Month: October 2007

Amid rising bilateral tensions with Turkey and strong White House pressure, the Democratic leadership of the US House of Representatives is expected to set aside a controversial resolution recognizing as a "genocide" the deaths of as many as 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who … Continue reading “Ties With Turkey Dodge One Bullet”

This article is adapted from Norman Solomon’s new book Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America’s Warfare State. We keep hearing that Iraq is not Vietnam. And surely any competent geographer would agree. But the United States is the United States – still a country run by leaders who brandish, celebrate and use the … Continue reading “The United States of Violence”

Why is the U.S. subsidizing and supporting murder, rape, and systematic ethnic cleansing in the Horn of Africa? The reason: it’s all part of our strategy for “victory” in the “war on terrorism.” The village of Kamuda – a remote outpost in the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, where the majority are Muslims and ethnically … Continue reading “Mass Murder
in the Horn of Africa”

“Putin’s Hostile Course,” the lead editorial in the Washington Times of Oct. 18, began thus: “Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit Moscow is just the latest sign that, more than 16 years after the collapse of Soviet communism, Moscow is gravitating toward Cold War behavior. The old Soviet obsession … Continue reading “Who Restarted the Cold War?”

The great 19th-century Tory Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli once remarked there were three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. It is a dictum the Bush administration has taken to heart when it comes to totaling up the carnage in Iraq: If you don’t like the numbers, just change them; and when in doubt, … Continue reading “The Casualties of Iraq”

John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007), 484 pp.   The collective shrieking and caterwauling has been loud and continuous. How dare these two scholars – John Mearsheimer from the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt from the Kennedy School of … Continue reading “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy“

Updated at 12:31 a.m. EDT, Oct. 19, 2007In what may be more unwarranted attacks on civilians by foreign security personnel, three people were wounded during an incident in Kirkuk and five more in a separate event in Baghdad that involved U.S. troops. Overall, 39 Iraqis were killed and 58 more were wounded in attacks throughout … Continue reading “Thursday: 1 GI, 39 Iraqis Killed; 58 Iraqis Wounded”

“I made my arguments and went down in flames. History will prove me right.” Yes, that was George W. Bush. No, he wasn’t talking about Iraq. The date was September 1993 and Bush, then managing general partner of the Texas Rangers, had voted against “realignment and a new wild-card system” at a Major League Baseball … Continue reading “Bush’s Faith Run Over by History”

The Bush administration is attempting to soothe the Turkish government’s apoplectic reaction to the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s label of “genocide” on Turkey’s slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians, which occurred almost a century ago. The administration fears that an enraged Turkish ally, already threatening to invade northern Iraq in order to suppress armed Turkish Kurd … Continue reading “US Has Double Standard at Home and Abroad”

Updated at 11:55 p.m. EDT, Oct. 17, 2007On a relatively quiet Wednesday, at least 37 Iraqis were killed and 28 more were wounded while tensions on the Turkish border continue. An American soldier died of a non-combat-related illness in Germany after being flown out of Tikrit. Also, an Australian soldier was shot and wounded during … Continue reading “Wednesday: 1 GI, 37 Iraqis Killed, 28 Wounded”