Onward and Upward with U.S. Central Command

by Andrew Bacevich By way of explaining his eight failed marriages, the American bandleader Artie Shaw once remarked,  “I am an incurable optimist.” In reality, Artie was an incurable narcissist. Utterly devoid of self-awareness, he never looked back, only forward.… Continue Reading

Qatar and the Islamic State

by Giorgio Cafiero and Alex Stout  In the fall of 2014, the Obama administration prioritized securing support from Washington’s allies in the Sunni Arab world before launching a multinational air campaign against targets in Iraq and Syria belonging to Islamic… Continue Reading

Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Special Ops “Successes”

by Nick Turse They’re some of the best soldiers in the world: highly trained, well equipped, and experts in weapons, intelligence gathering, and battlefield medicine.  They study foreign cultures and learn local languages.  They’re smart, skillful, wear some very iconic… Continue Reading

The Fog of Intelligence

by Tom Engelhardt 1,500. That figure stunned me. I found it in the 12th paragraph of a front-page New York Times story about “senior commanders” at U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) playing fast and loose with intelligence reports to give their air… Continue Reading