Month: December 2003

U.S. President George W. Bush celebrated a second victory in Iraq here Sunday with confirmation that occupation forces had captured fugitive former president Saddam Hussein on Saturday evening at a farmhouse outside Tikrit. But even the normally cocky U.S. commander-in-chief, who addressed the nation by television from the White House, stressed that the former Iraqi … Continue reading “Future Uncertain as Saddam Unearthed”

Seeing a captive, disheveled Saddam on television this morning released a cascade of memories for me. I remembered the innocent Jews brutally hung in downtown Baghdad when the Baath came to power in 1968; the fencing with the Shah and the Kurds in the early 1970s; the vicious repression of the Shiites of East Baghdad, … Continue reading “Saddam Was Already Irrelevant”

At the end of his long war against the Roman Empire, the rebel chieftain of ancient Gaul, Vercingetorix, was captured and brought in chains to Rome, where he was dragged along the cobblestones of the Appian Way behind a chariot to the “ooohs” and “aaaahs” of the Roman public. And while Saddam, a petty tyrant, … Continue reading “Saddam, Celebrity Tyrant”

An interview conducted by “Philip Dru.” Check out his other interviews with prominent libertarians and antiwar personalities.WMV format (requires Windows Media Player)MP3 format (download requires any MP3 player) James Bovard is an award winning journalist, columnist, and author. He writes for the Future of Freedom Foundation, the Independent Institute, and has been published in many … Continue reading “Truth About the ‘War on Terrorism’”

‘Shock Video: Who Shot New 9/11 Tapes?‘ Thanks for your article “Shock Video.” My first thought when this thing hit the news was “Israel.” Just shows I’ve been reading too much Antiwar.com. But it really does “feel” like Israel, doesn’t it? While we’re on the subject, just a quick thought I’ve been meaning to share … Continue reading “”

It may be that, by four or five months from now: Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz will have heard the siren song of academia and returned to teach in ivy-covered halls somewhere, and that His deputy, Undersecretary for Policy, Douglas Feith, will have decided he can’t really afford to put his young kids through school … Continue reading “Baker’s Return Equals Cheney’s Heartburn”

Seymour Hersh, with his usual thoroughness, has documented Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s latest scheme for Iraq. It is, in short, to set up death squads, trained by Israelis and using Israelis as consultants in Iraq. The Israeli role is supposed to be hush-hush, but not only Hersh, in his New Yorker article, but also … Continue reading “Murder Inc.”

Iraqi intellectuals living both inside Iraq and as members of the expatriate community in Europe and North America are warning that Iraq is perilously close to a civil war in light of recent events and decrees issued by both the US Civilian Provisional Authority (CPA) and the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC). In chronological order, 1. … Continue reading “Iraqis Warn Country Close to Civil War”

Hundreds of civilians were killed by Coalition cluster bombs and air strikes designed to "decapitate" the Iraqi leadership, according to a new report by New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), which said the high cost in civilian casualties caused by the two tactics may have violated the laws of war. The report, which found that … Continue reading “Cluster Bombs, Air Strikes Killed Hundreds in Iraq”

As the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush searches increasingly desperately for a viable "exit strategy" from an Iraqi quagmire, its policy there is appearing ever more incoherent. The latest example – and an especially spectacular one – took place Wednesday when, at the same moment that Bush himself was personally asking key European … Continue reading “The Axis of Incoherence”