How Many People Have Died in 5 Years of Drone Wars

In the last five years, the Obama administration has launched more than 390 drone strikes. Averaging 78 strikes per year, the death toll in that time frame is up to 2,400.

Did US Drones Really Kill Zero Pakistani Civilians in 2013?

This is not easy to determine. As Reuters points out, “The United States releases no information about individual strikes.” Likewise, Obama and CIA Director John Brennan embrace a notoriously loose definition of “militant.” As Reason's Scott Shackford pointed out last year, leaked documents indicate that the American government itself may not actually know who it is killing in Pakistan.

Five Years Of Obama Death Drones Snuffs Out 2400 Lives

British MPs demand scrutiny of US military bases amid spying reports

British MPs have called for American military bases in the UK to be properly scrutinized under cross-party proposals after evidence emerged that they are being used for mass spying activities and drone attacks.

Karzai to US: Start talks with Taliban or leave

Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai appeared to stiffen his resolve on Saturday not to sign a security pact with Washington, saying the United States should leave Afghanistan unless it could restart peace talks with the Taliban.

US, Pakistan seek stability amid Afghan doubts

Two former US officials criticize drone war

US Army hopes to replace 25% of soldiers with robots by 2040

U.S. Army expects to replace a quarter of soldiers with robots by 2040

U.S. Army Envisions More Robotic Future

The great divide: Washington remains split on drone strikes

“Drone warfare is terrorism”. These and many other hand-written antiwar slogans on placards grace a small portion of the pavement on Lafayette Square in Washington, in a three-decade-old peace camp that demands an end to use of weapons and force by governments.

Violence begets more violence, Mr Obama

However, by the time Obama took over, the Middle East had already turned into a maze of conflicting interests wherein it is easy to enter but very difficult to find one’s way out. Political observers knew that with huge investments like oil and weapons agreements, establishment of military bases throughout the region and the ruinous state of Iraq and Afghanistan would not make US pullout easy.

Top 10 Jobs That Might Not Survive the Coming Robot 'Jobocalpyse,' Is Yours on the List?

This is it, folks. The day we decide to become a plot cliche from many a science fiction book or film and weaponize robots and give them the choice to autonomously operate those weapons is perhaps the day the Jobocalpyse becomes the actual apocalypse.

No escape from Israeli drones in Gaza

Israeli drones are omnipresent in the Gaza Strip. Though most of them fly surveillance missions, there may also be attack drones among them. There is no way to tell one from the other.

Israeli warplanes kill member of Palestinian armed group and his cousin in Beit Hanoun, Gaza

In an extra-judicial execution attempt, on Wednesday 22 January 2014, an Israeli drone fired a missile at a civilian car in Beith Hanoun, Northern Gaza. As a result, both passengers, a member of a Palestinian armed group and his cousin, were killed immediately.

Unicorn Theatre’s ‘Grounded’ examines the morality of war in the age of drones

The one-actor show, depicting a female fighter pilot assigned to operate drones and kill bad guys with a joystick and a video screen, is opening this week at the Unicorn Theatre. It’s the third production in a “rolling world premiere” that included the San Francisco Playhouse and Borderlands Theater in Arizona. Those companies, like the Unicorn, are members of the National New Play Network, a consortium of smaller theater companies committed to developing new work.

Poland to probe secret CIA prisons

Ownership of WaPo by CIA Contractor Puts US Journalism in Dangerous Terrain

The hidden history of the CIA’s prison in Poland (by WaPo)

On a cold day in early 2003, two senior CIA officers arrived at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw to pick up a pair of large cardboard boxes. Inside were bundles of cash totaling $15 million that had been flown from Germany via diplomatic pouch.

The men put the boxes in a van and weaved through the Polish capital until coming to the headquarters of Polish intelligence. They were met by Col. Andrzej Derlatka, deputy chief of the intelligence service, and two of his associates.

Blood Brothers (also published by WaPo)

It's a history that the U.S. government knows all too well -- because, at times, it has exploited the Assad regime's brutality for its own ends. Arar was sent to Assad's prisons by the United States: In September 2002, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) detained him during a layover at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. U.S. officials believed, partially on the basis of inaccurate information provided by Canada, that Arar was a member of al Qaeda. After his detention in New York, Arar was flown to Amman, Jordan, where he was driven across the border into Syria.

US expands reach of clandestine Special Ops

The US military is expanding secretive Special Forces at an ever faster rate. Few know the exact reach of these Special Ops, but there are thought to be 11,000 officers on active missions in 80 countries at any one time.

CIA: Maybe Dennis Rodman Works For Us, Maybe He Doesn't

If you were curious whether or not America's primary international intelligence organization asked a rather unstable former athlete to conduct a surveillance mission inside one of the most dangerous countries on Earth, we have bad news for you: It is slightly possible that they did.

Robert Levinson's Family Confirms Missing American Worked For CIA

In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, the family of Robert Levinson urged the U.S. government to admit that the missing American worked for the CIA.

BOOK REVIEW: ‘America’s Great Game’

Too, there was a surge of Arab nationalism at the end of the World War II, personified by Gamal Abdel Nasser, a military officer who emerged as the replacement to the remarkably corrupt King Farouk (known jokingly to the CIA station in Cairo as “the FF,” initials for something you must go elsewhere to read).

President Eisenhower’s intended policy was stated in a 1953 national security directive, that U.S. policy should be “to guide the revolutionary and nationalistic pressures throughout the region into orderly channels not antagonistic to the West, rather than attempt to preserve the status quo.”

Truman approves CIA precursor, Jan. 22, 1946

“That included espionage,” Troy added. “Time [magazine] approvingly observed that the president ‘had put the U.S. in the business of international espionage. Almost alone as a dissenter was [Commerce Secretary and former Vice President] Henry Wallace, who thought spying ‘hellish.’ Truman was pleased with what he had accomplished. He also thought the problem of intelligence was solved.”

Otis G. Pike tackled allegations of CIA abuse

Otis G. Pike, a long-time congressman from New York who spearheaded an inquiry in the 1970s into accusations that the intelligence establishment had abused its power, died Monday in Vero Beach, Fla. He was 92.

CIA-Connected Terror Group Issues Threat Ahead of Russian Olympic Games

Vilayat Dagestan, a Salafist terror group loyal to Shamil Basayev, has taken credit for the Volgograd bombing in late December that claimed the lives of 34 people. A video posted on the group’s website shows two men, identified as the suicide bombers it says are responsible for the Russian attack, wearing explosive belts and posing with assault rifles.

Probing CIA's murky role in Arab world

The U.S. has a complicated relationship with the Middle East.

Syria and Diplomacy

The inability of the British left to understand the Middle East is pathetic. I recall arguing with commenters on this blog who supported the overthrow of the elected President of Egypt Morsi on the grounds that his overthrow was supporting secularism, judicial independence (missing the entirely obvious fact the Egyptian judiciary are almost all puppets of the military) and would lead to a left wing revolutionary outcome. Similarly the demonstrations against Erdogan in Istanbul, orchestrated by very similar pro-military forces to those now in charge in Egypt, were also hailed by commenters here. The word “secularist” seems to obviate all sins when it comes to the Middle East.

Syrian Crisis: A paradigm of the Western complicity

The fourth leg of Arab awakening or spring, when arrived inside the hinterland of Syria, was narrated jointly by the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) as a revolution against the four decades of autocratic rule of Baath Party, controlled by the Alawai/Nuseyri, an offshoot of Shiet Islam, to which Al-Assad family belongs. It was fervently hailed by the top echelons in the US and European capitals, and who consecutively asked and advised and even threatened Bashar Al-Assad to step down and pave the way for democratic transition in the country. However, Al-Assad did not budge to the demands and open threats of the western powers-- thanks to Russia and Iran for their material support and to China for its moral support.

Man Subjected To Multiple Rectal Searches And Enemas By Police Officers Receives $1.6 Million Settlement

Every search was nonconsensual and Eckert was detained for a total of 14 hours by the police, who also apparently mocked him before, during and after the medical procedures. The "justification" for these searches was one officer's "observation" that Eckert stance when he exited his vehicle was a bit "too erect" for an innocent man. The drug dog alerted on Eckert's car seat and at that point, the "evidence" was apparently too much to be ignored. When everything was said and done, the Gila Regional Medical Center presented Eckert with a bill for the procedures performed on him against his will and sent collection agencies after him when he refused to pay.

City, county settle in controversial anal probing case

Indiana police chief accidentally shoots himself for the second time

An Indiana police chief’s day ended with a bang when he accidentally shot himself in the leg on Saturday – the second time in his career that he’s turned his own gun on his body.

David Councellor is running to become Fayette County’s new sheriff, but he chose the wrong way to make headlines when he unintentionally discharged his 40-caliber Glock handgun while perusing other firearms at a local gun shop.

A 33-year veteran of the Connersville Police Department, Councellor had taken his Glock out to compare it to another gun in the store. When he tried putting the gun back into his holster, he found himself shooting his own thigh.

Teargas, fire, smoke as clashes erupt between police and protesters in Kiev

Ukrainian protesters clashed with police in central Kiev after at least 10,000 people took to Independence Square for an anti-government demonstration. Police retaliation was prompted by an attempt to storm the government quarter.

What started as a peaceful demonstration on the city’s Independence Square, or Maidan, with heated anti-government slogans being shouted and the announcement that the opposition was creating a “people’s assembly,” turned into violent clashes with the police later Sunday.

The Ukrainian Nationalism at the Heart of ‘Euromaidan’

Coverage focused on the call for European integration has largely glossed over the rise in nationalist rhetoric that has led to violence.