Month: January 2006

Former vice president Al Gore gave what I believe to be the most important political speech in my lifetime, and the New York Times, “the newspaper of record,” did not report it. Not even excerpts. For the New York Times, it was a nonevent that a former vice president and presidential candidate, denied the presidency … Continue reading “A Challenge That Cannot Be Ignored”

Last week, Iran removed the UN seals from uranium enrichment equipment at its Natanz nuclear facility and threatened to block International Atomic Energy Agency inspections if referred to the UN Security Council over its nuclear program. Iran claims its program is for peaceful nuclear energy purposes, but there are legitimate concerns that Iran may be … Continue reading “Rethinking Nuclear Nonproliferation”

Has Al Gore become a conservative? His recent speech to the Liberty Coalition, a group of conservatives and liberals united in opposing the growing authoritarianism that drives this administration, sounded as if it had been written by some disgruntled paleoconservative. With his frequent references to the Founders and their philosophy of strictly limited government, his … Continue reading “Gore Channels Taft”

TOKYO – Brushing aside its failure to win a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) last year, Tokyo is betting on backing the United States and its policies as a means of achieving a goal viewed as key to playing a more active role in global affairs. "A role in the prestigious … Continue reading “Japan Wooing the US to Gain Security Council Seat”

In every way they could imagine – unnoticed in broad daylight and in the darkness of eternal secrecy – the president and his top officials have been hardest at work not at governing the country but at bulking up presidential powers. This, it now seems, was the centerpiece of an audacious lawbreaking plan – or … Continue reading “Does the President Really Know Best?”

Individually, the new “dots” supplied by revelations about the Iraq war in James Risen’s State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration are not very surprising. Collectively, though, they provide valuable insight into the peculiar way in which President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair prepared to … Continue reading “The Empty Shirts, Courtiers, and ‘Crazies’”

If you’ve been listening to the recent "democracy is the way to go" sermons by President George W. Bush and his advisers, you’ll have to conclude that embracing "democracy" – a concept that is open to different interpretations – is the cure for most of humanity’s ills, ranging from political violence and economic underdevelopment to … Continue reading “Guess What? Democracies Are Not Always Peaceful”

Is the United States about to launch a second preemptive war, against a nation that has not attacked us, to deprive it of weapons of mass destruction that it does not have? With U.S. troops tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Pakistanis inflamed over a U.S. airstrike that wiped out 13 villagers, including women … Continue reading “Another Undeclared War?”

Hebron is again in the headlines. More than almost any other place, this divided city represents the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a nutshell. Occupied by Israel in 1967, the Palestinian town saw its very heart taken over by Israeli settlers, whose presence there is illegal according to international law but supported by all Israeli governments. For … Continue reading “Hebron for Beginners”

UNITED NATIONS – Amid charges of waste, fraud, and malfeasance in its multi-billion-dollar peacekeeping operations, the United Nations has suspended one contractor and eight staff members pending further investigations into potential wrongdoing. The focus of the investigation is procurement, which, according to one UN source, could emerge as a major financial scandal in the history … Continue reading “UN Probes Peacekeeping Contracts Fraud”