Month: December 2005

Editor’s note: Justin Raimondo is traveling. His column will return Friday. The participation of the Sunnis in Iraq’s recent election was hailed by the Bush administration and its supporters as a great victory for the war effort and solid evidence that the democratization of Iraq is a project worth pursuing – but it turns out … Continue reading “‘Democracy,’ Iraqi-Style”

How long ago was it that you last heard some pundit blather on about America being “the greatest empire since Rome”? Quite a while, I imagine. For if the Iraqi insurgency has done nothing else, it has induced a sense of humility, and of the limits of American power. Surely, all Americans hope the Iraqi … Continue reading “How Stands the Empire?”

Syriana: It’s Not About the OilMr. Peña refers to the “mysterious” Stan played by William Hurt – there is nothing mysterious about Stan. He works for the Rendon Group or the Lincoln Group or some other such private consulting contract spy organization. He is a former CIA man who has transferred out of an organization … Continue reading “Backtalk, December 26, 2005”

Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens is right when he denounces former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Although he and I disagree strongly about the wisdom of the U.S. government’s war on Iraq – he favors it and I’ve opposed it from the get-go – Hitchens is one of the sharpest pundits in the punditry business. … Continue reading “Let’s Keep Our Eyes on the Prize”

If Santa has been keeping a list, Secretary of State Condi Rice will be lucky to find even a lump of coal in her Christmas stocking. Where on the list to begin? On the Korean peninsula, where the South Korean National Security Council rebuffed Washington’s contingency plan for taking military action against North Korea in … Continue reading “Lump of Coal for Condi”

The Bush administration has just provided a textbook demonstration of the successful manipulation of public opinion. By repeating the theme that the United States is winning the war in Iraq for weeks, George W. Bush has now convinced 60 percent of Americans that the United States will win, and nearly as many that it is … Continue reading “Why the War Has Already Been Lost”

I wish to announce that I have taken actions that have saved hundreds of American lives. What kinds of actions? That’s classified. But since you write columns for a living, you must have dealt with some organizations. Who are they? That’s classified. When did you take those actions? That’s classified. Listen, I’m not going to … Continue reading “Top Secret”

The Protests The protests last Saturday that resulted in the jailing of 944 activists were breathtaking to behold and a breakthrough for the anti-WTO movement and the South Koreans in particular. All week the Koreans had been subjected to media scrutiny: Who are these fanatic militants marching in military formation, chanting and singing with a … Continue reading “Drums in the Streets”

To say that Malaysia is not what I imagined would be an understatement of epic proportions. Situated just south of Thailand, north of Indonesia, and quite close to the equator, the country describes itself as officially “Islamic,” and this, at least in the minds of most Americans, means a stultifying uniformity, a monolithic apparatus of … Continue reading “Christmas in Malaysia”

This is no week (at least for me) to go on about unwarranted searches and surveillance, or whether a Bush bump in approval ratings is due to superficially frank speeches, a growing economy, the reduction in gasoline prices, or some combination thereof, let alone the fate of the PATRIOT Act. As a believer in, at … Continue reading “Toward a Peace Culture”