Today, the Washington Post began publishing an in-depth series by Dana Priest and William Arkin titled “Top Secret America,” which begins: “The government has built a national security and intelligence system so big, so complex and so hard to manage, no one really knows if it’s fulfilling its most important purpose: keeping its citizens safe.”…

JOY GORDON Gordon is author of the new book Invisible War: The U.S. and Iraq Sanctions (Harvard University Press) and just wrote the piece “Lessons we should have learned from the Iraqi sanctions” for Foreign Policy. She said today: “If we are to understand the kind of damage that can be done by economic sanctions,…

WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama is reporting: “At one point during Thursday’s hearings into the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, the dispersants that are being used in the Gulf were referred to as the potential ‘Agent Orange of the Gulf.’ “BP has used millions of gallons of the chemical Corexit to break down the…

THOMAS FERGUSON Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and a senior fellow of the Roosevelt Institute. He said today: “This whole business reminds me of the old Bob Hope line: ‘You can fool some of the people all of the time and all the people some of the time,…

RICHARD WOLFF Recently back from Europe, Wolff is author of the book Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It. He recently wrote the piece “Austerity: Why and for Whom?” which states: “Nearly all current political leaders of major capitalist countries responded positively to the banks’ demand for austerity…

TOM ENGELHARDT Engelhardt is founder of TomDispatch.com; his book The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s was just released. Engelhardt’s latest piece is “Why Are We in Afghanistan? As Petraeus Takes Over, Could Success Be Worse Than Failure?” which states: “It’s now past time to ask that question, even as the Obama…

BRIAN CONCANNON Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, Concannon lived in Haiti for eight years. He said today: “The international community promised to change the trade, aid and governance policies that helped make Haiti so poor and extremely vulnerable to earthquakes and other natural disasters. But six months after the earthquake,…

MANUEL PEREZ-ROCHA Associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, Perez-Rocha has been critical of trade deals like NAFTA. He said today: “It is worrying that discussions about immigration in the U.S. tend to ignore its causes. Most people do not migrate to this country because they want to live their ‘American dream’ as it…

RICHARD FALK Falk is professor of international law emeritus at Princeton University and Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestinian Territories for the United Nations Human Rights Council. He said today: “If the American president believed that the rule of law applied to Israel he would certainly favor the establishment of an international inquiry, under UN auspices,…

REBECCA GRIFFIN Political director of Peace Action West, Griffin said today: “It’s happening now. After weeks of stalling and amidst growing dissent from the public and Congress, the House will vote on $33 billion for escalating the war in Afghanistan. “The McChrystal debacle has fueled a larger debate about the failing counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.…