Month: September 2004

It is time for unauthorized truth-telling. Citizens cannot make informed choices if they do not have the facts – for example, the facts that have been wrongly concealed about the ongoing war in Iraq: the real reasons behind it, the prospective costs in blood and treasure, and the setback it has dealt to efforts to … Continue reading “A Call to Patriotic Whistleblowing”

CANBERRA – In the wake of last week’s suicide bombing at the gates of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, Australian Prime Minister John Howard has deftly shifted debate in the federal election campaign for the Oct. 9 polls onto his publicly perceived strong points on anti-terrorism measures and national security. Following a widely publicized weekend … Continue reading “Jakarta Blast Dominates Aussie Campaign”

Three weeks after initially suggesting the U.S.-created "Fallujah Brigade" had long since served its purpose, and one week after a clash between Brigade members and U.S. Marines left four Iraqis dead, American and Iraqi officials announced the official dissolution of the controversial unit Saturday, the LA Times reports. But as U.S. pilots continue to bombard … Continue reading “Fallujah Brigade Disbanded After Joining the Resistance”

Perhaps you’re paying attention to the increasingly annoying presidential campaign, in which the nearly lost art of distinguishing typewriter fonts may prove decisive, and it just didn’t register; or maybe you were too focused on the latest developments in the Scott Peterson murder trial, and it slipped beneath your radar. My theory is that Zell … Continue reading “While You Weren’t Looking …”

This week, Undersecretary of State John Bolton will demand that the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) refer to the UN Security Council for possible punishment the "failure" of Iran to promptly disclose its production – during experiments conducted at Lashkar Ab’ad between October 2002 and January 2003 – of milligram … Continue reading “South Korea Rains on Bolton’s Parade”

In order to evaluate the aftermath of Sept. 11, we first must understand that event. What did al-Qaeda intend to achieve? Only if we understand that can we gauge their success or failure. From the point of view of al-Qaeda, the Muslim world can and should be united into a single country. They believe that … Continue reading “Bin Laden’s Vision Becoming Reality”

Since the transfer of power to a provisional government in Baghdad at the end of June, more Americans have died in combat than during Gen. Franks’ invasion. In August, 1,000 U.S. soldiers were wounded, the highest figure for any month. "The ‘peace’ has been bloodier than the war," Capt. Russell Burgos, returning from duty in … Continue reading “A Peace Bloodier Than War”

It was 1996, and Bill Clinton was president. To give the rascal his due, he was laboring mightily to make the Middle East peace process work. That same year, three American neoconservatives produced a policy paper for the newly elected Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The neocons were Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser. … Continue reading “AIPAC’s Power, or America’s Cowardice?”

There is nothing very complicated or mysterious about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Never trust those who present it as an extremely complex issue, with endless political, historical, religious and cultural repercussions, on which you cannot take an informed stand without a Ph.D. in history and three decades of political activity for AIPAC. It’s quite simple: the … Continue reading “Back to Indirect Occupation?”

Sometimes the perverse consequences of federal government policies and programs are evident immediately and sometimes they take a bit longer. For example, at the end of World War I, statists, imperialists, and interventionists were in ecstasy over the U.S. intervention, proudly claiming that the loss of more than 100,000 American deaths was worth the conquest … Continue reading “Another Perverse Consequence of the “War on Terrorism””