War

Is it time to panic? Let's put terror threats into perspective for 2016.

The killing of Sheikh Al-Nimr should serve as a prime moment for the U.S. to reconsider its alliance with the Saudi regime, a regime that not only denies human rights to its own people but exports death and destruction abroad.

Investigative journalist Allan Nairn knows firsthand how the U.S. uses mass killing as a routine tool of foreign policy. The horrifying tactics of Islamic State, he says, are an imitation of what we have been doing and what we have been teaching our international proxies for generations.

"The new Shabab video featuring Donald Trump appears clear evidence jihadists hope to use him to specifically solicit American recruits."

For a number of years now, prominent Democrats have also been advocating very dangerous ideas, with Democratic leaders also defending the large-scale killing of civilians in the name of "fighting terrorism."

The past 12 months saw enormous political, economic and military shifts in the Middle East, changing its geopolitics for the foreseeable future.

Although Congress approved another year of funding, PTSS was officially killed off on October 1, 2013, after spending $231 million on the doomed program.

The U.S. seems more divided than ever as chaos continues throughout the world. Opposing political sides seem to be at war with each other during a time when we should be working together.

To paraphrase one Middle Eastern prophet, the leadership and media of western countries need to remove the log from their own eye before they will ever be able to help the greater Middle East remove the splinter from its own.

Peter Van Buren did something no US diplomat is allowed to do. He told the truth and told it to the wrong people – us. Our government is not in the habit of telling us – the governed – what it's up to.