Month: August 2003

This week the North Koreans and the "coalition" have agreed to talk more and to talk soon. The negotiations had a high note when the DPRK and US reps chewed the fat for a bit in the corner while (assumingly) the other five other delegations pretended not to notice. There wasn’t a lot of complaining … Continue reading “The Best Possible Course for North Korea”

"The struggle against tyranny is our national mission, and it requires revolutionary leaders who fearlessly and tenaciously fight freedom’s enemies wherever and whenever they challenge us and our ideals. It would be one of history’s most bitter ironies if we were to succumb to the counterrevolution." – Michael Ledeen, December 2000 I get a lot … Continue reading “Benito Strikes Out”

Right, here’s the problem: you need to go to war, but you’d find it ticklish – and frankly, boring – to go into your real reasons for doing so, so what are you going to do? If, last September, you were Tony Blair, you’d decide that the best way forward was to blind the electorate … Continue reading “Blair’s Political Suicide”

Sarajevo and Bosnia are "rising from the ashes," proclaims a recent puff piece by AFP. After a horrible war that drove millions out of their homes and cost hundreds of thousands their lives, the yarn goes, Bosnia is finally bouncing back. Well, it isn’t. Bosnia’s economy continues to founder, its demoralized people continue to flee, … Continue reading “The Black Hole of Nation-Building”

The climax of a Saudi-bashing orgy in the media comes with Michael Isikoff taking out after Neil Bush in the latest Newsweek. "What," Isikoff demands to know, "was Neil Bush doing in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, last week?" After weeks, or is it months, of relentless Saudiphobia – the Saudi princess in Miami who supposedly beat … Continue reading “Saudiphobes target Neil Bush”

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! Or, as the post-Vatican II generation would put it: Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault! I confess: I wanted to believe. I wanted to hope. I wanted to have faith in Howard Dean as the anti-war candidate. I even wrote a column about … Continue reading “THE DEAN DECEPTION”

Attorney General John Ashcroft has embarked on a bizarre promotional tour to counter growing public opposition to the Patriot Act. The administration clearly is worried by recent votes in Congress to limit the scope of the Act, votes that reflect the willingness of even GOP loyalists to buck the president on the issue. So Mr. … Continue reading “Trust Us, We’re the Government”

Perhaps you have to hand it to some of the more creative war supporters. A few people in the blogosphere and the oped world are trying to spin the ongoing troubles with guerrilla attacks and truck bombs at the UN headquarters into an advantage for the United States. The fact that radical Islamist and Arab … Continue reading “Terrorism and Iraq: The Link Is Real Now”

The case of Christopher Hitchens is emblematic of so many things: how success can ruin a writer, how far an aristocratic British accent can get you on the American scene, how Trotskyism can morph into Rumsfeld-ism without any visible exertion. The former features editor of the Socialist Worker newspaper is today the Court Polemicist of … Continue reading “THE WAR PARTY UNMASKED”

It’s been a strange two weeks since I wrote a column. I skipped last Monday’s installment because my girlfriend, O., was due to return the preceding Friday after spending the summer abroad with family. (She’s a legal resident, Mr. Ashcroft, and from a coalition country, no less). After arriving in New York that afternoon, she … Continue reading “In a Blackout, Dimwits Are Easy to Spot”