What are we to make of the news reports that Baghdad is to be encircled and divided into smaller and smaller sections by 40,000 Iraqi and 10,000 U.S. troops backed by U.S. airpower and armor in order to conduct house-to-house searches throughout the city to destroy...
Yesterday Iraq's Minister of Defense, Sadoun al-Dulaimi, announced that starting Saturday 40,000 Iraqi troops will seal Baghdad and begin to "hunt down insurgents and their weapons." Baghdad will be divided into two main sections, east and west, and within each...
Increasingly frustrated over its failure to get North Korea back to the negotiating table, the administration of President George W. Bush is taking new steps virtually certain to escalate tensions with the third spoke in his original "axis of evil," analysts said....
Rep. Nancy Pelosi's recent speech to the Israeli-American lobby (AIPAC) ought to be a clarion call for peace activists. Her address did not contain any big surprises. But it is, nonetheless, remarkable for its transparency. The speech (see below for the text) affords...
For at least the past six months, neo-crazy media sycophants have been "reporting" that if the French-Brit-German negotiations with Iran fail to produce the result demanded by the neo-crazies – namely, the permanent cessation of all Iranian nuclear fuel-cycle...
The reported desecration of the Quran by US guards at the infamous Guantánamo prison, as originally reported by Newsweek on May 9, 2005, was not – as it should've been – an opportunity for a thorough examination of US army practices, and thus human...
In his essay "War is the Health of the State," Randolph Bourne criticizes war as an enterprise that increases the state's control over its subjects. During times of peace, people think less about the state and more about living their everyday lives. However, when war...
If you look at the past 100 years or so, you will see plainly that there has always been an "ism" at the gates. The old idea of controlling the people and increasing government power by warning of an "enemy at the gates" dates back to the Roman Empire, and probably...
Tiptoeing around growing tensions between the United States and Venezuela, the new secretary-general of the Organization of American States (OAS) called Thursday for the creation of "objective and practical mechanisms" to assess member states' adherence to their...
Memorial Day weekend brings media rituals. Old Glory flutters on television and newsprint. Grave ceremonies and oratory pay homage to the fallen. Many officials and pundits speak of remembering the dead. But for all the talk of war and remembrance, no time is more...
