Since Guardian correspondent Rory Carroll was briefly kidnapped in Baghdad and the paper recalled its reporters while it reviewed the situation, there has a lively debate in the English press about the nature and limits of Western reporting in Iraq. Carroll himself, since being freed, has insisted that Iraq remains a story more capable of …
Continue reading “The Forgotten War in Maysan Province”
One of the beliefs that most distinguished the fascists, Nazis, and communists of the 20th century was their organic view of society. Proponents of all three ideologies thought of society as an organism – and of each of you, dear readers, as simply a cell in some part of the organism. And just as our …
Continue reading “Who Is ‘We’?”
The White House is spinning Scooter Libby’s indictment for systematic lying under oath as an isolated affair. But the special prosecutor’s probe has made a liar of more than just Libby. Indeed, it’s exposed a far broader pattern of deceit involving almost all the president’s men, starting with the vice president. "I don’t know Joe …
Continue reading “The Other Liars”
With his closest aide for the past five years facing arraignment in federal court Thursday on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney appears to be hunkering down with a familiar cast of faces. His choices to replace his now-indicted former chief of staff and national security adviser, I. …
Continue reading “Cheney Circles the Wagons”
In the run-up to war with Iraq, Iranian intelligence was playing the U.S. like a violin – with the knowledge and full cooperation of certain major (and minor) – players in the U.S. government. That’s the conclusion we are forced to draw upon reading the latest from Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d’Avanzo at La Repubblica …
Continue reading “While You Slept”
Under the leadership of a conservative Republican president, the U.S. was drawn into a costly military quagmire in a strategic region of Asia. The president was facing growing domestic political opposition to his management of the controversial war, and some of his aides decided to launch an aggressive campaign aimed at antiwar critics. Some elements …
Continue reading “All the President’s Men, the Sequel”
Toward the Kosovo "Negotiations" The Imperial endgame for Kosovo proceeded apace early this week, as former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari was appointed the special UN envoy for final status talks regarding the occupied Serbian province. There was no surprise in the appointment; it was heralded months ago by pressure groups and commentators, and assumed by …
Continue reading “Once More, With Feeling”
Here is the key passage in Senator John McCain’s anti-torture amendment to the 2006 Defense Appropriations Bill (which the Bush administration has threatened to veto if it arrives so amended): “No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to …
Continue reading “So Much for Strict Construction”
The strategic decision by the United States to nuke Iran was probably made long ago. Tactics adjust to unpredictable events as they unfold. There was such an event last week, when Iran’s president declared that Israel must be “wiped off” the map. The surprise was not the statement, which was an often-repeated quote by the …
Continue reading “The Real Reason for
Nuking Iran”
http://www.independent.org/tii/antiwar/e051101.html
