Tom Engelhardt

The USA’s im­placa­ble pur­suit of Ed­ward Snow­den demon­strates the sole su­per­pow­er’s reach and sup­pres­sion of in­for­ma­tion.

Re­peat­ed in­va­sions, oc­cu­pa­tions and drone wars have played a ma­jor role in the un­rav­el­ling of the Greater Mid­dle East.

The US has be­come a na­tion not of laws but of le­gal mem­os, not of le­gal­i­ty but of le­galisms.

For Wash­ing­ton, there is no arms con­trol abroad.

In re­cent years, the US in­tel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty has been one of Wash­ing­ton’s ma­jor growth in­dus­tries.

In the past, US pres­i­dents pur­sued “plau­si­ble de­ni­a­bil­i­ty” when it came to as­sas­si­na­tion plots, but not any­more.

Amer­i­can drone and air strikes have “ac­tu­al­ly in­creased mem­ber­ship in al-Qae­da in the Ara­bi­an Penin­su­la”.

What did it mean for two gen­er­als to soar to me­dia glo­ry while the wars they com­mand­ed land­ed in the near­est ditch?

Su­per­storm Sandy re­vealed just how “un­pre­pared” the US in­fra­struc­ture is for “pre­dict­ed cli­mate change events”.

For years, en­er­gy ex­ec­u­tives have fund­ed a mas­sive cam­paign to deny the re­al­i­ty of cli­mate change.