Month: September 2005

Hurricane Katrina and its near-catastrophic aftermath, which bids fair to be compounded by Rita, might be reason enough, given the resources that will be used (whether they are really required on the federal level is another matter, but President Bush is approaching this disaster like the big-government Republican he has turned out to be) to … Continue reading “Before It’s Too Late”

Dan Rather caused some ripples the other day when he lamented the state of U.S. news media. The former CBS anchor said "there is a climate of fear running through newsrooms stronger than he has ever seen in his more than four-decade career," according to the Hollywood Reporter. Speaking at a law school in New … Continue reading “The Occasional Media Ritual of Lamenting the Habitual”

This week’s six-party agreement on the principles for denuclearizing the Korean peninsula is being greeted somewhat warily here, with most experts stressing that the accord marks only the beginning of what is likely to be a protracted negotiating process that could take years, rather than months, to achieve. The deal reached by the two Koreas, … Continue reading “Promise and Peril in North Korea Deal”

It has long been an article of faith among America’s senior policymakers – Democrats and Republicans alike – that military force is an effective tool for ensuring control over foreign sources of oil. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president to embrace this view, in February 1945, when he promised King Abdul Aziz of Saudi … Continue reading “More Blood, Less Oil”

The Bizarre Balkans Stage It is arguably the Bard’s most famous play; there is hardly a civilized soul on Earth who has not heard of The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. It has been modernized, localized, deconstructed, filmed countless times, and even translated into Klingon. Now, however, courtesy of Sarajevo director Haris Pasovic, Hamlet … Continue reading “Theater of the Absurd”

It was four years ago that a little-known group called the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) published an open letter to President George W. Bush advising him on how precisely he should carry out his brand-new “war on terrorism.” In addition to ousting Afghanistan’s Taliban, the letter’s mostly neoconservative signatories called for implementing … Continue reading “Uncertain Anniversary for Iraq War Champions”

The government of Uzbekistan has been engaged in unprecedented efforts, including massive detentions, torture, and forced confessions, to persuade its people and the outside world that Islamist extremists were responsible for a bloody massacre in Andijan last May, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW). The two groups, which released separate reports Tuesday … Continue reading “Uzbekistan Killings Set Off Massive Crackdown”

The Institute for Policy Studies recently published an analysis of the cost of the Iraq War and occupation, “The Iraq Quagmire: The Mounting Costs of War and the Case for Bringing Home the Troops." The study was co-authored by two prominent researchers and writers, Phyllis Bennis and Erik Leaver. Bennis is a fellow at the … Continue reading “‘The Most Expensive Military Effort in 60 Years’”

As the Iraqi police checkpoint in Basra loomed up ahead, the two elite British special forces soldiers – dressed in plainclothes, i.e., traditional Arab dress – readied their weapons. For some reason, they weren’t too eager to be questioned or examined too closely. As the [UK] Independent reports: “In the confrontation that followed, shots were … Continue reading “Iraq: The Battle of Basra”

They can’t stop the antiwar movement, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t trying. On Monday Sept. 19, Cindy Sheehan spoke in New York City’s Union Square to a group of supporters and onlookers when police rushed in to break up her speech as it was winding down. “I was speaking and someone grabbed my backpack … Continue reading “NYPD Unplugs Cindy Sheehan, but Not the Antiwar Movement”