Category: Uncategorized
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Bernie Sanders should stop ducking foreign policy
By Norman Solomon Senator Bernie Sanders has sparked a strong grassroots response in his run for the Democratic presidential nomination on social and economic issues. At the same time, he has given short shrift to foreign policy, military spending and war. That approach should change. I’m among millions of supporters who are enthusiastic about the…
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Perpetual War Creates Endless Consequences
By Norman Solomon When the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, began this month by issuing a farewell report on U.S. military strategy, the gist was hardly big news. “Dempsey to Pentagon: Prepare for the Never-Ending War” read the headline on the cover page of the National Journal. The “war…
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Would Jeffrey Sterling Be in Prison If He Were White?
By Norman Solomon Last week CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling went to prison. If he were white, he probably wouldn’t be there. Sterling was one of the CIA’s few African-American case officers, and he became the first to file a racial discrimination lawsuit against the agency. That happened shortly before the CIA fired him in late…
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A Misleading Moment of Celebration for a New Surveillance Program
The morning after final passage of the USA Freedom Act, while some foes of mass surveillance were celebrating, Thomas Drake sounded decidedly glum. The new law, he told me, is “a new spy program.” It restarts some of the worst aspects of the Patriot Act and further codifies systematic violations of Fourth Amendment rights. Later…
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Jeffrey Sterling vs. the CIA: An Untold Story of Race and Retribution
By Norman Solomon A dozen years before his recent sentencing to a 42-month prison term based on a jury’s conclusion that he gave classified information to a New York Times journalist, former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling was in the midst of a protracted and fruitless effort to find someone in Congress willing to look into…