Month: November 2005

One day late in the Vietnam war, a Senator called his defense staffer into his office. Like too many Senators (though neither of the two I worked for), the distinguished legislator depended entirely upon his staff but treated them like peons. Although the end of the day had come and gone, the Senator snarled at … Continue reading “Engagement: An Exit Strategy”

President Bush went to Congress in September 2002 seeking “specific statutory authorization” to invade Iraq. Bush based his case on a National Intelligence Estimate of Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs prepared the month before by the Director of Central Intelligence. Tenet’s NIE reportedly contained "slam-dunk" evidence that Saddam had been – among other things … Continue reading “Harmful to National Security”

The huge gap between Tehran and Washington has widened in recent months. Top officials of Iran and the United States are not even within shouting distance. The styles of rhetoric differ, but the messages in both directions are filled with hostility. While visiting Iran’s capital in early summer, during the home stretch of the presidential … Continue reading “Axis of Hardliners, From Tehran to Washington”

Pressure mounted on the George W. Bush administration Thursday to provide details of secret prisons abroad reportedly run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where terror suspects are held incommunicado in dark, sometimes underground, cells. According to an investigative article by the Washington Post‘s Dana Priest, shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the CIA … Continue reading “Report on Covert Prisons Abroad Spurs UN, EU Probes”

Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case, is of a type not seen in many years: he seems to personify the virtue of rationality and the spirit of rectitude combined. He seems, in short, the incarnation of an age gone by. This, in concert with his boyish yet stern visage, imbues … Continue reading “Smearing Fitzgerald”

It’s time for the antiwar movement to take U.S. threats against Iran and Syria very, very seriously. Not only are stories of such threats appearing at an increasing rate in the media, they now seem to be a topic of concern on Capitol Hill and at the United Nations. Condi Rice, war hound that she … Continue reading “Stop the Next War Before It Starts”

The next several days will show whether our Congress has slipped its moral moorings. Seldom have moral lines been so clearly drawn. The issue is whether American armed forces and intelligence personnel should be permitted or forbidden to torture detainees. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are expected to decide whether to ban torture against all prisoners … Continue reading “A Moral Barometer for America”

When he was once asked to define what exactly an "intellectual" was, British writer Aldous Huxley proposed that it was "a person who’s found something in life that’s more interesting than sex." Based on Huxley’s definition, I’m here to report to you that I had a very, very interesting weekend, which I spent with a … Continue reading “My Weekend With the Wonks”

Amid growing concern over the fate and conditions of inmates engaged in a lengthy hunger strike at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Tuesday said he would not permit UN investigators to interview detainees there. Rumsfeld depicted the strike, in which about half of the estimated 540 detainees … Continue reading “Rumsfeld Rejects UN Access to Guantanamo”

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer thinks former general and national security adviser to four presidents Brent Scowcroft is "cold-blooded," an appeaser, an ally of Saddam Hussein, indifferent to those suffering under dictatorships, and indecent to boot. Why? Because Scowcroft has doubts about the U.S. government’s ability to transform Islamic countries into U.S.-style democracies, and because, … Continue reading “Charles Krauthammer, Call Your Shrink”