Wednesday’s highly unusual public launch of a "conference committee" of both houses of Congress to hash out differences in long-pending legislation to impose unilateral sanctions on Iran marks a new stage in the escalating debate over what to do about Tehran’s nuclear program. With mid-term elections only six months away, many lawmakers are eager to …
Continue reading “Iran Sanctions Debate Heats Up”
A protest of more than 90,000 Okinawans Sunday over the proposed relocation of a U.S. Marine Corps airbase in the southern Japanese prefecture has fueled speculation in Washington that the U.S.-Japanese alliance may be facing a serious test with the election of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), and that such strains might have serious …
Continue reading “US-Japan Airbase Spat May Have Regional Ripples”
The war rumblings continue against Iran, says Philip Giraldi
Reports earlier this month that President Barack Obama may present a comprehensive U.S. peace plan for resolving the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict have spurred a growing public debate over its wisdom and timing. While relatively few voices are calling for Washington to table such a plan immediately, some experts argue that Washington should be preparing the …
Continue reading “To Peace Plan or Not to Peace Plan, and When?”
BEIT UMMAR, West Bank — Residents of this Palestinian village refuse to buy the idea that the flood of raw sewage from the adjacent Israeli settlement of Kfar Etzion, that destroyed vineyards and contaminated their drinking water, was an accident. The Israeli Civil Administration, which administers the occupied West Bank, claims the spillage was the …
Continue reading “Settler Sewage Ruins Palestinian Crops, Drinking Water”
Update at 4:50 p.m. EDT, April 28, 2010
At least seven Iraqis were killed and 31 more were wounded in several Baghdad attacks, and a roadside bomb blast killed a U.S. soldier in Diyala province. Meanwhile, several Christian groups have asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to encourage Iraqi authorities to protect Christians in Iraq. Also, Human Rights Watch released a report on a secret prison where Sunni detainees were tortured, raped and illegally detained.
Read the response by the Antiwar.com Staff. The other day, the head of security for the Mexican state of Michoacán was ambushed in her car: she escaped with non-life threatening injuries, but four people were killed and ten wounded in a well-planned attack that featured the throwing of hand grenades. In Ciudad Juarez, seven Mexican …
Continue reading “South of the Border”
Large and firmly implanted bureaucratic organizations are almost impossible to kill, even when they have no reason to continue to exist, as NATO has not since the Soviet Union, communism, and the Warsaw Pact all collapsed. There is no equivalent to driving a stake into the heart of a bureaucracy, whose impulse to live is …
Continue reading “The NATO Nuisance”
"Bonded in the crucible of the Kandahar mission, a new group of civil servants has emerged as the government’s go-to team for the most challenging and dangerous assignments of the day. Tougher, faster, more flexible, and more networked, these officials epitomize one of the most used buzzwords in public administration: whole of government. "Having benefited …
Continue reading “Canada’s ‘Whole Freaking Government’ Approach in Afghanistan”
The fact that the Israel-Palestine conflict grinds on without resolution might appear to be rather strange. For many of the world’s conflicts, it is difficult even to conjure up a feasible settlement. In this case, it is not only possible, but there is near universal agreement on its basic contours: a two-state settlement along the …
Continue reading “A Middle East Peace That Could Happen (But Won’t)” 
