"For me it began in far-off Mesopotamia now called Irak, that land of Biblical names and history, of vast deserts and date groves, scorching suns and hot winds, the land of Babylon, Baghdad and the Garden of Eden, where the rushing Euphrates and the mighty Tigris...
Illusion of the Profound in Political Strategy
MOSCOW – A year ago, U.S.-led coalition forces toppled the statute of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. The past two years have seen a remarkable shift in U.S. foreign policy. Parallel to this shift is Russia's changing foreign policy under President Vladimir Putin. It...
One, Two, Many Messes
While the United States does not look quite yet like the "pitiful, helpless giant" that tortured Richard Nixon's imagination during the Vietnam War, the past week's events seem to have moved it very much in that direction. The week, which was supposed to...
The Price of Stability
The Guangzhou Daily is the flagship of China’s newspaper industry. Launched just after Liberation by the Guangzhou Party Committee, the Daily spent 40 years as a Party organ, toeing the Party line, bringing the CPC’s views to the people. The Daily was the...
US-Appointed Iraqi Government Close to Collapse?
AP reported that the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) issued a demand early on Saturday that the US cease its military action against Fallujah and stop employing "collective punishment." Not only has what many Iraqis call "the puppet council" taken a stand...
Neocons: Learning Disabled
The Bush administration, I fear, is severely learning-disabled. Rational people, acting as individuals or as a group, learn from their mistakes. They gather data, they make decisions, and they take actions. Then they assess the feedback from reality and adjust. For...
Sheikh Yassin and the Levitating German Corpses
It's my conviction that a conscientious columnist should admit his own faults and flaws. When a reader accuses me of making "a rather big leap from a very small statement" in another reader's comment, I check myself. In this specific case, the reader was right: I did...
Just Like in the Bad Old Days, the Government Is Cracking Down on Dissent
Are we returning to the bad old days of spying on peaceful Americans? In February, the most ominous challenge to political freedom from the administration of George W. Bush occurred in Des Moines, Iowa, when federal prosecutors issued grand jury subpoenas to Drake...
Neocons See Iran Behind Shi’ite Uprising
Neo-conservatives close to the administration of President George W Bush are pushing for retribution against Iran for, they say, sponsoring this week's Shiite uprising in Iraq led by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Despite the growing number of reports that depict the...
Collateral Damage in Bush's Wars I downloaded and listened to your interview with Matthew Barganier. In general it was good, but I was disappointed by your weak argument in support of investigating the underlying causes for September 11. We should be defensive about...