JERUSALEM - Security first or borders first: security says Israel, borders retort the Palestinians. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are finally again getting under way. Israel, though, remains adamant that the only chance the talks have to make headway is for its...
A New Season in Military Fashions
President Barack Obama has promised a fundamental review of American policy towards Afghanistan this December. In the meantime, his decision seems compromised by the continuing military and civilian "surge" to Afghanistan ordered soon after Obama took office in...
The American Way of War Quiz
Yes, it would be funny if it weren't so grim. After all, when it comes to squandering money and resources in strange and distant places (or even here at home), you can count on the practitioners of American-style war to be wildly over the top. Oh, those madcap...
The Koran Burning-Islamic Center Brouhaha
Even in an age of media sensationalism, the intense coverage of the proposed Islamic center at Ground Zero, and a shamelessly bigoted Christian minister's threat to burn the Koran in response to it, are both jolting and saddening. Neither of these events merited media...
Blaming Obama
The biggest obstacle to the success of the antiwar movement right now is the Obama cult – the fealty of his followers and well-wishers who want to give him the benefit of every doubt, and yet wonder why our foreign policy of perpetual war continues, virtually...
How Smart Are the Iran Sanctions?
In the face of the rising hysteria regarding Iran's development of its nuclear power facilities, there is talk of preemptive military strikes against Iran. Meanwhile, sanctions on Iran – by both the UN Security Council and the United States – have become increasingly...
Tuesday: 8 Iraqis Killed, 6 Wounded
US Still Top Arms Supplier to South as Record Sale to Saudis Pends
Despite an unusual dip in global weapons sales in 2009, the United States retained its spot as the world's top arms supplier of developing countries, according to an authoritative new report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). The report, the latest in an...
The Unseen Slaughter
In the early 1970s, I spent two summers slinging pork loins in a Chicago meat-packing factory. Rose Packing Company paid a handful of college students $2.25 an hour to process pork. Donning combat boots, yellow rubber aprons, goggles, hairnets, and floor-length white...
Jackhammer the Message Home
Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin drew 100,000 costumed acolytes* to their God-and-country fair in front of the Lincoln Monument last month. Considering the sub-sentient followership quotient of the Tea Bag movement, a hundred grand seems like a small number. After all,...