Month: September 2004

In early 1943, J. Robert Oppenheimer – professor of theoretical physics at the University of California (UC) – set out to recruit a scientific staff for a purpose he could not disclose, to work at a place he could not specify, for a period of time he could not predict. In April, Robert M. Underhill, … Continue reading “Outsource Nukes?”

Three years after al-Qaeda-commandeered planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York and the Pentagon, the leaked ruminations of Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld seem more pertinent than ever. "Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror," he wrote in a memo to his … Continue reading “After Three Years, War on Terror Looks Like a Loser”

Democrats should face it: they are incompetent and Bush will be reelected. With less than two months to go before the election, John Kerry is yet to address a single important issue. William Rivers Pitt, who runs the liberal web site Truthout, vented his frustration by declaring the election the dumbest ever. The entire election, … Continue reading “Hate and Delusion Have the Bit in Their Teeth”

"The American political system has never been as sick as it is today," says Belgian philosopher Lieven De Cauter, in a wide-ranging interview where he discusses his theories about the "state of exception" in the context of the Bush administration’s "war on terror." De Cauter’s ideas are especially timely in light of the continuing revelations … Continue reading “Bush ‘Exceptionalism’ Led to Abu Ghraib”

Soon after the American death toll in Iraq passed the 1,000 mark, I thought of Saadoun Hammadi and some oratory he provided two years ago. At the time, Hammadi was the speaker of Iraq’s National Assembly. "The U.S. administration is now speaking war," Hammadi said. "We are not going to turn the other cheek. We … Continue reading “The Brave Posturing of Armchair Warriors”

According to the geniuses who misled Americans into supporting the war against Iraq, the fighting should have been over a long time ago. The dancing in the streets should have long ago blossomed into a democracy Thomas Jefferson would have been proud of. The soothing effects should have spread throughout the Middle East. Unfortunately, reality … Continue reading “Debased Citizenship”

BAGHDAD – Armed groups and foreign terrorists have established new camps in central Iraq as government forces attack rebels in the north and south, officials say. The reports follow an admission by U.S. central command chief Gen. John Abizaid that there are more areas in Iraq under rebel control today than there were last year. … Continue reading “Iraqi Rebels Expand Area of Control”

As I noted in a recent column, the Marines have blanked the news from the Sunni triangle since taking over much of that area. A front-page story in the Aug. 29 New York Times lifted the veil, and what it revealed was not pretty. The war in the Sunni triangle is shifting its base from … Continue reading “Iraqi Resistance Shifts From Saddam to Allah”

The war in Iraq is coming to resemble the War on Drugs in this narrow sense: if it were simply a matter of having enough persuasive, well-written, well-researched and responsible books out there critiquing the war from different perspectives, the war would have been ended some time ago. Unfortunately, while whatever intellectually defensible justifications for … Continue reading “Deconstructing the Neocons”

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Thursday declared that the past 18 months of attacks by government forces and Arab militias on black African farmers in the western region of Darfur amounted to "genocide" and pledged to push hard at the UN Security Council for tough measures against Khartoum to stop it. Following a two-month … Continue reading “Powell Declares Darfur Situation ‘Genocide’”