Month: December 2004

You come out of the subway at Times Square across the street from the Gap and catty-corner to ESPN Zone, walk past the Drug Enforcement Agency’s temporary museum (“Freedom is … Drug Free!”) with its “Target America: Drug Traffickers, Terrorists, and You” show, stroll past the New York Police Department’s office, its name outlined in … Continue reading “In the Zone With GI Joe”

According to Undersecretary of State John Bolton, "[T]he United States strongly believes that Iran has a clandestine program to produce nuclear weapons, and has been warning publicly about Tehran’s weapons ambitions for over a decade." Now, having nuke ambitions is one thing. Having the fissile material – plutonium-239 or uranium-235 – needed to produce nukes … Continue reading “Weapons-Grade Paranoia”

On the eve of Bush’s invasion of Iraq, Undersecretary of State John Bolton met with Israeli officials in Tel Aviv. According to Ha’aretz, Bolton told the Israelis he had "no doubt" that "America will attack Iraq," soon, to disarm Saddam Hussein. The Israelis reportedly told Bolton they were much more worried about Iran having nukes … Continue reading “Persian Gulf Junk”

BELGRADE – How did Slobodan Radosevic die after being abducted from his home five years ago? For the Radosevic family this is a question about closure of grief. For Serbian prosecutors it is one of 108 charges against now Kosovan Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj. For all of Serbia and Kosovo, it could be a matter … Continue reading “Disputes Grow Around Kosovar Prime Minister”

A week after the assault on Fallujah began in early November, our military announced that the city had been secured – at the cost of a thousand or more dead Iraqis and 51 American soldiers. Articles about the "reconstruction" of Fallujah soon began appearing in our papers and tales of fighting fell away. You had … Continue reading “The Fallujan Dystopia”

While President George W. Bush, his neoconservative advisers, and centrist Democrats bask in the glow of America’s status as "the one remaining superpower in the world," signs are mounting that other major powers do not intend to hunker down and suspend their own efforts to shape history. The most striking result of Russian Defense Minister … Continue reading “Laughing Dragon, Dancing Bear”

Anybody who has any doubts that George Bush is a true believer in himself should finally be convinced by his awarding the Medal of Freedom to the three blunderers of the war in Iraq. Gen. Tommy Franks allowed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to browbeat him into planning a war with fewer troops than were needed. … Continue reading “The Three Stooges”

The Tyrant of Bosnia struck again Thursday: almost six months after the last purge of such kind, Imperial viceroy Paddy Ashdown has launched another, proscribing officials, confiscating property and threatening further repression if the Bosnian Serb authorities failed to comply with near-impossible demands by next April. The pretext this time, just as this summer, was … Continue reading “Another Imperial Purge”

U.S. President George W. Bush is not known for his love either of books or of history. Nonetheless, he has frequently been compared to two former presidents who were both avid readers and even writers of history – Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Both former leaders also figure large in the historical imagination of some … Continue reading “History Debunks Bush Myth”

Justin Raimondo is taking the day off. His column will return Wednesday. In the 1950s, when the cold war was at its height, a series of spectacular espionage scandals – involving top-level spies for the Soviet Union, our former WWII ally – roiled American politics and defined the political culture for decades to come, giving … Continue reading “Israel’s Fifth Column in Washington”