I went to a peace rally the other day, and, I’ll tell ya, it was almost enough to turn me into a warmonger. The event, which took place in San Francisco’s Dolores Park, and was organized by the “International A.N.S.W.E.R.” (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) coalition – a front group for the …
Continue reading “THE PEACENIKS”
The campaign to link Iraq to the 9/11 attack, never all that convincing to begin with, reached new heights of implausibility with Bill Buckley weighing in on the subject. Alas, the former enfant terrible of the conservative movement – and the hero of my youth – has certainly seen better days. His prose – once …
Continue reading “A SAUDI-9/11 CONNECTION?”
A recent interchange between the odious Gen. Wesley Clark – now a CNN news "analyst" – and a member of the "Talk Back Live" audience underscores the danger inherent in Operation Enduring Freedom. A man who identified himself as having formerly served under the General asked "What about an exit strategy? I haven’t heard anyone …
Continue reading “THE ANTHRAX WAR”
They’re telling us everything’s changed since 9/11, it’s a new era, and I’m afraid they’re right: it’s the Age of the Nutballs, where the bizarre reigns supreme. Citing "a senior foreign official," the New York Times reports that, the day before 9/11, Osama bin Laden called his mother. This information, we are told, comes from …
Continue reading “WARTIME MADNESS”
Ann Coulter is a leggy, sassy blonde telebimbo, (and constitutional lawyer) whose career as a TV talking head took off during the Clinton scandals – and, like Clinton, she never really went away. Her column, distributed by Universal Press Syndicate, has been a mainstay of the firebreathing Right, and she is (or was) a regular …
Continue reading “KU KLUX COULTER”
Leon Hadar, a foreign policy analyst whose books and articles for the libertarian Cato Institute have long argued for a foreign policy of restraint, worries aloud in the Business Times that George W. Bush may lose support if he doesn’t invade somebody, somehow, and soon. While support for the President is at an all-time high, …
Continue reading “THE INCOMPETENCE OF EMPIRE”
The cloud of dust and ash had yet to clear from the Manhattan skyline before politicos, ideologues, and pundits of every stripe were using the tragedy to push their agendas.
Although it is far too early to tell, it looks like the grand-scale invasion of Afghanistan – and virtually the entire Middle East – envisioned by our more aggressive warhawks is not about to happen. While the President’s speech to Congress clearly identified the Taliban as a threat right up there with "fascism, Nazism, and …
Continue reading “KILL ‘EM – AND GET OUT”
We are, by now, quite used to the practice of pinning our various overseas interventions with some tag line, some felicitous phrase that seems to sum up the official rationale for war. The "new war" – as the networks have unimaginatively dubbed it – is no exception, but I’m afraid the process seems to have …
Continue reading “OPERATION INFINITE ARROGANCE”
Author’s note: I am in transit, and so this column – written before the horrific events of September 11 – will have to do. To all of my readers who wrote in, expressing support – and criticism: thanks. I will address the latter in the next installment of "Behind the Headlines," scheduled for this coming …
Continue reading “AMERICAN IMPERIUM” 
