I’ve spent more than a few columns predicting that the so-called tea partiers – the grassroots populist movement that has our liberal elites in a frothy-mouthed lather – will be logically led to call for major cuts in military spending – and, by the sheer logic of their anti-spending, “anti-government” position, eventually come to challenge …
Continue reading “The Tea Party, Foreign Policy, and the Politics of Real Change”
As a boy in the 1950s, I can remember my father, a World War II vet, becoming livid while insisting that our family not shop at a local grocery store. Its owners, he swore, had been “war profiteers” and he would never forgive them. He practically spat the phrase out. I have no idea whether …
Continue reading “Lockheed Martin’s Shadow Government”
The Iraqi government is investigating a shootout between the Kuwaiti Coast Guard and a group of Iraqi fishermen that left one Kuwaiti dead. Meanwhile, at least two Iraqis were killed and 42 more were wounded in this and other incidents.
The case of Pfc. Bradley Manning raises legal issues about his pre-trial detention, freedom of speech and the press, and proving his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Putting aside Manning’s guilt or innocence, if Bradley Manning saw the Afghan and Iraq war diaries as well as the diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks, what should he …
Continue reading “Bradley Manning and the Rule of Law”
At least five Iraqis were killed and 13 more were wounded in new violence. Several more were wounded in Baghdad, but no figures were released. Meanwhile, Diyala provincial police reported arrested almost 10,000 suspects last year. They also noted that 1,876 policemen were killed and just over 3,000 were wounded during 2010. Many of these casualties went unreported in western media sources.
India, a rising power, almost had one (but the Tajiks said no). China, which last year became the world’s second largest economy as well as the planet’s leading energy consumer, and is expanding abroad like mad (largely via trade and the power of the purse), still has none. The Russians have a few (in Central …
Continue reading “All Bases Covered?”
Interview recorded December 29, 2010. Listen to the interview. Scott Horton: All right, y’all, welcome back to the show. It’s Antiwar Radio, I’m Scott Horton, and joining me on the line is Daniel Ellsberg, famous liberator of the Pentagon Papers and author of the book Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, and …
Continue reading “Defending Manning and Assange”
Rep. Peter King (R-New York) is the kind of in-your-face demagogue that only the state of New York could have elevated to high office. From his perch in the 3rd congressional district, in Long Island, King holds forth like a cruder version of Rudolph Giuliani, if you can imagine it. Yet we don’t have to …
Continue reading “The Uses of Political Violence”
Only seven Iraqis were wounded in very light violence; however there are reports coming out of Camp Ashraf that claim 176 Iranians were wounded during a raid on Friday.
Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr drew thousands of Iraqis to his first speech since returning home from Iran. Al-Sadr spoke of resisting the United States but also allowing American troops the opportunity to leave in a “suitable” way. He also gave support to the government he once fought and which had, or perhaps still has, a warrant out for his arrest. Meanwhile, at least four Iraqis were killed and 10 more were wounded in light violence. No reports escaped Baghdad today even though “bombings and shooting remain a daily occurrence in the Iraqi capital.”
