Month: August 2006

Twenty-one former generals and high ranking national security officials have called on United States President George W. Bush to reverse course and embrace a new area of negotiation with Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. In a letter released Thursday, the group told reporters Bush’s "hard line" policies have undermined national security and made America less … Continue reading “Former Generals: Bush Must Negotiate to Make America Safer”

Who can forget the chutzpah of President George W. Bush as he bragged to Bob Woodward, “I’m commander in chief…. That’s the interesting thing about being president … I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.” Wrong, Mr. President. You and Vice President Cheney seem to have missed “Constitution 101.” And you seem to … Continue reading “The Constitution: Checking a Would-Be King”

According to ABC News, US intelligence officials have told the White House there is “a real possibility” that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea [DPRK] is preparing to conduct an underground test of a nuclear weapon. In particular, the Koreans have been observed unloading “large reels of cable” outside an underground facility in Northeast DPRK, … Continue reading “Bush’s Gift to Jong Il”

NEW DELHI – The controversial United States-India nuclear cooperation agreement has overcome a major domestic obstacle in the form of a threat by India’s major opposition parties to press for a Parliamentary resolution which would have tied the Manmohan Singh government’s hands in final-stage bargaining with Washington. However, the deal, which legitimizes and normalizes India’s … Continue reading “Indian Nuclear Deal With US Clears Domestic Opposition”

ARBIL, Iraq – Hanan’s family could never have thought three years ago of leaving Baghdad. They had lived for years in peace with their Shi’ite neighbors in the ethnically mixed Shaab district. All that changed the morning they saw a letter in their courtyard giving them three days to leave. Hanan left for Arbil with … Continue reading “Ever Closer to Fears of Civil War”

NEW DELHI – The "oil-for-food" program approved by the United Nations for Iraq before its invasion by the United States-led "Coalition of the Willing" in 2003 has had an improbable and belated impact thousands of miles away. Through a convoluted process of inquiry and recrimination in the U.S. and in India, it has resulted in … Continue reading “Indian Foreign Policy Slips on Oil-for-Food Slick”

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – When saffron-clad Buddhists monks and Catholic priests and nuns in white are joined by Muslim and Hindu leaders in an interfaith rally for peace, the last thing anyone would expect is that their pacific efforts would end in fisticuffs. Chanting “no war, no war” the marchers, on Thursday, wended their way … Continue reading “Buddhist Monks Brawl at Sri Lanka Peace Protest”

LONDON – Many Muslims in Britain are beginning to doubt the alleged plot to blow up aircraft flying to the United States from Britain. The arrest of 24 people last week was followed by the cancellation and diversion of hundreds of flights at British airports. The plot story became leading global news, but most of … Continue reading “UK Muslim Leaders Begin to Doubt the Plot”

Thirty-three days of war. The longest of our wars since 1949. On the Israeli side: 154 dead – 117 of them soldiers. 3,970 rockets launched against us, 37 civilians dead, more than 422 civilians wounded. On the Lebanese side: about a thousand dead civilians, thousands wounded. An unknown number of Hezbollah fighters dead and wounded. … Continue reading “From Mania to Depression”

"The war isn’t over yet," says Tzipi Livni. The Israeli foreign minister’s address to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations left no doubt that the battle will continue, for the moment, on a diplomatic and political plane: “At first there was the military battle and then there was the diplomatic battle and … Continue reading “Israel – Our Delinquent ‘Ally’”