The United States has increasingly managed to take control of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other 'humanitarian' organizations for its own foreign policy campaigns.

When George W Bush seemed to be the problem, an understanding of US power – the nature of which remains remarkably consistent from president to president – was lost.

Al Qaeda is flourishing in the blowback from US invasions and occupations as it wages an accelerated campaign of relentless attacks and suicide bombings.

Media attacks on Assange do not even pay lip service to, let alone show interest in, the profound threats to press freedom that would come if Assange were extradited to and tried in the US.

Western denunciations of Russia's disregard for free speech over the trial and jailing of the punk band Pussy Riot are shaped far more by opportunism than anything authentic.

Why do the Swedish authorities refuse to question Mr. Assange in London? And why can neither government promise that Mr. Assange will not be extradited to the United States?

US policies justified in the name of fighting terrorism – aside from being rather terroristic themselves – are precisely those which fuel the anti-American hatred that causes those attacks.

Diplomats in Assange’s home country Australia anticipate receipt of an extradition request for Assange once a secret US grand jury wraps up its investigation.

Ecuador's decision to grant political asylum to Assange was both predictable and reasonable. But it is also a ground-breaking case that has considerable historic significance.

The basic strategy is a global one in which the US will train, equip, and advise indigenous forces — generally from poor, underdeveloped nations — to do the fighting (and dying).

The high rate of civilian casualties stems from the fact that armed drones are not used in the battlefield, but in the vicinity of people the United States considers to be terrorists.

Manning's lawyer wants all charges dismissed on the grounds that he was subjected to illegal pre-trial treatment in violation of the constitutional prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

It wasn't supposed to have been like this. Obama came in with a promise to close Guantanamo Bay and end the torture and other practices which the CIA had pursued in Bush's "War on Terror".

Whatever else is true, it's impossible to evade the fact that a country that wages endless war will be a country filled with citizens convinced of the virtues and nobility of aggression.

Obama’s shameful timidity in forthrightly condemning the Sikh temple killings is hardly surprising. After all, this is a president with a “kill list” for Muslims including Americans.

There have been innumerable cases when human intervention aborted nuclear attack only moments before launch after false reports by automated systems.