Month: December 2005

U.S. President George W. Bush’s adamant rejection of a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq effectively slams the door on a recent reported offer from Sunni resistance groups to eliminate the al-Qaeda terrorist haven in Iraq as part of a negotiated peace agreement. At the recent Iraqi reconciliation meeting in Cairo, leaders of three Sunni armed … Continue reading “No-Timetable Policy Rules Out a Deal on Zarqawi”

The November report [.pdf] of Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei to the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency begins by noting that the Board had adopted a resolution in September in which, inter alia, it “urged” the Islamic Republic of Iran to implement “transparency measures” that extend beyond the formal requirements of the Iranian … Continue reading “Total Transparency”

The War Party certainly has its party line down pat. In response to allegations that he had deliberately misinformed the Americans about Iraq’s "weapons of mass destruction" and alleged links to al-Qaeda, Ahmed Chalabi recently declared: "The fact that I misled the U.S. is an urban myth." The same phrase popped up when an aide … Continue reading “‘Urban Myth’ – or Treason?”

What a couple of weeks in Iraq (and at home): Withdrawal was suddenly on everyone’s lips, while tragedy and absurdity were piling up like some vast, serial car wreck of event and emotion. Before a massed audience of midshipmen at the Naval Academy, our president announced a new war goal beyond finding weapons of mass … Continue reading “Ten Ways to Argue
About the War”

Pfc. Tomas Young, 25 years old, was sent to Iraq last year with the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division. He joined the military for college money to further his education and, in his own words, “to exact some form of retribution” on the perpetrators of 9/11. Two-and-a-half weeks into his tour of duty, Young was paralyzed … Continue reading “Support the Troops,
Not the Warmongers”

Hypothesis: In the 1991 Gulf War, after ejecting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, the United States was determined to invade Iraq, remove Saddam Hussein from power, and pursue the same goals it is pursuing in Iraq today. It was “deterred” from doing so only because Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons then, deployed and ready to be … Continue reading “Chemical Saddam Met
Nuclear Uncle Sam”

While the past 15 months have brought a slight decline in anti-U.S. sentiment, public opinion in the Arab world about Washington’s policies and intentions in the Middle East remains overwhelmingly negative and deeply skeptical, according to a major new survey released here Friday. Most Arabs continue to believe the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq has … Continue reading “Arab World Remains Hostile, Fearful Toward US”

Maybe you thought that when President Bush declared war on terror it was just a euphemism. Wrong! By that declaration, Bush made himself commander in chief of our armed forces, which he is – under the Constitution – only "in time of war." Once proclaimed, our commander in chief immediately called to active duty the … Continue reading “Neo-Crazies Already Planning Beyond Iran”

Politicians, like writers, preachers, and professors, are word people. They deal mainly in words, not in actions. If you wish to understand the present political situation, you need to understand how politicians use words. You can start by scratching off "communication of truth." That is a very low priority in Washington, for the simple reason … Continue reading “Words and Reality”

The bromide-heavy speech that President George W. Bush gave Wednesday at the Naval Academy presents a clear strategy for continued quagmire and eventual disaster in Iraq. Despite the gathering storm of opposition to the administration’s approach to the war in Iraq, the speech was long on tired clichés and bereft of new ideas, calling to … Continue reading “A Clear Strategy – for Disaster”