Rights watchdogs have seized on this week's anniversary of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal to protest what they termed a lack of accountability for the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody, and to warn that problems which came to light at the prison in Iraq...
UN Afghanistan Envoy’s Sacking Highlights Abuses, Secrecy
Cherif Bassiouni, the top U.N. human rights investigator in Afghanistan until his job was eliminated at Washington's behest, has caused a stir by accusing the United States of obstructing, then ousting him in a bid to cover up abuses by its personnel. Even so, he...
The Zero
Robert E. Lee advised his children to avoid fiction and read biography and history so that they might know the world "as it really is." Only recently I came upon a new paperback edition of a book originally published in 1956. If you haven't already read it,...
Oh, What a Lovely War
The "legality" of the Bush-Blair invasion and occupation of Iraq hasn't presented – so far – much of a problem for President Bush. However, it seems to be presenting quite a problem for Prime Minister Tony Blair. In making the case for the...
A Useful Whitewash
"Bush views new report on spy lapses with favor," was the headline on the New York Times story previewing the latest commission that reported several weeks ago on the manifest and manifold U.S. government intelligence failures in detecting...
Muslim Scholar Urges Halt to Extreme Punishments
NEW YORK - A Muslim scholar who was issued and then denied a visa to teach in the United States because of alleged ties to terrorists has called for an immediate moratorium on corporal and capital punishment and dialogue aimed at creating less repressive Muslim...
The Thirty Years War
This Saturday is the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war, and in marking it one cannot help but note the parallels with the present intervention. Naturally, there are many differences: the nature of the enemy, the terrain, and the origins of the current...
More on Gangs and Guerrillas vs. the State
A story in the April 26 Washington Times, "Drug Smugglers, Rebels Join Hands," by Carmen Gentile, offered an interesting illustration of the argument I made in my last column, that Fourth Generation entities may do everything they want to do within the framework of...
Put the Marx Brothers in Charge
The new Robb-Silberman report on U.S. intelligence capabilities should, but won't, enrage Americans. Too long at 600-plus pages for most to read, the report completes the destruction of the intelligence community especially the CIA begun by Congress'...
Israelis Resist the Arabs in Their Midst
JERUSALEM - More than four years of violence between Israelis and Palestinians may have abated at least temporarily, but its effect is still being felt on relations between Jews and Arabs inside Israel. A string of recent polls, events and policy issues shows that...


