“Gaslighting” can be an effective tactic to instill confusion and anxiety in people, causing them to doubt their own logical abilities, but it can be countered by remaining confident in our judgments, argues Caitlin Johnstone.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is said to be 'breathing a massive sigh of relief' after realising that he was being investigated for charges of suspected corruption and bribery, instead of war crimes... [Rimshot]

The only beneficiaries of the administration’s ineptitude to date have been Iran, Assad, and Russia.

For the Israelis this defiance of their usual air supremacy requires massive retaliation. This is ongoing. By Col. Pat Lang.

The proliferation of conventional weapons is out of control and incredibly deadly. By Alexander Gillespie.

I’m afraid the recent “defensive attack” by US attack helicopters and artillery on Syrian tribesmen loyal to Damascus is not just a one-off fluke.

An Israeli fighter jet, under fire from Syrian anti-aircraft batteries, crashed Saturday as Israel mounted a heavy military response to what it said was the incursion of its airspace by an Iranian drone. Two Israeli pilots were injured — one seriously — after abandoning their F-16 over northern Israel while taking part in what the Israeli military called a "large-scale attack" on at least a dozen Iranian targets in Syria.

Syria complains to UN Security Council over ‘massacre.’ By Jason Ditz.

President Trump wants to celebrate the troops with a big, beautiful military parade through Washington, DC. The Pentagon and White House officials are in discussions to hold a grand event this year.

By invading Afrin, one of the last unscathed regions in Syria, Turkey is trying to prevent the creation of a Kurdish state. The U.S. is looking on powerlessly while Russia is rubbing its hands in glee. Ultimately, the true winner might be Bashar Assad. By Christian Esch, Maximilian Popp, Christoph Reuter, Christoph Scheuermann.

If Americans are looking for where the 'two Americas' first began to form, Vietnam is a good place to start. By Gil Barndollar.

Following a number of foreign-policy miscalculations, Israel and its allies in the Trump administration could be setting us up for more trouble in the Middle East, warns Alastair Crooke in this analysis.

Photojournalist Eddie Adams captured one of the most famous images of the Vietnam War - the very instant of an execution during the chaos of the Tet Offensive. It would bring him a lifetime of glory, but as James Jeffrey writes, also of sorrow.

Washington still thinks it’s calling the shots—and we’ll fight forever to prove it. By Charles V. Peña.

Max Hastings reviews "My Lai: Vietnam, 1968 and the Descent into Darkness" by Howard Jones.

Charlie Savage reviews “The Pentagon’s Wars: The Military’s Undeclared War Against America’s Presidents” by Mark Perry.

Along with the entire the military-industrial complex. By Andrew J. Bacevich.

Syria cannot countenance Kurdish presence on its territory and Turkey cannot tolerate a Kurdish enclave along its southern border, however secular, liberal and socialist it claims (not without reason) to be. By Robert Fisk. (Jan. 18, 2018)