Month: June 2005

In 1215, disgruntled English barons unwittingly won a great victory for Western liberty. After King John waged several unsuccessful, senseless wars, the barons, sick of financing wars in which they had no interest, temporarily ended John’s despotism by forcing him to sign the Magna Carta. Though the Great Charter mostly reflected selfish baronial interests, it … Continue reading “The Forgotten Spirit of the Magna Carta”

Vast (but Empty) Hide-Out of Iraqi Rebels Found Thanks to Antiwar.com for the parenthetical “empty” inserted into the N.Y. Times‘ hyped headline regarding the “vast” (well, ok, a quarter of a skyscraper’s worth, anyway) underground insurgent hideaway. Such a facility found occupied = triumph; found empty = ominous. That’s why we need you guys. ~ … Continue reading “Backtalk June 7, 2005”

You wouldn’t know it from the media focus on Deep Throat last week, but the lies that Richard Nixon told about the Watergate break-in were part of his standard duplicity for the Vietnam War. It wasn’t just that the Nixon administration engaged in secret illegal actions against a wide range of peace advocates – including … Continue reading “From Watergate to Downing Street”

The discovery of a labyrinth of underground bunkers used by the insurgency – complete with air-conditioning, shower facilities, and furnished living space – in western Iraq yielded a rich arsenal of sophisticated weaponry, including: “Mortars, rockets, machine guns, night-vision goggles, compasses, ski masks and cell phones. Marines also found at least 59 surface-to-air missiles, some … Continue reading “The War Party on Trial”

Even if Undersecretary of State John Bolton isn’t our next ambassador to the United Nations, he already has a legacy. At the recently concluded Review Conference for the Treaty on Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, his underlings managed to seriously undermine both the NPT and the Safeguards regime of the International Atomic Energy Agency. How? By … Continue reading “Bolton Already Has a Legacy”

While Israel’s new chief of staff, Air Force General Dan Halutz, was assuming his new job, I stood with a group of demonstrators at the gate of the General Staff building to protest against his appointment. Our slogan was: “You have blood on your wings!” – a reminder of his remarks when the Air Force … Continue reading “From Bad to Worse”

Afghanistan: An Imperial DilemmaI am reassured by Alan Bock’s response. Perhaps he would understand my sharp reaction if he were to consider the following:Back in the 1950s, my father was Afghan ambassador to the United States. Therefore, I spent seven years of my childhood in the U.S. My memories of that period are of a … Continue reading “Backtalk, June 5, 2005”

Slowly, it seems, all my sources are dying. The latest death is in the northern oil rich city of Kirkuk, where there have been a number of attacks on non-Kurdish members of the City Council. I get a terrible sickening feeling when I read about the assassination Friday, of Sheik Naif al-Jabouri, an Arab member … Continue reading “Farewell Sheik Naif al-Jabouri”

Less than a year ago John Kerry declared that if elected president, his first priority would be preventing nuclear weapons proliferation. George Bush immediately rejoined that preventing the proliferation of “weapons of mass destruction” was high on his priority list, too, and cited his Proliferation Security Initiative of 2003 as proof. Too? Did you hear … Continue reading “Preventing Wheat Smut Attacks”

In my non-Tomdispatch life as a book editor, I used to have a modest dream. Every season, editors like me send the galleys of books they’re publishing off, en masse, to likely blurbees, who will, if all goes well, reach for their thesauruses, gather their adjectives into serried ranks, and say the best things possible … Continue reading “Rummy Rules”