A Batch of TCNs

"We've given up hope," said 20 year old Mohammed Al Katib, a Palestinian student imprisoned in the Umm Qasr prison camp in southern Iraq. "We don't think we'll ever get out of here." On January 3, 2004, I traveled with Rev. Jerry Zawada, OFM, and...

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Kurds Head Towards Separation Up North

Recent developments in Northern Iraq may lead to the division of post-Saddam Iraq along ethnic lines. Kurds plan to turn their tactical gains from their role as unflinching U.S. allies in ousting Saddam Hussein into a strategic and historic one – a Kurdish...

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Understanding Fourth Generation War

Rather than commenting on the specifics of the war with Iraq, I thought it might be a good time to lay out a framework for understanding that and other conflicts. The framework is the Four Generations of Modern War. I developed the framework of the first three...

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Back to the Balkans?

Is the Balkans back in Washington vogue? After a couple of seemingly isolationist years (that were, of course, nothing of the sort) when the limelight was on the Middle East, there's been a renewed push by the forces of punditry to get the peninsula back on the...

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George W. Bush, Pod Person

The New York Times's newest neocon columnist, David Brooks, laptop bombardier Max Boot and others who have taken offense at the neocons-hijacked-the-White House meme have indignantly asked: doesn't the President have a mind of his own? Plainly, now, the answer is a...

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The Crumbling Case for War

It is a little frustrating to write that the main hope is that the American people will be more vigilant the next time a president and his administration put on a full court press on behalf of a dubious war. At this time, however, it is probably the best we can hope...

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Neocons’ Manual for Global Warmongering

If hard-core neo-conservatives Richard Perle and David Frum had their way, the Bush administration would be issuing ultimatums on virtually a daily basis. In their new book, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, Perle, the well-connected former chairman of the...

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