a drone suddenly makes a light bulb go off in people's heads.) It takes some prodding, but people can sense that drone use somehow crosses a line. And that opens up the discussion about how our consent has been eliminated from the vast range of US militarism.

(See "Why focus on drone attacks?")

"Because of the intensified division of labor," the narrator explains, "many technicians and scientists can no longer recognize the contribution the have made to weapons of destruction." "Our department extracts lareic, oleic, and naptha acids . . . . "  "I'm a chemist. What should I do? If I develop a substance, it can be good for humanity . . . ."  "Besides napalm, Dow Chemical produces 800 other products . . . ." Does this familiar to you?


(See American Fire: Still Spreading, Still Inextinguishable)

The recurring theme of the The Hurt Locker is "We're done here." The tension of each encounter with a bomb is followed by the moment when the hero successfully defuses the bomb, and then announces "We're done here." The deeper theme of the movie is psychological: the solder is addicted to the excitement. He is unable to go on with a normal life. He keeps going back, again and again, to Iraq, to defuse more bombs. (HE is NEVER "done".)

(See DU: Will we ever be able to say "We're done here" ? )

Will the UN Be Talking About Chemical Weapons Instead of Drones In September? (Why not BOTH?)

No matter which way the Congressional vote on Syria goes, it seems quite clear that the U.S. has teed up an opportunity for its ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, to direct the attention of the General Assembly to the question of chemical weapons when it reconvenes in the middle of September.

This is convenient, because without something else to focus on it has seemed very likely that the nations of the world gathered in New York City in September would finally get around to focusing on U.S. drone crimes.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power
with President Obama

Inarguably, there's nothing like the drama of the threat of U.S. cruise missile strikes to distract from the drama of U.S. drone strikes.

Ambassador Power, as a leading theorist of how the international community can and should respond to crimes by state actors against civilian populations, cannot be expected to forgo the opportunity to address the world on the issue when the UN General Assembly meets. And a legitimate question does exist: if a state attacks civilians, what recourse does the world community have? Can it hold that state "accountable"? Short of retaliating with military force?

"A Problem From Hell":
America and the Age of Genocide
by Samantha Power

This question is especially germane, given that the UN is expected to be holding a report about crimes against civilians by the dominant military power in the world. How, exactly, is the UN supposed to hold that power "accountable"?

So here's a modest proposal: the United Nations should use the occasion of the convening of the General Assembly to address both the actions of the Syrian government (including use of force against civilians) and the actions of the United States government (including the use of drone strikes to kill civilians and terrorize civilian populations). They should take up the difficult question: what is the authority of the UN to put a stop to crimes -- especially when the crimes are carried out by the powerful (or clients of the powerful)?

Useful background may be provided by Samantha Power's book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. Among its most useful contributions is to stimulate us to think deeply about the crime of genocide -- in particular, to think about it less in terms of the sheer numbers of victims and more in terms of the power relations between perpetrator and victim, and the effect of destroying communities through violence.

The Obama administration has suggested there is a "red line" -- a point where something needs to be done. Perhaps its time for the world community to join in that discourse.


Related posts

A new U.N. report makes it clear that the U.S. has to report fully on all its drone attacks.

(See 2014: The Year of Transparency (for U.S. Drone Use)?)

I hate to burst Congress' (and Obama's) bubble, but if the declaration of war on Syria they're debating is predicated on crimes involving chemical weapons, they're usurping the authority properly assigned to another body.

(See Chemical Weapons? Tell it to the ICC! )

The recurring theme of the The Hurt Locker is "We're done here." The tension of each encounter with a bomb is followed by the moment when the hero successfully defuses the bomb, and then announces "We're done here." The deeper theme of the movie is psychological: the solder is addicted to the excitement. He is unable to go on with a normal life. He keeps going back, again and again, to Iraq, to defuse more bombs. (HE is NEVER "done".)

(See DU: Will we ever be able to say "We're done here" ? )

VAU Afgh 101: Extrajudicial Executions

This is part of a series of eight "virtual teachins" on U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan.

[UPDATE: As reported in the Chicago Tribune in its June 19, 2012 article entitled U.N. investigator decries U.S. use of killer drones, Christof Heyns, U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions has said, "The Special Rapporteur again requests the Government to clarify the rules that it considers to cover targeted killings ... (and) reiterates his predecessor's recommendation that the government specify the bases for decisions to kill rather than capture 'human targets' and whether the State in which the killing takes places has given consent."]

The crime of Extrajudicial Executions is described on the website for Mike Haas' book, George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration’s Liability for 269 War Crimes. Here, we will look at the specific legal basis for charging perpetrators as war criminals for Extrajudicial Executions, and list sources reporting relevant U.S. actions in Afghanistan.

Viewers of this page are strongly encouraged to contribute comments and additional sources in the comments section!





If the American public knew the nature of the crimes that its government was committing in Afghanistan, could it possibly sit still and not force an end to the war, and the removal of U.S. military, intelligence, and contractors from Afghanistan?

LEGAL BASIS
The crime of Extrajudicial Executions is described on the website for Mike Haas' book, George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration’s Liability for 269 War Crimes.

Why does the law prohibit extrajudicial execution? In my view, the ultimate reason is that extrajudicial execution always undermines confidence in the functioning of all law. Thus, it is even simpler and less controversial than moral arguments. Consider:

EVEN IF a person is objectively "guilty" of some crime, i.e. no organized finding of fact is necessary (a condition which, if you think about it, is in fact virtually impossible to meet -- do we really know the facts before we establish the facts?); and . . .

EVEN IF the death penalty is accepted as an appropriate penalty for a crime of which the person is known objectively to be guilty (a condition which is rapidly becoming inoperable); in other words . . .

EVEN IF the machinery of state power is operating from a basis of truth and legitimate authority, still . . .

THE PROBLEM REMAINS that extrajudicial execution lacks due process, and thus has little if any chance of being seen as legitimate in the eyes of the public (where "the public" inevitably consists of any and all people who lack some kind of magical safeguards against being victims of state power).

All war crimes have the effect of de-legitimizing the entire basis of the State; extrajudicial execution de-legitimizes the State with extreme speed and thoroughness.

REPORTS FROM AFGHANISTAN
Two well-publicized examples of extrajudicial executions in the past year have been the assassination of Osama bin Laden by a commando team in May, and the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki by drone attack at the end of September. There have been countless others, including a very large number carried out by drones.

The Noam Chomsky evaluation of the bin Laden assassination is a very good assessment of the problem of extrajudicial execution.

Michael Ratner discussed the Awlaki assassination in The Guardian: "The law on the use of lethal force by executive order is specific. This assassination broke it – that creates a terrifying precedent." A report in the NY Times established that the Obama White House developed a justification for the Awlaki assassination a year prior to the event in a secret memo. This means that all people were subject to lethal force by the United States government on a basis that the United States government intended to claim as legitimate and lawful, but which was unknown and unknowable by anyone.

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Return to the main VAU Afghanistan 101 page.

Photo credit: Al Hayat wa Dounia newspaper

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Related posts

Virtual Antiwar University (VAU) 101 focuses on eight categories of U.S. war crimes, selected from Mike Haas' book, George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration’s Liability for 269 War Crimes.

(See VAU Afghanistan 101: US War Crimes )

If the public will join us in asking the question "Who decides?" about drone executions, I believe they will rapidly come to realize that they are utterly dissatisfied with what the government is saying.

(See Who Decides? (When Drones are Judge, Jury, and Executioner) )











Eric Holder addressed a group of Northwestern Law students and others. Afterward one audience member summed up the speech as he left: "He pretty much said he can kill anyone he wants." The details of that speech will turn you more topsy-turvy than anything Alice experienced when she ventured through the looking glass.

(See Eric Through the Looking Glass)

By now, everyone knows about the New York Times article describing Barack Obama's personal administration of drone killing around the world. What few people are willing to face up to is that Obama 2012 partisans actually see this as a way to get a lot of Americans to like Obama: "This is the candidate; you MUST support him!"

(See Being a Team Player for "Mr. Forceful": Obama and the Dems )


"My advisers have run the numbers and they have indicated that, at the current rate of decrease, U.S. war crimes could reach zero by 2015, or 2016 latest . . . . "

(See Obama on Drones: The Democrats Respond )







Yet another Iranian scientist has been assassinated. In an environment in which the U.S. is beating the drums of war against Iran, we do not have the option of closing our eyes and acting as if we don't know what's going on.

(See Congress: Who Is Behind Assassinations In Iran? )