Month: November 2004

In 1981, Israel bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor when it believed Saddam Hussein was close to producing a nuclear bomb. Growing concern about advances in Iran’s nuclear capabilities has fanned speculation that Israel could launch an attack against key Iranian facilities, as it did against Osirak. Unilateralists have pointed to this strike as an example … Continue reading “Preemptive Strikes Will Not Disarm Iran”

When misleading buzzwords become part of the media landscape, they slant news coverage and skew public perceptions. That’s the story with the phrase "Iraqi forces" – now in routine use by U.S. media outlets, including the country’s most influential newspapers. The New York Times and the Washington Post have been leading the way in news … Continue reading “Will the Real ‘Iraqi Forces’ Please Stand Up?”

The United States is in dire straits. Its government is in the hands of people who connect to events neither rationally nor morally. If President Bush’s neoconservative administration were rational, the U.S. would never have invaded Iraq. If Bush’s government were moral, it would be ashamed of the carnage and horror it has unleashed in … Continue reading “There Is No One Left to Stop Them”

While after a week of personnel announcements conventional wisdom appears to have concluded that the foreign policy of President George W. Bush’s second term will be at least if not more radical than the first, there is also a minority view that such a conclusion is premature. The second interpretation is based on the theory … Continue reading “Don’t Count Out Realists Yet”

We had our daily car bomb today when a suicide bomber drove his car into a U.S. patrol as it passed near the Yarmouk police station. Several Iraqis were killed, with no report yet on U.S. casualties. I felt the rumble even though I was on a street far away from the blast – at … Continue reading “The Streets of Baghdad”

BAGHDAD – Journalists are increasingly being detained and threatened by the U.S.-installed interim government in Iraq. Media have been stopped particularly from covering recent horrific events in Fallujah. The "100 Orders" penned by former U.S. administrator in Iraq L. Paul Bremer include Order 65 passed March 20 to establish an Iraqi communications and media commission. … Continue reading “Media Repression in ‘Liberated’ Iraq”

In the day-to-day business of tracking the War Party’s machinations, it’s easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees: Powell out, Condi in, AIPAC spies, Chalabi’s lies, Bush and Kerry, Fallujah and Allawi. But what, exactly is the bottom line? It is this: American imperialism is bad for America. It undermines our republican … Continue reading “Why We Fight”

It is not uncommon for countries that have been infected by democracy to fall prey to a malaise in which every sphere of life becomes political, i.e., falls under the control or influence of the state. The amount of power this gives the state becomes so strong a lure that it attracts the very worst … Continue reading “Politics of Destruction”

Reality TV votes with its feet on Bush foreign policy: “[Bernard van Munster, the Dutch-born co-creator and executive producer of the reality TV show, The Amazing Race] continues to scout locations for the seventh season, more than ever convinced that the world is a far less dangerous place than it sometimes seems. ‘Everybody everywhere has … Continue reading “The Battle for Minds (Forget the Hearts)”

LONDON – Hundreds of thousands of child soldiers are being used in conflicts around the world and governments are doing little to stop this, says a report published Wednesday. "Governments are undermining progress in ending the use of children as soldiers," says the "Child Soldiers Global Report 2004" produced by the Coalition to Stop the … Continue reading “Child Soldiers Still on the March”