Month: January 2005

http://www.independent.org/tii/antiwar/e050118.html

Here’s a strange, small tale of our times, as reported from Washington by Guy Dinmore in the sober British Financial Times. According to an anonymous counterinsurgency expert Dinmore evidently interviewed, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has a “brutally accurate” picture of the deteriorating situation in Iraq and “its potential dangers.” But, writes Dinmore, “a member … Continue reading “Does the Future Stand a Chance?”

Americans have been betrayed. Sooner or later, Americans will realize that they have been led to defeat in a pointless war by political leaders who they inattentively trusted. They have been misinformed by a sycophantic corporate media too mindful of advertising revenues to risk reporting truths branded unpatriotic by the propagandistic slogan, “you are with … Continue reading “The New American Militarism”

The onslaught of Mosul has begun, as occupation forces are launching attacks into Iraq’s third-largest city. While there are mass resignations of police and elections polling staff there, yet another new police chief has been awarded control of the 1,000-strong police force – which was over 5,000 men just two months ago. In Ramadi, fierce … Continue reading “Destroying Babylon”

Almost exactly 40 years after Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, in recognition of his nonviolent struggle for civil rights in the United States, another Nobel Peace laureate, Shirin Ebadi, said she was ready to be arrested for refusing to appear before Iran’s Revolutionary Court. Ebadi, who won … Continue reading “Iranian Nobel Laureate in Showdown With Conservatives”

Saul Landau interviews Princeton professor emeritus Richard Falk, co-author of The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Reports U.S. Foreign Policy (Verso). Check out Saul’s other interviews. Mid Bandwidth (for cable or DSL modems) Low Bandwidth (for dial-up connections) Richard Falk is professor emeritus of international law at Princeton. He is currently … Continue reading “Jayson Blair Was Nothing”

The morgues at the hospitals of Baghdad are filling to capacity. At Yarmouk Hospital in central Baghdad, the three freezers reek of decaying bodies, despite the temperature. The smell rushes out at us as the doors are opened. I’ve smelled the burning bodies on the funeral pires in Nepal … but this is different. This … Continue reading “The Tsunami of Iraq”

The show trial of U.S. Army reservist Charles Graner had something for everyone: tragedy, comedy, pathos, and propaganda. The tragic aspect was dominant, with the photos of the disgusting abuse illustrating the theme of senseless arbitrary violence, but there was also comedy, of a sort, with Guy Womack, Graner’s lawyer, making an argument that was … Continue reading “The Scapegoat”

Sometimes you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Like when you heard President Bush tell ABC’s Barbara Walters, “I felt like we’d find weapons of mass destruction – like many here in the United States, many around the world. The United Nations thought he had weapons of mass destruction. So, therefore: one, we need … Continue reading “Tragedy or Farce?”

Yes to US Aid, No to USAIDRegarding Ms Mercer’s comments about private as opposed to official aid: What she fails to address, and perhaps doesn’t know about, is the fact that a significant proportion of USAID aid funds are actually programmed through American NGOs such as CARE, Catholic Relief Services, and Save the Children. Most … Continue reading “Backtalk, January 17, 2005”