Month: June 2004

“It’s not fun to be accused of war crimes,” opines Gary Schmitt, executive director of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). It’s even less fun to be victimized by war criminals, but, then again, why should the neocons at PNAC care about that? After all, as we all know, the scandal that’s increasingly … Continue reading “Besieged, Bothered, Bewildered – and Busted”

Nearly three years have passed since 9-11, yet one wonders if Vice President Dick Cheney ever abandoned his “secure undisclosed location.” He still seems to be secreted away somewhere, only coming out of hiding long enough to resell the Iraq war on some friendly neocon stage lent for the spread of more false propaganda. After … Continue reading “Tricky Dick Cheney”

I know it’s terribly naive to suggest such a thing, but you might have thought that if even a secondary purpose of the vaunted war on terrorism and the sidetrack into Iraq had something to do with demonstrating the superiority of democracy and the rule of law, that the administration would have taken steps to … Continue reading “Thugs With Lawyers”

Did American soldiers killed and maimed in Iraq, and Israeli soldiers killed and maimed in Gaza and the West Bank, die for nothing? Americans are dying now because of ideologues and zealots. Israeli soldiers are dying for settlements and unattainable goals. Both are trapped. Take the United States, for example, bogged down in a war … Continue reading “US, Israel Caught in Traps”

In my last column, I referenced “the canon,” the seven books which, if read in the correct order, take the reader from the First Generation of modern war through the Second and Third Generations and into the Fourth. A number of people responded with requests for a description both of the canon and of the … Continue reading “The Canon and the Four Generations”

NEW DELHI (IPS) – This week’s stunning confessions by two Indian soldiers that they helped stage fake encounters with Pakistani troops on Siachen, often called the world’s highest, coldest and costliest battlefield, has renewed calls for demilitarizing the Himalayan glacier. On Monday, rifleman Shyam Bahadur Thapa told a military court that he not only demolished … Continue reading “A Fake War in the Himalayas?”

While a restful experience, driving around the mountains and green fields of Kurdistan did not provide the complete escape from the troubles of Iraq for which we had hoped. The cousin of a friend manages a hotel in Erbil … one of the nicer lodges in the city. While dining with him in the empty … Continue reading “Troubles in Kurdistan”

ARBIL, Iraq (IPS) – And now the United States is running into difficulties in Northern Iraq where it has enjoyed the support of the largely Kurd population. Since the 1991 Gulf War whole swaths of Northern Iraq have been controlled by two Kurdish militias, the guerrilla armies of Masoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and … Continue reading “Kurds Worry About Future”

The Dog Days of the War Party Pat’s latest is a cogent and too-brief listing of the unresolved issues facing the current administration – and, of course, the American people. For all of us old Goldwater conservatives the travesty of neocon Republicanism is deeply disheartening. There really is only one answer – develop the intestinal … Continue reading “”

WASHINGTON, June 8 (IPS) – National elections in Afghanistan planned for September will be increasingly in doubt unless western nations commit more troops to the war-weary country, international human rights groups told leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations, gathering this week on Sea Island in the state of Georgia. With less than … Continue reading “Failed Promises Imperil Afghanistan Polls, Groups Tell G8”