Month: December 2005

Editor’s note: For the next week, Antiwar.com will be on the spot in Hong Kong for the Sixth World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference. This is the first in a series about the issues surrounding the conference, the people involved, and the roles played by the U.S. and China in this debate. On paper, the … Continue reading “Setting the Stage”

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States – which was required, inter alia, to recommend actions the federal government should take to prevent future attacks – issued its final report 18 months ago. Its members have now issued an ad hoc “report card” [.pdf] on the actions thus far taken on the … Continue reading “Nuclear Threats, Real and Imagined”

European reaction to visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s statements on torture can be summed up in lead commentary Wednesday in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, among the most widely respected German newspapers. Under the title “Justice à la Rice,” the editor “translated” her message into these words: “The end justifies the means, and terrorism can be … Continue reading “Cheney and Fried Rice in Hot Water”

The spectacle of an American secretary of state being sent to Europe to reassure America’s allies that the U.S. does not torture prisoners has brought an end to America’s moral grandeur. America stands revealed before the world as just another unaccountable police state. Condi Rice’s declaration that the Bush administration is too morally pure to … Continue reading “Rendition Unto Caesar”

Last week and this one at TomDispatch are devoted to a look back at the period before and after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and at the ways in which, ever since, our world has shut itself down and sealed itself up. On that sealing up, Behzad Yaghmaian is an expert. American and Iranian, … Continue reading “Unknown Victims of 9/11”

The effort to demonize Syria and, in effect, Saddamize its ruler, Bashar al-Assad, has run up against a brick wall: the recantation of the prime witness, who says he was bribed, intimidated, and tortured into going along with the narrative being sold by UN prosecutor Mehlis – that Syrian intelligence pulled off the Feb. 14 … Continue reading “The Syrian Gambit Unravels”

Last month the New York Times reported that unnamed senior “intelligence officials” had told them that – as part of a campaign to increase international pressure on Iran – they had “briefed” International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Mohamed El-Baradei and senior staff in mid-July on some of the sensitive “intelligence” they had gleaned from a … Continue reading “Referring Nuke-Threats to Security Council”

The “usually disengaged” president, as columnist Maureen Dowd labeled him, had just returned from a prolonged, brush-cutting Crawford vacation to much criticism and a nation in trouble. (One Republican congressman complained that “it was hard for Mr. Bush to get his message out if the White House lectern had a ‘Gone Fishing’ sign on it.”) … Continue reading “Shark-bit World”

On a Thanksgiving visit home two years ago to his family in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Jim Loney tried to explain to his father why he wanted to go to Iraq with Christian Peacemaker Teams. He told his Dad about a grade school chum, Rick, sent to Afghanistan with the Canadian Armed Forces, who narrowly … Continue reading “Not Even to Save Our Lives”

When they finally hang Saddam Hussein, we’ll probably miss him. He has, after all, been an obsession of American politicians since 1991. Since the Washington media obsess over whatever the politicians obsess over, Saddam’s face has adorned our television screens for 14 years. He bears a strong resemblance, by the way, to the late actor … Continue reading “We’ll Miss Saddam”