In an astute op-ed piece in the Christian Science Monitor, James Bovard points out that the love of liberty by the Tea Party crowd usually takes a backseat to a hatred of President Obama and the Left. After attending a tax day Tea Party event in Rockville, Md., a suburb of the nation’s capital, Bovard …
Continue reading “To the Tea Party: War and Liberty Aren’t Fellow Travelers”
Updated at 10:35 p.m. EDT, April, 27, 2010
At least 12 Iraqis were killed and 22 more were wounded in new attacks, but today’s measure of the situation in Iraq was best underscored by the prime minister personally ordering the release of hundreds of innocent detainees. Over the years, tens of thousands of Iraqis have been rounded up en masse and then released for lack of evidence. Over 100 new arrests across the country were reported today alone.
With all the current hype about the "threat" from Iran, it is time to review the record – and especially the significant bits and pieces that find neither ink nor air in our Israel-friendly Fawning Corporate Media (FCM). First, on the chance you missed it, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said publicly that Iran …
Continue reading “Iran a Threat? I Mean, Really?”
Vlahos on vet-cops bringing the war home
Like most sound tenets of military art, the concepts of "objective" and "measures of effectiveness" have been corrupted by America’s present military leadership. At his Senate confirmation hearing in June 2009, then-Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal promised the Armed Services Committee he would execute a "holistic" strategy in Afghanistan, and that “the measure of effectiveness will …
Continue reading “Measures of Ineffectiveness”
Author’s note: Below is the text of a talk delivered to the fifth Bilin international conference for Palestinian popular resistance, held in the West Bank village of Bilin on April 21. Israel’s apologists are very exercised about the idea that Israel has been singled out for special scrutiny and criticism. I wish to argue, however, …
Continue reading “Israel’s Large and Small Apartheids”
The formation of the new government was thrown into disarray as an Iraqi court began to disqualify candidates who ran in last month’s parliamentary elections. At least seven Iraqis were killed and 17 were wounded in new violence.
Much has been written in recent weeks about "Collateral Murder," the Wikileaks audio/video of a 2007 attack by U.S. soldiers on an unarmed reporter and other men (I’m not sure whether they were armed) in Iraq. However, I’m not writing this simply to repeat what others have said, but to give my own perspective because …
Continue reading “On ‘Collateral Murder’ and Stephen Colbert”
Israel is a Zionist state. Everybody knows that. There is no (Jewish) politician in Israel who misses an opportunity to repeat this. Last week, when we celebrated the 62nd Independence Day, we were flooded by a deluge of patriotic speeches. Each of the Ciceros, without exception, declared his total commitment to Zionism. By the way, …
Continue reading “In the Name of Zionism”
Yes, we could. No kidding. We really could withdraw our massive armies, now close to 200,000 troops combined, from Afghanistan and Iraq (and that’s not even counting our similarly large stealth army of private contractors, which helps keep the true size of our double occupations in the shadows). We could undoubtedly withdraw them all reasonably …
Continue reading “Yes, We Could… Get Out!” 
