The United States definitely sends mixed messages to the Muslim world. Early in his presidency, Barack Obama went to Cairo to “seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive …
Continue reading “America’s Image Problem”
I have long nurtured this thoroughly depressing conviction that the United States, far from being a shining city on the hill, has become one of the most corrupt of nations. Why does America have more lawyers than the rest of the world combined? It is because the corruption has been institutionalized at every level of …
Continue reading “Corruption and the Citizen, American-Style”
News media reported last week that Iran had flatly refused the IAEA access to its Parchin military test facility, based on the statement to reporters by IAEA Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts, “We could not get access….” Now, however, both explicit statements on the issue by the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA and the language …
Continue reading “How the Media Got the Iran-IAEA Access Story Wrong”
On June 2, 2009, a janitor in an office building in New Brunswick, N.J., noticed what he thought was terrorist-related literature and sophisticated surveillance equipment in an office he had been assigned to clean. He told his boss, who called the local police, who notified the FBI. Later in the day, the FBI and the …
Continue reading “Spies in New Brunswick”
Fazillah, age 25, lives in Maidan Shar, the central city of Afghanistan’s Wardak province. She married about six years ago and gave birth to a son, Aymal, who just turned 5 without a father. Fazillah tells her son, Aymal, that his father was killed by an American bomber plane, remote-controlled by computer. That July, in …
Continue reading “The Ghost and the Machine”
On the eve of a critical set of meetings between top U.S. and Israeli officials, a new survey finds little backing among the Israeli public for a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities without Washington’s approval. According to the poll, released at a briefing at the Brookings Institution Wednesday, only about one in five Israelis …
Continue reading “Israeli Poll on Iran Undercuts Netanyahu on Eve of Major Meet”
Spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh today gave the official government casualty figures for most of the last seven years. He said that 69,263 people were killed and 239,133 were wounded in Iraq between April 5, 2004 and December 31, 2011. At least 20 Iraqis were killed today and 41 more were wounded.
Is it all over but the (anti-American) shouting — and the killing? Are the exits finally coming into view? Sometimes, in a moment, the fog lifts, the clouds shift, and you can finally see the landscape ahead with startling clarity. In Afghanistan, Washington may be reaching that moment in a state of panic, horror, and …
Continue reading “How the US Fanned the Flames in Afghanistan”
I had to laugh when I read the Associated Press piece on Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak’s message to a series of visiting US officials: “Israeli officials say they won’t warn the U.S. if they decide to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, according to one U.S. intelligence official familiar with the discussions. …
Continue reading “The ‘Trust Gap’”
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is one of the most powerful lobby organizations in the country. On March 4-6, AIPAC will hold its annual policy conference in Washington, D.C. The speakers include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Republican candidate Newt Gingrich, and a host …
Continue reading “10 Reasons to Keep an Eye on AIPAC” 
