Month: March 2005

The Specter of Fascism This article was spot on. While watching the towers burn in NY on TV, my first thought was for the people in the towers, and my second was how this would energize all the authoritarians who would bend the Constitution to limit our freedoms and extend government power. Note that Gonzales … Continue reading “Backtalk March 14”

In The Image, Daniel Boorstin’s ground-breaking and magisterial study of the rise of the modern media and the public relations profession, the renowned historian coined the term "pseudo-event." He was referring to a "happening" that is designed to be covered by the news. It is not spontaneous, but comes about because someone has planned, planted … Continue reading “‘Pseudo-Events’ Stir Mideast Pot”

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a major advocacy group, has filed the first challenge to "rendition," known by critics as "outsourcing torture," a practice used by U.S. intelligence agencies to deliver detainees to prisons in countries known to practice abuse. "Torture is against the law in the United States," said Ron Daniels, CCRs’ executive … Continue reading “Rendition, or Outsourcing Torture?”

President Bush has nominated John Bolton – currently undersecretary of state – to be ambassador to the United Nations, a presidential appointment that requires Senate confirmation. Will examining Senators focus on what they expect Bolton to accomplish in his new post, or will they focus on the mess of things he made in his last … Continue reading “Bolton’s Stewardship”

Human rights groups and some senators are expressing growing frustration over the Pentagon’s failure to hold senior officers or civilian leaders accountable for widespread abuses by U.S. forces against detainees in Washington’s "war on terror." The latest report on abuses, released at a Senate hearing Thursday, drew new calls for Congress or the administration to … Continue reading “Groups: Latest Abuse Investigation Report a Whitewash”

KIRKUK – Whatever the circumstances, Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena is free at last. But questions remain at what price. Her release has been clouded over by the death of the Italian intelligence agent who freed her from kidnappers. He was killed on the road to Baghdad’s airport by U.S. security forces there to protect U.S. … Continue reading “Where Abducted People Are An Expensive Product”

We had just finished a meal of lamb, rice and tabbouleh. My host, an intellectual and fluent in several languages, was talking about the Middle East. He was a Kurd and Syrian. "A French general put his foot on the grave of Saladin and said, ‘Saladin, we have returned.’" He spit the words out. His … Continue reading “In Lebanon, Syria Is Not ‘Foreign’”

President Bush was uncharacteristically slow to take credit, in his speech this week at the National Defense University, for what appear to be democratic-like changes in the Middle East. This might have been in part because if you’re just counting numbers, which to some extent is what democracy as such boils down to, the 500,000-strong … Continue reading “Parsing the President”

The news that the American government fabricated the story of Saddam Hussein’s capture – that he wasn’t found hiding in a hole, that he did fight back, and that one Marine was killed during the encounter – may or may not be true, but the former wouldn’t surprise me at all. Every time someone in … Continue reading “The Wonderful Wizard
of Washington”

Sadly, it has come to this. Two years after the invasion of Iraq, the online powerhouse MoveOn.org – which built most of its member base with a strong antiwar message – is not pushing for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. With a network of more than 3 million "online activists," the MoveOn leadership has … Continue reading “MoveOn.org Makes Peace With War”