Recently fired Army Secretary Thomas White said last week that senior defense officials "are unwilling to come to grips" with the scale of the postwar US obligation in Iraq. Similarly, in February, Army chief of staff General Eric Shinseki brought the same...
Democracy Through Censorship
It is often said of the Palestinians, and not without justice, that they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Something similar might be said of the U.S. occupation forces in Iraq, now fretting and fuming about the difficulties of establishing order and...
BEHIND THE LIES
Senator Robert Bennett (R-Utah) has denounced the widespread call for the U.S. to account for the "weapons of mass destruction" Iraq was supposed to have as "historical revisionism." This is odd phraseology. Our understanding of history is being...
No WMDs? Fabulous, but Still Beside the Point
In the aftermath of the Iraq war, intense scrutiny has fallen on the search for weapons of mass destruction. The peace camp can barely suppress its glee as each day passes with no smoking vials or reactors, and that's perfectly understandable. It's nice to see one's...
Dead in the Water
"If it was an accident, it was the best planned accident I've ever seen." - USS Liberty Survivor The repurcusions of American foreign policy affect not only third world nations and the American taxpayer, but also the American servicemen at the front lines. One...
Iraq’s WMD Intelligence: Where Is the Outrage?
With each passing day, the questions surrounding Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction take on added urgency. Where are the massive stockpiles of VX, mustard, and other nerve agents that we were told Iraq was hoarding? Where are the thousands of liters of...
A Homeland So Secure We Wouldn’t Want To Live There
Whence comes the asserted power of the current President and his new Sicherheitsdienst to inspect, search, spindle, mutilate, etc., everything and everyone found within the generous bounds of their authority? Leave aside the claim of these people that US law prevails,...
LIARS ‘R US
Let's see: a con-man makes up a few non-facts, invents some quotes, and passes off his minor lies as legitimate news over a period of some 18 months. Result: the executive editor and the managing editor of America's newspaper of record resign in disgrace. On the other...
Tight Spot
China finds itself once again in a tight spot vis-à-vis her "proxies." North Korea has rarely left the spotlight after being enshrined in the Bush Administration's Hall of Evil, but China has avoided any direct accusations flowing from the West...
Summertime Plotting
'Tis the time for transitions and reflections in China these days. Next week, infamous photos of the "June 4th Incident" will emerge from the heap of glowing statistics that China shovels onto the world stage day in and day out. Old Deng will drift in from...