Month: September 2007

Let’s take a trip down memory lane. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is America’s highest civilian award, ranking second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor. According to its official Web site, the medal “is reserved for individuals the president deems to have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the … Continue reading “Freedom as Theft”

Editorial note: What follows is the text of a talk given at the 18th annual meeting of the John Randolph Club, Saturday, Sept. 22, at the Hotel Washington, in Washington, D.C. A note on the origins of this talk: when, after repeated urgings, I failed to respond to the organizers of this conference as to … Continue reading “The Wall of Silence”

Updated at 12:03 a.m. EDT, Sept. 24, 2007At least 48 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 32 more were wounded in the latest incidents, which included the murder of a journalist in Baghdad. Residents in Baghdad are protesting U.S. presence in Saidiya, while clashes in Jbela left several people dead. Also, an MND-B soldier … Continue reading “Sunday: 1 GI, 48 Iraqis Killed; 32 Iraqis Wounded”

This past summer, President George W. Bush extended a hand where he never has before, calling for a Middle East conference to find a solution to the long-moribund Palestinian-Israeli peace process. This time, says U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, her boss expects results. Yet as with most of Washington’s diplomatic overtures to the region … Continue reading “Bush Peace Confab a Swan Dive or Belly Flop?”

Updated at 11:05 p.m. EDT, Sat. 22, 2007At least 54 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 31 were wounded in the latest violence. An incident involving U.S. troops killing a family in Iskandariya was reported. Also, an attack in Suleiman Bek left a number of civilians wounded. A Briton and two GIs were killed … Continue reading “Saturday: 2 GIs, 1 Briton, 54 Iraqis Killed; 31 Iraqis Wounded”

HAJI OMARAN (Iraq-Iran border) – Sixty-year-old Khadijah Hama Khan has had to flee home again. Nothing new. "All our life we have been on the run," she says. This time she had to flee Iranian shelling on her border village. It was not easy; she injured her leg after walking barefoot two hours. Now she … Continue reading “Border Shelling Hits Iraqi Kurdish Villagers”

In the late 1960s and early ’70s, then US President Richard Nixon appealed to the country’s "Silent Majority" to oppose growing anti-Vietnam War sentiment in the United States. A decade later, President Ronald Reagan had the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s "Moral Majority" working by his side in support of Reagan’s low-intensity warfare in Central America, and … Continue reading “Far Right Sells Iraq War to ‘Values Voters’”

Israeli officials ain’t talking, but the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) is reporting that "government sources" in the United States and elsewhere "suggest" that two weeks ago a squadron of Israeli fighter-bombers attacked "a nuclear facility in northern Syria storing – or processing – nuclear materials provided by North Korea." JTA also noted the week-earlier Washington … Continue reading “Israel’s Right of Self-Defense”

The conference in Washington, D.C. that I was attending gave us only a few hours of free time on Saturday afternoon, but fortunately that was when the big antiwar march was planned. So I wandered the Mall, where I had thought it was supposed to be held – publicity was not exactly omnipresent – and … Continue reading “Marching Against the War”

Updated at 11:50 p.m EDT, Sept. 21, 2007At least 29 Iraqis were killed or found dead and another 19 were wounded during numerous but small attacks. Also, a Romanian soldier and four GIs were reported killed in separate incidents. Yesterday, a Task Force Lightning soldier was killed and another was wounded during an explosion in … Continue reading “Friday: 4 GIs, 1 Romanian, 29 Iraqis Killed; 19 Iraqis Wounded”