Month: August 2003

P>The class action suit names 11 companies and 33 banks alleged to have helped Iraq with its chemical weapons program in the 1980’s, despite knowledge Saddam Hussein was actively using WMD against both Iranians and his own people. At the time, Reagan’s Middle East envoy was one Donald Rumsfeld, hard at work opening doors for … Continue reading “Gulf War Vets Sue Saddam’s WMD Suppliers”

General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and Friend of Bill’s (FOB) is considering a run for President of these United States. In an AP report of 29 June, former-President William Jefferson Clinton stated that Wesley Clark would make a fine president, if he ran. After all, what are friends for? There is … Continue reading “Wesley Clark: The Guy Who Almost Started World War III”

Colin Powell is making the rounds, trying to drum up European support for the U.S. occupation of Iraq: the Google headline for the story in the Macon Telegraph reads “U.S. Seeks Reinforcements for Iraq” – but when you click on it, you get a story with a new rather more abstruse head: “U.S. Seeks U.N. … Continue reading “AMERICA IN IRAQ: A GLUTTON FOR PUNISHMENT”

On National Review Online, 8/14/03, Michael Ledeen addresses his apparently controversial dealings with his “old friend Manucher Ghorbanifar.” Nothing quite like seeing Ledeen write from a position of relative weakness, especially given how much face time he has gotten in the last couple of years. Ledeen, who David Frum claims has scored up to $25 … Continue reading “Ledeen on the Run”

Even as north-eastern United States clawed its way from a weekend blackout, and the UN mission in Iraq gasped in shock at Tuesday’s massacre at its Baghdad headquarters, the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo was once again in the headlines. A week ago, British historian Kate Hudson noted that the attack on Yugoslavia over Kosovo … Continue reading “Fresh Blood in Kosovo”

The bomb blast that blew up UN headquarters in Baghdad should have pulverized the smug complacency of the Washington policy wonks who openly hail the rise of an American Empire – but I doubt it made much more than a small dent. Only in Washington would it be possible to have a “debate” between Niall … Continue reading “Baghdad Bomb Blasted American Hubris”

The six-way multilateral talks over the North Korean nuclear threat and related issues – among North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States – scheduled for August 25-27, seem unlikely to yield notable breakthroughs. The best hope is probably that they will set up a framework within which the main issue of … Continue reading “Korean Prospects for Peace”

The neocons are – finally! – coming out of the closet. Irving Kristol, the Godfather of the neocons, has come out with the neocon equivalent of a papal bull outlining the ideological parameters of this heretofore mysterious sect, wherein he unveils the secrets of “The Neoconservative Persuasion.” I say “secrets,” because a spate of commentary … Continue reading “The Neocons Come Out”

A plane incident of a different sort is quietly being played out between the Chinese and US governments even as The Six Nations gear up for talks that may lead to temproary peace or disasterous war on the Korean peninsula. As one of the 124 Consulates and embassies around the world with Marine Security Guard … Continue reading “Crouching China, Paper Tiger”

The smart money argues that, rather than merely contemplating a war with Iran, the United States is actually in the advanced stages of a cold war with the Islamic Republic. Such a hypothesis is borne out by myriad texts, including a late July cover story in the Wall Street Journal. “In Tehran, Boutiques Stock Hot … Continue reading “Nafisi the Neocon”