Month: May 2005

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 combatants? Is this generous notice of a massive offensive … Continue reading “Bush Opts for Civil War in Iraq”

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 section there will be smaller areas of control. There will be at least 675 checkpoints … Continue reading “Death and ‘Sketchy Details’ in Iraq”

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. Last Friday, the administration announced that it was reviewing plans for future U.S. … Continue reading “Bush Raises Stakes With
North Korea”

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 a up-close look at what Pelosi thinks about Israel, the Palestinians, the … Continue reading “Pelosi Gives a Pep Talk to AIPAC”

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 activities – the US will “refer” the matter to the UN Security Council for action. Who … Continue reading “UN Referral – Not”

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 rights abuses, toward Muslim inmates in the numerous detention camps erected … Continue reading “Muslim Lives are Desecrated, Not Just Their Book”

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 starts, the people and the state become one, and the … Continue reading “‘Manly’ Teddy and the Neocons”

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 well before that. It … Continue reading “The ‘Ism’ at the Gate”

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 commitments under the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter (IADC). But Jose Miguel Insulza, who was elected to the post … Continue reading “Chilean Takes Helm of OAS Amid US-Venezuela Tensions”

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 infused with insidious forgetting than the last days of May. This … Continue reading “Media Silence on Memorial Day”