Rafah, Jenin, Khan Yunis, Zeitun: Foreign-sounding names of so distanced and disturbing a reality. All that we know of them is what the media have selectively determined to impart, if we are interested to hear the story. The Rafah refugee camp, a small strip of land...
Once More, With Irony
It had to happen, sooner or later, or else the irony would not be complete: news has emerged this week that oil has been discovered in Bosnia. Granted, the find is nowhere near as big as the Middle Eastern fields, but given the precious liquid's current paucity in the...
New President, New Car Bomb
While Iraqi and American political players have been frenetically rearranging the chairs of interim government members on the Titanic that is occupied Iraq today, a massive car bomb explosion rumbles my hotel, miles from where it detonated outside of the Patriotic...
Despite US Backlash, Chalabi Still a ‘Kingmaker’
TEHRAN (IPS) - While foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi has rejected claims that Iran received highly classified U.S. intelligence from Ahmad Chalabi, other government officials and the hardline newspapers that support them have remained largely silent on the...
Egypt Eager to Help Israel Out of Gaza
CAIRO (IPS) - Egypt has presented a security initiative to support an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, but wants to avoid being drawn into a "security trap." The initiative calls for a bilateral ceasefire agreement between the Palestinians and Israelis, and the...
Beware of ‘Credible Intelligence’
Last Wednesday it was Attorney General John Ashcroft – joined Friday by me-too Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge – claiming that "credible intelligence from multiple sources indicates that al-Qaeda plans to attempt an attack on the United States" between...
An Insider’s Look at the March to War
Recorded May 22, 2004 A "Philip Dru" interview with Lt. Col. (ret.) Karen Kwiatkowski. Kwiatkowski spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon, where she was privy to much neoconservative chicanery in the run-up to war. She writes for...
The Emperor May Have Had Fewer Clothes Than Originally Reported
The Editors have become concerned at the reporting in these pages over the last year. Accordingly, we have undertaken a painstaking review of all stories and reporting of the Emperor over the past 12 months. As other events have shown, we believe our dedication to the...
The Neocons’ War
In detailing "the conservative crack-up" over the Iraq war, E. J. Dionne writes: "The isolationist conservatives around Pat Buchanan cannot understand why we went to war in the first place – and they opposed it from the beginning. These conservatives speak...
Neocon Collapse in Washington and Baghdad
Fourteen months after reaching the zenith of their influence on U.S. foreign policy with the invasion of Iraq, neoconservatives appear to have fallen entirely out of favor, both within the administration of President George W. Bush and in Baghdad itself. The signs of...