Month: December 2006

The libertarian movement appears close to suing conservatives for divorce. The vaunted “fusion” between liberty-oriented and virtue-oriented conservatives that helped propel Ronald Reagan into the presidency is breaking down. If Republicans are going to spend like Democrats, expand government like Democrats, and centralize power in Washington like Democrats, then why should someone with libertarian inclinations … Continue reading “Libertarian Warmongers?”

Updated at 10:50 p.m. EST, Dec. 14, 2006 A mass kidnapping in the capital is the focus of news reports from Iraq today. At least 20 people, perhaps as many as 70 Iraqis, were kidnapped from a shopping district. The Dept. of Defense also reported on the death of an American soldier from non-combat related … Continue reading “Thursday: 110 Iraqis, 1 GI Killed; 35 Iraqis Wounded, Dozens Kidnapped”

The findings of a spate of polls taken since last week’s release of the Iraq Study Group’s (ISG) recommendations for U.S. policy show a sharp drop in public confidence both in President George W. Bush’s handling of the war and in the chances that the U.S. will prevail there. The findings will likely make it … Continue reading “US Public Ever More Pessimistic on Iraq War”

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad negotiated with Sunni armed groups for several weeks earlier this year on an agreement that would have supported Sunni forces in attacking pro-Iranian Shi’ite militias, according to accounts given by commanders of armed Sunni resistance organizations. The revelations of the intensive U.S.-Sunni negotiations, reported by Hala Jaber in the Sunday Times … Continue reading “Sunni Groups: US Weighed Offer to ‘Clean Up’ Militias”

The report by the Iraq Study Group is an attempt by elder statesmen of the American political establishment to take U.S. foreign policy out of the incompetent hands of President Bush and the self-serving hands of the Israeli Lobby. The Iraq Study Group’s effort may or may not succeed. Others have expressed disappointment that the … Continue reading “Is James Baker a Match
for AIPAC?”

(Today, a rarity at the site. Two pieces, officially identified as such and piled atop each other – think of them like a double-decker bus – each focused on a different aspect of the Iraq situation as Washington imagines it. First comes a little “political bedtime story” of mine about how Washington has tried to … Continue reading “War Without End”

Updated at 11:05 p.m. EST, Dec. 14, 2006 Several car bombs once again rocked the capital, while small attacks killed a number of people across the country today. Overall, at least 125 were killed or found dead and 96 people were injured in separate incidents. Also, the Department of Defense reported that an American soldier … Continue reading “Wednesday: 125 Iraqis, 1 GI Killed; 96 Iraqis Wounded”

A Pentagon plan for a massive military buildup on the Pacific island of Guam is meeting with resistance by ethnic Chamorros who live there and the Chamorro diaspora in the United States. According to the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, the Pentagon has already moved attack submarines and cruise missiles to Guam, where it is forming … Continue reading “Natives of Guam Decry US Expansion Plan”

Israel’s long-standing policy of nuclear ambiguity came to an end the other day when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in answer to a question about his country’s rumored WMD arsenal, replied, “Iran openly, explicitly, and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they [the Iranians] … Continue reading “Israel, Alone”

(Author’s note: Some things don’t seem to change. Five years after I wrote this column in the form of a news dispatch, it seems more relevant than ever.) WASHINGTON – There were unconfirmed reports yesterday that the United States is not the center of the world. The White House had no immediate comment on the … Continue reading “Is the USA the Center
of the World?”