Why is the US involved in endless war around the world? Why, for that matter, do nations – or, rather, their governments – act the way they do? The number of answers is no doubt nearly equal to the number of questioners. It’s all about economics, say the Marxists (and the Hamiltonians): imperialism is the …
Continue reading “Why Governments Make War”
Updated at 9:44 p.m. EDT Oct. 25, 2011
Attacks targeting security personnel continued across Iraq today, where they left eight Iraqis dead and 27 more wounded. Also, one U.S. soldier died of non-hostile causes in Tallil, and another U.S. soldier supporting Operation New Dawn died of an illness in Texas. Meanwhile, about 500-1000 Turkish troops may have entered northern Iraq, chasing after Kurdish rebels. No casualties have been reported yet, but the Kurdistan Workers Party (P.K.K.) says that some fighting already occurred. Turkey denied the incursion.
The Association of the United States Army packed hundreds of exhibitors into two halls the size of football fields at its annual convention. Companies from around the world came to the event, recently held at the Washington Convention Center, to sell the Army everything from mammoth tanks to micro-thin wires. Corporations such as Raytheon and …
Continue reading “Defending Bloated Military Spending”
After Moammar Gadhafi’s demise, the future of Libya’s relationship with the United States remains uncertain. Libya ousted its longtime leader in essentially a civil war in which the U.S. and NATO backed one side. This is a stark contrast with the independent and largely nonviolent revolutionary processes that led to the ouster of dictators in …
Continue reading “What’s Next for US-Libyan Relations?”
Anyone covering Capitol Hill knows that congressional hearings can be deadly — deadly boring and deadly predictable. But when a reported Iraq war veteran exploded into a House Armed Services Committee hearing this month as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was reading his prepared remarks, for a split second it was like a test to …
Continue reading “City of the Living Dead”
Listen to Rep. Ron Paul deliver this address. If you thought the Transportation Security Administration would limit itself to conducting unconstitutional searches at airports, think again. The agency intends to assert jurisdiction over our nation’s highways, waterways, and railroads as well. TSA launched a new campaign of random checkpoints on Tennessee highways last week, complete …
Continue reading “TSA Releases VIPR Venom on Tennessee Highways”
Today’s violence appeared to focus mainly on Iraqi police forces. The attacks came just a day after a controversial crackdown on alleged supporters of the now outlawed Ba’ath Party. A second mass arrest, of Arabs in predominantly Kurdish Kirkuk, is also drawing fire from critics. It is not clear if any of the attacks are related to the arrests. At least 13 Iraqis were killed and 37 more were wounded.
“We came, we saw, he died,” babbled our notoriously bloodthirsty Secretary of State as news of Moammar Gadhafi’s grisly murder hit the headlines. Throwing her arms up in a gesture of mock-triumph, she averred – perhaps sarcastically – that she was “sure” her recent visit to Tripoli had something to do with the Libyan dictator’s …
Continue reading “The Return of Barbarism”
The most sensible — I almost wrote “the only sensible” — sentence uttered this week sprang from the lips of a 5-year-old boy. After the prisoner swap, one of those smart-aleck TV reporters asked him: “Why did we release 1,027 Arabs for one Israeli soldier?” He expected, of course, the usual answer: because one Israeli …
Continue reading “Everybody’s Son”
You might think that by now I would be so used to infuriating neocon drivel that, to preserve my own sanity, I would avoid looking at The Washington Post, or at least its editorial pages. I have tried. But it seems that after almost a half century in Washington, and particularly after the recent rash …
Continue reading “Switching Focus from Iraq to Iran” 
