Month: July 2005

For the past month or so, news from the Balkans has been all Srebrenica, all the time. This quiet little town in eastern Bosnia, which got its name after the old silver mines nearby, has been dragged through the headlines of just about every major paper and across the screens of every TV network. Ten … Continue reading “Silver City”

London’s Terror Thursday establishes three realities beyond the shadow of a doubt: (1) the West is losing the “war on terrorism,” (2) in our present strategic mode, we are essentially defenseless against al-Qaeda’s offensive – I agree with Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit and author of Imperial Hubris, … Continue reading “London Terror Mystery”

As an unexpected resurgence of fighting by Taliban and allied forces against the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai is raising new concerns over Afghanistan’s stability, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has repeated its call for the prosecution of past atrocities by key warlords, a number of whom continue to hold senior posts under Karzai. In … Continue reading “Calls Mount to Prosecute Past Afghan Atrocities”

Even the harshest Bush-bashing pundit tends to qualify his or her criticism of the war in Iraq with the line, “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was an evil man and we should all be thankful that he and his cronies have been deposed, but…” In fact, you can already envision neoconservative columnists insisting … Continue reading “Saddam, Stalin, Hitler, and History”

Srebrenica, 10 Years Later For the past month or so, news from the Balkans has been all Srebrenica, all the time. This quiet little town in eastern Bosnia, which got its name after the old silver mines nearby, has been dragged through the headlines of just about every major paper and across the screens of … Continue reading “Silver City”

Though it happened just over 20 years ago, today’s media has all but forgotten that Afghanistan’s Taliban was largely the creation of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a hard-drinking, party-loving Texas congressman who helped funnel billions of dollars in arms to "freedom fighters" like Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar. The congressman … Continue reading “Charlie Wilson’s War, Act Two”

Never mind all that folderol about Iraq’s burgeoning insurgency: those bombs going off everywhere, the kidnappings, and the complete inability of the U.S.-installed Iraqi government to keep order in the streets of their own capital city – “The war is over,” says Karl Zinsmeister, “and we won”! Does that mean we can bring our troops … Continue reading “Iraq: A Right-Wing Alternate Reality Show”

OAKLAND, California – A specter is again haunting U.S. colleges and universities. At the beginning of the Cold War in the early 1950s, Joseph McCarthy, the infamous Republican senator from Wisconsin, stalked the political landscape recklessly hurling charges that hordes of Communists had infiltrated the U.S. government before, during, and after World War II. Sen. … Continue reading “Neocons Bludgeon Professors With ‘Academic Freedom’”

Just in the last few days, according to USA Today, a “propaganda video purportedly made by al-Qaeda-linked terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi” has been released showing suicide attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq supposedly inspired by or ordered by him. Since George Bush first mentioned him in October 2002 in a speech in Cincinnati as … Continue reading “Chasing Zarqawi”

Obsession with seeming unequivocal and immovable has been frequent in the Oval Office. During the Vietnam War, such fixations were indifferent to the fact that the war was losing the U.S. government moral credibility around the world. But from the outset, Lyndon Johnson invoked credibility as an argument for staying the course. "If we are … Continue reading “‘Withdrawal Would Cripple US Credibility’”