Month: June 2004

Was Reagan the First Neoconservative? I‘ve listened to a lot of talk from just about everybody this past week, but this piece by Buchanan is by far the most evenhanded, the best yet. Thanks for your insight – and your fairness. The quicker we remove the neocons from power in this country the quicker we … Continue reading “”

You remember the Cox Committee, don’t you? It was a bipartisan commission established by Congress in 1998 to look into how a billion or so rice-farmers – aka, the People’s Republic of China – had managed to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles as well as small thermonuclear warheads, spy satellites and communication satellites to fit atop … Continue reading “More Bush Doctrine Fallout”

With all this talk about a draft, I thought that, as a professional soldier, I’d throw my two cents worth in. Let me begin by saying that I’m against a general draft for a number of reasons. Conscription makes free citizens into slaves and the property of the state. A draft also gives the state … Continue reading “Maybe We Do Need a Draft”

WASHINGTON – “The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda,” U.S. President George W. Bush told reporters Thursday, is “because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda.” This is what logicians call a tautology, or a “useless repetition,” as the dictionary defines it, but it is … Continue reading “Bush Team Tries to Brazen It Out”

ARBIL – A year after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the mountains and plains of northern Iraq are still covered in landmines planted by the former Iraqi dictator’s regime during the 1980s. That is when he fought a decade-long war with Iran and many battles with Kurdish guerrillas. The Red Cross has made thousands of … Continue reading “Saddam’s Enablers May Also Go on Trial”

I wrote a column a ways back that infuriated a lot of Asians out there. Friends here in Sichuan said I had gone over the top and I apologized for what I thought was a pretty poor attempt to explain stereotypes in China. I have thought about that column for a while now and I … Continue reading “The Sage-King Mindset”

Perhaps it is just as well to conclude regretfully that mere facts will seldom if ever hold much sway with people whose minds are already made up. In the wake of the report from the 9/11 commission to the effect that there is “no credible evidence that Iraq and al-Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the … Continue reading “Deep Denial Remains”

So it turns out that there weren’t any links between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, after all, but, hey, guess what? The story has been revised and updated. Forget Iraq, we really meant to link Al Qaeda to – Iran! Yeah! That’s it! And the beat goes on…. I wonder how many months from … Continue reading “The Neoconservative Moment”

From Dahr’s weblog BAGHDAD – Dr. Faiq Amin, the manager of the Medico Legal Institute (i.e., the Baghdad morgue), told me a couple of days ago that their maximum holding capacity is 90 bodies. Since Janurary an average of over 600 bodies each month have been brought there. Of these, at least half have died … Continue reading “Beirut Redux”

DUBAI – A series of escalating spats in the Gulf waters between Iran, on one hand, and the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman, on the other, has cast a large shadow over relations between these countries. Officials from the three Gulf countries and many foreign diplomats are also perplexed over the recent hostile actions … Continue reading “A Brawl in the Persian Gulf”