US foreign policy

Obama has approved a proposal to give JSOC independent authority to operate outside the regional commands, essentially as a globalized assassination force. JSOC units will bypass the regional commanders and report directly to Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in the Pentagon.

President-elect Donald Trump met with retired General David Petraeus Monday, as a senior official with the transition said the former CIA director is being considered for secretary of state amid open infighting among Trump’s advisers about who to pick for the post. “Just met with General Petraeus -- was very impressed!” Trump said in a Twitter post after

Blood-curdling proposals for the persecution of Muslims played a central role in Trump’s election campaign. At one moment, he promised to stop all Muslims from entering the US, though this was later changed to “extreme vetting”. The use of torture by water-boarding was approved and applauded, and Hillary Clinton was pilloried for not speaking of “radical Islamic terrorism”.

Thousands of Cubans bid farewell to Fidel Castro on Monday, filing into a plaza where he often railed against American imperialism. The same morning, the first regularly scheduled flight from the United States in more than 50 years landed in Havana, a potent example of the newly opened doors between the former rivals.

In a special UpFront interview, renowned US academic and public intellectual Noam Chomsky sits down with Mehdi Hasan to discuss the implications of a Donald Trump presidency, on both domestic and global issues.

It can be expected that a lengthy period of mourning will take place in Cuba and that his funeral will see the record attendance of many worldwide leaders, President Obama included. The US leader will probably exploit the occasion to promote the rapprochement with Cuba, likely making positive and upbeat remarks about Castro's life and legacy in order to advance his agenda of winning the islanders' support.

On 26 July 1953 an angry young lawyer, Fidel Castro, led a small band of armed men in an attempt to seize the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba, in Oriente province. Most of the guerrillas were killed. Castro was tried and defended himself with a masterly speech replete with classical references and quotations from Balzac and Rousseau, that ended with the

The Batista dictatorship was overthrown in January 1959 by Castro’s guerrilla forces. In March, the National Security Council (NSC) considered means to institute regime change. In May, the CIA began to arm guerrillas inside Cuba. “During the Winter of 1959-1960, there was a significant increase in CIA-supervised bombing and incendiary raids piloted by exiled

President-elect Donald Trump’s authoritarian style and personality, which attracted an overwhelmingly authoritarian following, is manifesting itself in the selection of his national security team. The appointment of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as the national security adviser is particularly worrisome because of the general’s lack of experience in strategic policy and his controversial stewardship as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Flynn had advised Trump through his campaign and was once considered a potential running mate. The retired Army lieutenant general served as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the service that specializes in providing intelligence to the military until he was forced out in 2014 after reported leadership clashes.