Month: March 2005

BAGHDAD – Wrapped in his brown abaya, Sheik Sayak Kumait al-Asadi, a spokesman in Baghdad for the revered Shi’ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is angry and forceful when speaking of both the U.S. occupation and the suffering of the Shi’ites under the regime of Saddam Hussein. Above him hangs an ornately framed poster of … Continue reading “Shi’ites and Sunnis: What Divides, What Unites”

Imagine: for a few years you were investing the money you had saved for your daughter’s college education in one of those moderately conservative plans that provided some increase in the value of the investment without exposing it to major risks. But then your financial planner – let’s call him Ken P. – got in … Continue reading “Oops! I Helped Start a War”

March has been a bad month for the world’s multilateralists who, encouraged by several early appointments to the State Department and a successful presidential tour of Europe, had hoped that George W. Bush would temper his unilateralist instincts in his second term. But culminating in Friday’s release by the Pentagon of a new "National Defense … Continue reading “Pentagon Reaffirms Globocop Role”

http://www.independent.org/tii/antiwar/e050322.html

JERUSALEM – Opposition leader Joseph "Tommy" Lapid recently bragged that he had been receiving calls from senior U.S. officials asking him to throw the weight of his 14-member Shinui party behind the government’s budget for 2005. "I don’t know whether this pressure is from the U.S. administration or if Sharon’s office asked the U.S. to … Continue reading “Gaza Pullout Faces Rising Hurdles”

Last week Congress spent another $82 billion in an "emergency" supplemental appropriations bill. There is no emergency, however: Congress simply exceeded its fiscal year budget once again and needs more money. The 13 standard appropriations bills, which provide about $2.4 trillion to run the federal government in 2005, are not enough to satisfy the ravenous … Continue reading “Where Is Your Money Going?”

"There is nothing too dangerous to talk about." Spoken by the actor who plays Stephen Hopkins, Rhode Island’s member of the Continental Congress, in the musical 1776, I have long thought the phrase should be added to the Great Seal of the United States. Historically, Americans have taken these words as a guide. When they … Continue reading “Toward a Sensible Israel Policy”

In chronicling the crimes of the War Party, surely the worst, from a libertarian point of view – excluding large-scale war crimes committed on the ground in Iraq – are those that are even now inflicting fatal wounds on our political system here at home. War, as the 19th century American liberal Randolph Bourne famously … Continue reading “Dirty Tricks Revisited”

NEW DELHI – It’s a rarity for the United States to lend its ear to Indian human rights campaigners, let alone take any action on their petitions. But Washington’s cancellation Friday of a U.S. visa given to right-wing politician Narendra Modi, blamed by human rights groups for the deaths of more than 2,000 Muslims in … Continue reading “Gujarat Pogrom Costs Chief Minister Modi US Visa”

It’s 3 o’clock and the sun is shining down bright upon the scattered groups of people hanging about in front of the shopping complex. A huge banner over the front façade blows gently in the breeze – the number “8” fills the banner, and hundreds of tiny photos depicting various bands and their crews fill … Continue reading “Bumpin’ It in China”