Month: September 2007

We live with an administration whose concept of domestic “freedom” went out with those “freedom fries,” briefly sold at the cafeterias of the House of Representatives. The Bush team has quite literally been a force for darkness. For those who remember the “memory hole” down which the bureaucrats of the Ministry of Truth dumped all … Continue reading “Soft Crimes Against Democracy”

Susan L. Shirk, China: Fragile Superpower (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 320 pp. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) seems destined for superpower status. Already the world’s most populous nation, the PRC has been enjoying one of globe’s highest rates of economic growth. Chinese trade and investment now envelop the globe, and Beijing is … Continue reading “China: Fragile Superpower“

Updated at 12:30 a.m. EDT, Sept. 7, 2007At least 49 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 45 more were wounded in the latest violence. One American servicemember was killed in a non-combat incident yesterday. Meanwhile, security experts are questioning the methodology used by the U.S. military to claim that violence in Iraq has dropped … Continue reading “Thursday: 1 GI, 49 Iraqis Killed; 45 Iraqis Wounded”

Repatriated Guantánamo Bay detainment camp prisoners have once again been mistreated at the hands of their home countries despite “diplomatic assurances” of humane treatment made to the US government, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Wednesday. The report, titled “Ill-fated Homecomings: A Tunisian Case Study of Guantánamo Repatriations,” focuses on two men, Abdullah … Continue reading “Rights Group: Vows Not to Torture Worth Little”

FALLUJAH – A brave new attempt is under way to project that all is well now with Fallujah. Residents know better – or worse. Former Iraqi minister of state for foreign affairs Rafi al-Issawi visited Fallujah, 60 km west of Baghdad, Aug. 22. Issawi, who resigned Aug. 1 when the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front withdrew … Continue reading “With Donkeys for Transport, All Is Well”

Future historians studying the decline and fall of the American Empire will probably focus on George W. Bush’s disastrous Iraqi adventure – the modern-day equivalent of Alcibiades’ Sicilian expedition – to explain the pathology of a global hyper-power. However, while Iraq has been, beyond any doubt, a significant factor in depleting Imperial power, it is … Continue reading “Drawing the Line”

President Jimmy Carter was demonized for pointing out in his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, that there are actually two sides to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Distinguished American scholars, such as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have suffered the same fate for documenting the excessive influence the Israel Lobby has on US foreign policy. Americans would … Continue reading “Who Are The Fanatics?”

In reference to coercive British rule, Tom Paine once told Americans that there is something absurd about the idea that the entire continent of North America should be forever ruled by the little island of Great Britain. Paine, as always in his work, was trying to make Americans think for themselves and, in this case, … Continue reading “Syria and Iran: The Threats That Aren’t”

Victor Davis Hanson, previously a classics professor at Fresno State specializing in the military history of ancient Greece and currently embedded at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, is a fervent apologist for the Bush administration’s interventionist foreign policy. In his enthusiasm to transform the Islamic world by force and serve his new political patrons, Hanson … Continue reading “Thucydides vs.
Victor Davis Hanson”

Updated at 12:05 a.m. EDT, Sept. 6, 2007At least 51 Iraqis were killed and 65 wounded during attacks that included bombing civilians in Sadr City and Mosul. Ten American soldiers were also killed in separate events. Two GIs were killed today and another was wounded during combat operations in the capital. An explosion in Salah … Continue reading “Wednesday: 10 GIs, 51 Iraqis Killed; 65 Iraqis Wounded”