Month: May 2003

2’s column will return Wednesday. Here is a classic column from last year.The two premier magazines of foreign affairs recently featured articles with diametrically opposed themes on a much-discussed topic: is the US Empire on the rise, or in decline? In Foreign Affairs, flagship journal of the New World Order crowd, Stephen G. Brooks and … Continue reading “Classic Raimondo: Decline and Fall”

Next month’s summit meeting of European Union leaders in Thessalonica has prompted increasing speculation about the future role of the Brussels bureaucratic behemoth in Balkans affairs. The Empire is preoccupied with reshaping the Middle East – though if its Balkans “successes” are anything to go by, that’s another developing disaster. Russia has pulled out, daunted … Continue reading “The Folly That Is Europe”

In my previous column, I presented the following challenge to my pro-war readers: “…make a comparable list of pre-Iraq war news that is now nonexistent because of the war on Iraq. I imagine this is an insurmountable task. If you send me ‘Saddam is a tyrant no more’ stories, you better send me ALL the … Continue reading “Mini-Nukes”

Truth has a way of asserting itself despite all attempts to obscure it. Distortion only serves to derail it for a time. No matter to what lengths we humans may go to obfuscate facts or delude our fellows, truth has a way of squeezing out through the cracks, eventually. But the danger is that at … Continue reading “The Truth Will Emerge”

Why are the neocons writing long screeds trying to disprove their own existence? Poor Jonah Goldberg is faced with an impossible task. He wants his readers to forget the history of their own movement, ignore the enormous literature documenting the neoconservative odyssey from left to right, and pretend that the doctrine of perpetual preemptive war … Continue reading “Outing the Neocons”

There is a palpable grumpiness surrounding businessmen and foreigners here in Chengdu. Business is bad, there is no work for expats, travel is restricted and worst of all: the netbars have closed. For the common Sichuanese, the loss of Internet access, the roadblocks to scenic sites and the marked decrease in traffic – business or … Continue reading “Lessons of SARS”

Iraqi Self-Rule Delayed In addition to scientific studies, there is ample evidence that politicians lie, prevaricate and steal. Paul Bremer, the new civil administrator of Iraq, is no exception. Consider the following: in an about-face, America decided Iraq was not yet ready for self-rule, reneging on their promise for a quick transition to an independent … Continue reading “Liberation? Not Yet”

Bliss It Was Who is Christopher Caldwell? No doubt Google would tell me some sort of truth about the man, but is there world enough and time to be bothered? He\’s something to do with that gaggle of charmers over at Mr Murdoch\’s Weekly Standard, I know that much, but nothing else. I don\’t know … Continue reading “On the Nature of Meaning (and Union Jack Tee-Shirts)”

When David "Axis of Evil" Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, turned his rhetorical guns on antiwar conservatives and libertarians, this writer included, he ended his peroration against "unpatriotic conservatives" with the declaration that all good right-wingers must now "turn their backs" on the heretics. But what has happened is quite the opposite: … Continue reading “Revolt Against the Neocons”

Only alert readers may have noticed that the Israeli-biased American "Road Map to Peace", already being imposed on the Palestinians, has not even been accepted by Israel’s rejectionist government. Asked about it, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that accepting or not accepting it "didn’t really matter" – when Israel is concerned, to be sure; … Continue reading “The Apartheid Wall”