Amid worsening violence between Palestinian fighters and the Israeli military in Gaza, calls are mounting here for the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush to take a stronger role in ending the escalating conflict. Aside from calling for the unconditional...
50,000 Dead, But Who’s Counting?
UNITED NATIONS - After famously telling reporters that they "don't do body counts," Pentagon officials now say that they have in fact been keeping a record of civilian casualties in Iraq for one year. And while that number remains classified, independent...
Independence Carries a Heavy Price
On Jun. 28, IPS reporter Alaa Hassan was ambushed and shot six times as he drove to work in Baghdad, bringing to 75 the number of reporters who have been killed while working in the country since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. The figure quoted by the...
North Korean Missile Test: Another Red Herring
The media flap over North Korea's test launches of missiles is another red herring tossed out by the Bush administration to distract the public from its disastrous policies, both foreign and economic. As I keep pointing out, the intercontinental missiles armed with...
Subverting IAEA-NSG Regime
The Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) recognizes the "inalienable right" of all signatories to "the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information" related to the "use of nuclear energy for peaceful...
Reality-Based Recommendations
On September 11, 2001 the United States was attacked – assuming U.S. intelligence assessments and admissions/boastings by Osama bin Laden are correct – by an action arm of the kind of decentralized, stateless terror network that defines the most notable...
Say ‘No’ to War Candidates
According to recent opinion polls, most Iraqis don't believe that we're making things better or safer in their country. What does that say about the legitimacy of prolonged occupation, much less permanent American bases in Iraq? What does it mean for continued...
Karl Rove’s Scheherazade Strategy
Here's how a Washington Post piece soon after the Supreme Court's smack-down of the Bush administration's Guantanamo policies began: "Republicans yesterday looked to wrest a political victory from a legal defeat in the Supreme Court, serving notice to Democrats that...
Requiem for Bush’s Unipolar Dream?
A week before the Group of Eight (G8) summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, U.S. President George W. Bush finds his power and authority – both at home and abroad – at their lowest ebb. With his approval ratings falling back into the cellar after a brief bounce...
What Does North Korea Want?
As of this writing, North Korea continues to fire test missiles in a barrage of defiance aimed at the U.S. and its regional allies, belligerently declaring its right to do so and threatening anyone who stands in its way with unspecified "physical" harm....