by Chris Floyd  

Lately there has been a minor imbroglio in the blogosphere between progressive stalwart Roy Edroso and Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald. The former took umbrage at the latter's comparison of the foreign policy positions of Barack Obama and Ron Paul. I won't bore you with the meat of the matter, but I would like to focus momentarily on Edroso's umbrage, which is so unfortunately emblematic of the progressosphere at large.

In sum, Edroso's "eyes filled with blood, he said -- from outrage and insult, presumably -- at Greenwald's description of what any supporter for Barack Obama is actually supporting. To wit:

Yes, I’m willing to continue to have Muslim children slaughtered by covert drones and cluster bombs, and America’s minorities imprisoned by the hundreds of thousands for no good reason, and the CIA able to run rampant with no checks or transparency, and privacy eroded further by the unchecked Surveillance State, and American citizens targeted by the President for assassination with no due process, and whistleblowers threatened with life imprisonment for “espionage,” and the Fed able to dole out trillions to bankers in secret, and a substantially higher risk of war with Iran (fought by the U.S. or by Israel with U.S. support) ...

This, it seems to me, is the most basic statement of unequivocal, undeniable fact imaginable. It is simply true that if you support the continuance of Barack Obama in power, this is what you support.

by Annie Bird 

Last week, the Honduran National Congress passed a law allowing the military to perform police functions, and Assistant Secretary of State Maria Otero visited Honduras with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Todd Robinson, to promote security initiatives.

The United States is advancing a regional security strategy which apparently is oriented toward the militarization of Central America and the participation of private security contractors in policing, a strategy also being promoted for the region by the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) and former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe.

by Joanne Mariner 

It might seem an odd moment for the War on Terror to expand.  The 9/11 terrorist attacks are now ten years in the past; Osama bin Laden is sleeping with the fishes; and all of the alleged 9/11 perpetrators who are not dead are in custody awaiting trial.

An image of Abdel Rahman al-Awlaki, the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, posted on a Facebook page dedicated to his memory.

by Tom Finn and Noah Browning

A wave of CIA drone strikes targeting al-Qaeda figures in Yemen is stoking widespread anger here that U.S. policy is cruel and misguided, prioritizing counterterrorism over a genuine solution to the country's raging political crisis.

Politics have never been a concern to Sam al-Homiganyi and his fellow teenagers. This month, though, they were shocked by the sudden death of a friend and are struggling to understand why.

Fighting back tears, his gaze fixed downward, Homiganyi, a lean-looking 15 year-old from the outskirts of Sana'a, told TIME, "He was my best friend; we played football together everyday." Another of his friends spoke up, gesturing to the gloomy group of jean-clad boys around him: "He was the same as us. He liked swimming, playing computer games, watching movies... you know, normal stuff." (See photos of Yemen on the brink.)

by Margaret Kimberley