Of all of the sources of strategic delusion and political illusion today, nuclear weapons undoubtedly make the most prodigious contribution to hypocrisy and useless expense. This certainly is true for Britain, which is set to make major decisions on military expenditure this week. It is expected to avoid a decision on its largest new military …
Continue reading “Nuclear Armament Still Our Central Issue”
Updated at 8:11 p.m. EDT, Oct. 5, 2010
At least 10 Iraqis were killed and 21 more were wounded in light violence. Meanwhile, the United States wants to help Iraq reorganize its civil service into a decentralized entity that will give more authority to provincial governments.
With a key Arab League meeting delayed until Friday, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is scrambling to keep one-month-old direct Israeli- Palestinian peace talks alive. The stakes are high. If the talks fall apart, a number of observers believe a third intifada could break out on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem …
Continue reading “US Scrambles to Save Peace Talks”
Uncle Bob Gates wants more young people to join the military. In a Sept. 29 speech at Duke University, Defense Secretary Gates asked students, “If America’s best and brightest will not step forward, who will?” The likes of you, Uncle Bob, that’s who. By way of seducing another generation into the generational war his generation …
Continue reading “Uncle Bob Wants You”
Experts say the projected cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has gone up another trillion dollars, but the general sound we hear from Congress isn’t outrage. More likely it’s the sound of crickets. Crickets most definitely from the empty chairs at the House Veterans Affairs Committee, a clear majority of which didn’t bother …
Continue reading “Study: Vets Are a Massive ‘Unfunded Liability’”
The disclosure of the details of a letter reportedly sent by President Barack Obama last week to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, will cause Palestinians to be even more skeptical about U.S. and Israeli roles in the current peace talks. According to the leak, Obama made a series of extraordinarily generous offers to Israel, …
Continue reading “Obama Letter Suggests US Not Honest Broker”
Updated at 8:23 p.m. EST, Oct. 4, 2010
At least 13 Iraqis were killed and 59 more were wounded in numerous attacks across the country. While Baghdad suffered significant violence, particularly towards government employees, predominantly Kurdish areas of the country also saw many attacks. In political developments, a new deal that could end the deadlock preventing the new government from taking power could be in the works for Iraqiya.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has insisted from the launch of the current peace talks that the Palestinians set no preconditions, while making his own precondition the centerpiece of negotiations. Netanyahu has said talks are futile unless the Palestinians and their leader, Mahmoud Abbas, first recognize Israel as a Jewish state. “I recognized the Palestinians’ …
Continue reading “Israel’s Arab Citizens Are Not a Negotiating Chip”
The War Party is running scared – and with good reason. Writing in the Washington Post, neocons Danielle Pletka and Thomas Donnelly are in a panic that the rising “tea party” movement, which upended the Republican establishment at the polls, is about to abandon “the defense of freedom” in faraway Afghanistan in favor of rescuing …
Continue reading “The New Antiwar Populism”
The dried blood on the concrete floor is there for all to see, a stain forever marking the spot on a Memphis motel balcony where Martin Luther King Jr. lay mortally wounded by a sniper’s bullet. It is a stark and ghostly image speaking to the sharp pain of absence. King is gone. His aides …
Continue reading “Surveillance, America’s Pastime” 
