Month: February 2004

U.S. policy toward the most destabilizing factor in the Middle East – the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – is to support Israel and to never offend the Israeli lobby. US politicians use a number of rhetorical devices to disguise this policy, since it guarantees not only a continuation of the conflict, but a continuing supply of terrorists … Continue reading “An Occupation by Any Other Name”

The editing room of Al Quds educational TV is still riddled with bullet holes. The poor Palestinian broadcaster has little money to replace the equipment damaged in an attack by three armed men earlier this month. Damaged premises, journalists getting beaten up, and other forms of harassment have become almost a badge of honor among … Continue reading “Palestinian Media Caught in Internal Crossfire”

On the eve of the World Court’s opening hearing on Israel’s construction of a barrier wall along the West Bank, two of the world’s oldest and most influential non-governmental organizations are calling for the dismantling of those sections that cross the pre-1967 “Green Line” into occupied territory. On Thursday, Amnesty International said the barrier, which … Continue reading “Israel’s West Bank Wall Assailed by Key Civil Society Groups”

Election years are typically full of the kind of vulgar sound and fury calculated to make sensible people despair of the possibility of civilized life. In his remarkable autobiography, “Memoirs of a Superfluous Man” (an underappreciated masterpiece that deserves a much wider audience) the American essayist Albert Jay Nock tells of the “wigwam,” or political … Continue reading “Resisting Intervention”

“The message is that there are no ‘knowns’. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know. So when we do the best … Continue reading “The Neocon Philosophy of Intelligence”

“Utter nerve” – that’s how the dictionary defines chutzpah, and that just about sums up, in a single, wonderfully descriptive Yiddish word, Richard Perle‘s recent suggestion that “heads should roll” in the U.S. intelligence community. We didn’t find the “weapons of mass destruction” Perle and his neocon buddies insisted were there in the run-up to … Continue reading “Chutzpah!”

The emergence of former paramilitary and military leaders accused of atrocities committed during Haiti’s last period of military rule at the head of spreading rebellion against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has added urgency to international efforts to deal with the ongoing crisis in the Caribbean nation. The uprising, which has cut off hundreds of towns and … Continue reading “Rising Stakes In Haiti as Ex-Dictator’s Thugs Take Over Opposition”

With only four months to go before scheduled elections in Afghanistan, a growing number of observers are concerned that balloting might aggravate rising ethnic tensions between the northern and southern parts of the country. Some experts are calling for the elections to be put off until next year. A delay would enable both international donors … Continue reading “Afghan Elections Could Deepen Ethnic Divide”

Louise Arbour had it easy. She followed NATO’s instructions, made only as much fuss as she was told, and retired to the Canadian Supreme Court. It fell on Carla Del Ponte, her successor as the Head Inquisitor of the Hague kangaroo court, to actually put together and prosecute a case against Slobodan Milosevic and the … Continue reading “The Madness of Carla Del Ponte”

Corporate Warriors Thank you for maintaining this site. Do you have a statistic about how many “contractors” have been killed /injured in Iraq? ~ PR Ford Sam Koritz replies: David Lazarus wrote about this subject in the January 21 San Francisco Chronicle (“Taking the War Private“), citing anonymous US officials’ claims that several dozen contractors … Continue reading “”