Month: May 2006

Want to Intervene in Darfur? Go AheadTHANK YOU, THANK YOU, Mr. Reese (and others) for speaking out. Sending our troops to Darfur is pure insanity – I am certainly not willing to send my son (who spent a year in Baghdad getting shot at and dodging IEDs) to another hellhole in which they are certainly … Continue reading “Backtalk, May 11, 2006”

On Monday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter to President Bush intended to offer "new ways to of getting out of the current delicate situation in the world." It was the first direct correspondence from an Iranian president to a U.S. president since the 1979 Islamic revolution, when the U.S. embassy in Tehran was … Continue reading “Collision Course With Iran”

Balkans vs. Imperial “Reality” The last days of April saw the failure of two promises Balkans leaders had made to their Imperial overlords. In Bosnia, opponents of the constitutional reform managed to pull off an upset and derail the American-sponsored amendments. Meanwhile, Brussels and the Hague Inquisition demanded that Serbia track down, arrest, and extradite … Continue reading “Failures”

"We need to warn against any attempt to bring about the collapse of the Hamas government," says former Israeli minister Shlomo Ben-Ami. Ben-Ami, who served as minister for public security and later for foreign affairs, played a key negotiating role during the Middle East peace summit at Camp David in July 2000. Those talks were … Continue reading “Keep Hamas in Power, Israeli Leader Demands”

President Bush should talk to the Iranians. Refusing to talk is childish. How would the Cold War have ended if Ronald Reagan had refused to talk to Soviet leaders? How would relations with China have been established if Richard Nixon had said he would never talk to Chinese leaders? For heaven’s sake, how would the … Continue reading “Talking Beats Fighting”

The United States is struggling with Iran’s fundamentalist government on two fronts – while U.S. diplomats are negotiating with other members of the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Tehran, Washington has allocated $75 million to inspire "regime change." The money is to be spent on empowering civil society, providing supplemental requests, broadcasting into … Continue reading “Iranian Activists Fear US ‘Help’ Could Spur Crackdown”

As the UN Security Council comes to grips with the issue of Iran’s determination to join the nuclear club, and the question becomes the focus of a debate in the U.S. similar to that which preceded the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has written a letter to President George W. Bush … Continue reading “Letter From Tehran”

If President Bush had any foresight at all, he’d intervene in the Darfur mayhem just to slice a wedge in the antiwar movement. President Nixon attempted to do such a thing in the early 1970s when his administration helped establish the Environmental Protection Agency. Nixon thought the antiwar movement at the time was largely made … Continue reading “Save Darfur?”

I‘m currently a life member of the John Birch Society and formerly served on the staff of the organization for 13 years. So why should any left-winger reading this care a fig about what I have to say? Because of a conversation I had with another conservative magazine writer recently. In frustration at the unconstitutional … Continue reading “Now Is the Time for
a Left-Right Alliance”

Monday’s nomination by U.S. President George W. Bush of Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to take over the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from the hapless Porter Goss has predictably intensified speculation over what is really going on behind the scenes. Most analysts see the shifts as the latest battle between the director of national intelligence … Continue reading “Cui Bono? Negroponte or Rumsfeld?”