Month: December 2003

The decisive victory of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “United Russia” slate of candidates for the Duma is the occasion for a new round of Putin-bashing, with “human rights officials” condemning the election results as “a retreat from Russia’s democratic reforms.” Just what is a “human rights official,” anyway? The way the Associated Press puts it, … Continue reading “Now They’re After Putin”

One by one, Serbs are confessing to their guilt regarding Srebrenica. Are we witnessing another Stalin show trial, where the defendants were told, "if you sign, we won’t shoot you"?  Well, Stalin’s victims signed and many were shot anyway, or worked to death in the Gulag. The Hague "Tribunal" seems to have taken Uncle Joe’s lesson … Continue reading “Carla del Ponte’s Pound of Serbian Flesh”

Three days after the administration of President George W. Bush shrugged off the unofficial Israeli-Palestinian peace plan released last week in Geneva, a bipartisan group of eight former top U.S. national-security officials said they supported the so-called "Geneva Accord." The endorsement of the group, which includes four former national security advisers, comes amid a growing … Continue reading “Former Top US Security Officials Back Geneva Accord”

President Bush’s recent vows to pursue a "forward strategy of freedom" in the Islamic world are in the spotlight as a close ally, Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, comes under attack by human rights groups. Despite Western pressure, Karimov has outlawed opposition parties, harassed and imprisoned dissidents, and, despite his own promises, failed to take meaningful … Continue reading “Uzbek Leader Becoming Embarrassment to West”

The Russian parliamentary election, in which maximum leader Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party (which seems to stand mainly for “we’re in power and handing out favors, so keep us in power”) got 37.1 percent of the vote – which could translate into a working majority with coalition parties in the Duma and maybe even a … Continue reading “Russian Regression?”

A nascent empire falls in love with its “liberating” political and economic state system and decides it is time to export its domestic model to other countries by means of war, of course. Liberation to all is the ultimate goal. No, it is not early 21st century, the leader is not George W. Bush, the … Continue reading “Iraq Is No Vietnam, But It May Be Poland”

Praise I would just like to say, you all run one bad ass f*ckin news distribution center. I am a service member in the USAF and would like to say that this is where I go to see what the f*ck has gone wrong in this administration. ~ T. Henigma ‘Go F*ck Yourself, Mr. President‘ … Continue reading “”

Re-election year is shaping up as positively for George W. Bush as it did for LBJ in 1964 and Richard Nixon in 1972. Recall: Both LBJ and Nixon had engineered surging economies for the election year. Both held the face cards in foreign policy in wartime, with electorates wary of the perceived radicalism of their … Continue reading “Three of a Kind?”

I shivered, a little, as I watched Lisa Meyers’ report on NBC the other night: “New and threatening messages have been received from Al Qaeda. There’s a videotape aimed at American and Saudi Arabian rulers and another that includes what appears to be well-produced footage of the 9/11 attacks – raising still other questions.” This … Continue reading “Shock Video: Who Shot New 9/11 Tapes?”

On one point, all sources appear to agree: what happened in the northern Sunni town of Samarra last Sunday could tell us a great deal about whether U.S. forces are likely to succeed or fail in pacifying and stabilizing Iraq. That there was a three-hour battle between U.S. soldiers and Iraqis is also not in … Continue reading “A Sunday in Samarra”