Month: December 2007

There was a time – many years ago – when Time magazine was considered to be an American and international "institution." That explained why the world’s movers and shakers paid a lot of attention to the individual that the founder Henry Luce and his successors picked as the magazine’s Man of the Year. That choice … Continue reading “Balance of Power Is Continuing to Shift From the US”

Does one American in a thousand know that the Federal government is buying 23 VIP helicopters, each one of which will cost more than the extravagantly expensive F-22 fighter aircraft? A half-billion dollar helicopter – a half billion dollars each! – to ferry political hacks to their campaign events? If the reader was unaware of … Continue reading “Flying Potlatch”

Updated at 12:25 a.m. EST, Dec. 29, 2007Although the weekly prayer day is usually quiet, this Friday was marked by a significant bombing in a Baghdad marketplace. A smaller bomb disturbed the peace in Kirkuk as well. Overall, 31 Iraqis were killed and 69 more were injured throughout Iraq. Also, one U.S. soldier was killed … Continue reading “Friday: 1 US Soldier, 31 Iraqis Killed; 69 Iraqis Wounded”

2007 will likely go down in US history as the year in which the balance of power in the long-running struggle between hawks and realists in the administration of President George W. Bush shifted decisively in favor of the latter. That shift, which could still be reversed by events or actors not subject to Washington’s … Continue reading “Gates Led Realist Resurgence in 2007”

PRAGUE – Poland has woken up to the possibility that its troops in Afghanistan were involved in a war crime against defenseless civilians. The reported events have shocked a public which remains sensitive to the performance of its country’s military missions abroad. But Polish authorities have kept the flow of information under control, leaving the … Continue reading “Polish Troops Face War Crimes in Afghanistan”

What characterizes the political season so far is what we might call frontrunner collapse. The candidates we were all told were the nearly inevitable winners – Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani – are now hanging on for dear life. Obama is currently pulling ahead of Clinton in Iowa, and the two are neck-and-neck in New … Continue reading “Election ’08: The Collapse of the ‘Frontrunners’”

BAQUBA – The Iraqi government announcement that monthly food rations will be cut by half has left many Iraqis asking how they can survive. The government also wants to reduce the number of people depending on the rationing system by five million by June 2008. Iraq’s food rations system was introduced by the Saddam Hussein … Continue reading “Iraqi Govt to Slash Food Rations Despite Far Higher Budget Than Saddam”

Now receded into distant memory for many, the battle for the Iraqi city of Fallujah, accompanied by the al Sadr uprising in the south, was a decisive turning point in the Iraq occupation. These battles demonstrated to much of the world that the occupation was deeply unpopular among many Iraqis, who were willing and able … Continue reading “Fallujah, the Information War, and US Propaganda”

"There are few things as odd as the calm, superior indifference with which I and those like me watched the beginnings of the Nazi revolution in Germany, as if from a box at the theater…Perhaps the only comparably odd thing is the way that now, years later…." These are the words of Sebastian Haffner (pen … Continue reading “Creeping Fascism: Lessons From the Past”

For a time former Arkansas Gov. Michael Huckabee appeared to be among the craziest of the GOP candidates, gung-ho for the Iraq war, disdainful of Congress’ role in declaring war, and enthusiastic about torturing U.S. captives. But when he deviated slightly from neocon orthodoxy in his article in Foreign Affairs, which criticized President George Bush, … Continue reading “Michael Huckabee: Foreign Policy Moderate?”