Month: January 2007

There are two concepts all of us have to struggle with. One is our individuality. The other is the mass. Individual soldiers who survive combat often come home to realize that all of the horrific and heroic actions they took don’t mean anything. Vietnam, for example, is ruled by a communist government. Nobody but a … Continue reading “Stop the Cannon Fodder”

Analysts both in the Muslim and the Western world by and large agree that fear and lack of objective dialogue are the root cause of Islamophobia and anti-Americanism. And while the debate on which one of the two ignited the other is still ongoing, one fact remains irrefutable: more people were victimized as a result … Continue reading “The Overblown Terror Threat and Islamophobia”

Updated at 1:05 a.m. EST, Jan. 27, 2007 Although Fridays are the Muslim prayer day and generally quiet, several bombs rocked the capital today. Overall, 84 Iraqis were killed or found dead today and another 130 were injured in various attacks throughout Iraq. Also, a Marine was killed in combat today in Anbar province. In … Continue reading “Friday: 84 Iraqis, 1 GI Killed; 130 Iraqis Injured”

At least 186 antiwar protests in the United States have been monitored by the Pentagon’s domestic surveillance program, according to documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which also found that the Defense Department collected more than 2,800 reports involving Americans in a single anti-terrorism database. The documents were obtained by the ACLU … Continue reading “US Military Spied on Hundreds of Antiwar Demos”

Six months after last summer’s war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iran has become the George W. Bush administration’s “Public Enemy Number One," against which its Middle East strategy is increasingly focused, according to one of the US’s leading experts on the Gulf. That strategy, which aims at forging an informal tripartite alliance consisting of … Continue reading “Mideast Strategy Increasingly Targets Iran”

George W. Bush’s State of the Union address appears to confirm other recent indications that the president is not merely sending more troops to Iraq to do more of the same, but has adopted a new strategy of fighting all three major Iraqi Arab political-military forces simultaneously. Bush hinted strongly that he has decided to … Continue reading “And Mahdi Army Makes Three Fronts in Iraq”

Asked about a Senate resolution disapproving the “surge” of US troops going into Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney growled: “It won’t stop us.” The Senate, the House, the Constitution, the American people voting in an election – nothing and no one in this country can stop the War Party. Are you one of the more … Continue reading “Homage to Herzliya”

Rural America Pays the President’s Price in Iraq When we hear about the American dead in Iraq, we normally learn about the circumstances in which they died. Last Saturday, for instance, was, for American troops, the third bloodiest day since the Bush administration launched its invasion in March 2003 – 27 of them died. Twelve … Continue reading “The Forgotten American Dead”

Text of testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 18 January 2007 Good afternoon, Senator Biden, and members of the committee. It is a grave responsibility to testify before you today because the issue, the war in Iraq, is of such monumental importance. You have asked me to address primarily the military aspects of the … Continue reading “Strategic Errors of Monumental Proportions”

Last week China took a small but critical step to end American global dominance. Until now the US and Russia were the only two nations thought capable of making military use of space. But Beijing dramatically crashed this select club by using a ground-based ballistic missile to destroy an old weather satellite. Although America will … Continue reading “China Rising: The Next Global Superpower”