DONALD TRUMP AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL According to Foreign Policy, nominal Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent a letter recently to a group of nonprofits warning that the Trump administration is prepared to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council unless "considerable reform" is undertaken in that body. Tillerson's letter highlighted the presence on the … Continue reading Conflict update: March 14 2017

TURKEY A few hours ago Ankara turned its diplomatic dispute with the Netherlands up to 11 by barring the Dutch ambassador from returning to Turkey and announcing that it was suspending diplomatic relations with Amsterdam. The Turkish government further said that it was closing its airspace to Dutch diplomats and that it would pursue action … Continue reading Conflict update: March 13 2017

TURKEY So let's start with the good news: Turkey and the Netherlands haven't declared war on each other. Yet. As far as I know. But the good news pretty much ends there. On Saturday, Dutch authorities took the fairly provocative step--look, I give Recep Tayyip Erdoğan a lot of shit around here, but I don't … Continue reading Conflict update: March 11-12 2017

ETHICS, HOW DO THEY WORK As it so happens, while Michael Flynn was advising candidate Donald Trump on foreign policy, he was also being paid to act as an agent of the Turkish government--except, oops, he apparently forgot to mention that to anybody until earlier this week. Flynn even wrote pro-Turkey op-eds without disclosing that … Continue reading Conflict update: March 10 2017

UNITED STATES It's very early to draw conclusions, particularly considering the current circumstances in Iraq, but it's starting to look like when Donald Trump said he was going to "bomb the shit out of them," that was another thing that people were right to take literally. And, apparently, "them" in that phrase meant, well, pretty … Continue reading Conflict update: March 9 2017

WIKILEAKS I haven't been able to read much more about the Vault 7 CIA hacking data dump today, and at any rate I readily admit that cybersecurity is out of my purview, but I think Herb Lin makes a good point here in arguing that from the CIA's perspective, the damage wrought by this leak--at … Continue reading Conflict update: March 8 2017

WIKILEAKS WikiLeaks, the organization whose involvement in the Edward Snowden affair, the Chelsea Manning affair, and last summer's DNC/Podesta hack launched the careers of a thousand self-declared national security experts, has released a whole new batch of classified information, this time from the CIA: The new documents appear to be from the CIA’s 200-strong Center … Continue reading Conflict update: March 7 2017

DO OVER Donald Trump launched the world premiere of Muslim Ban, Episode 2: Attack of the Clods today, and, well, it hasn't been struck down by a court yet so I guess that's something. The revised travel ban removes Iraq from the list of proscribed nations altogether, so at least one country in which we … Continue reading Conflict update: March 6 2017

GOVERNMENT OF THE MARKS There's long been this narrative on the right that America spends vast sums of money helping feed and clothe the poor around the world while our own people/military/deficit starve/wastes away/balloons. This is, of course, a giant pile of bullshit, maybe the most bullshit of all the bullshit stories the right has … Continue reading Conflict update: March 2-5 2017

ALL THE PRESIDENT'S GENERALS Donald Trump is reportedly planning to substantially hand control over military operations to his defense secretary, recently retired General James Mattis: The Daily Beast’s Kim Dozier writes that Trump “wants to operate more like the CEO he was in the private sector in such matters, and delegate even more power to … Continue reading Conflict update: March 1 2017