Every political season has its hot-button issues. There’s race, abortion, lunar colonies. But the hottest hot-button issue these days, judging from comments by Republican presidential hopefuls as well as what happened during the 2010 midterm elections, is Islam. Islam dominated the headlines during the summer of 2010. Remember Terry Jones and his pledge to burn …
Continue reading “Running Against Islam”
U.S. policymakers and pundits continue to treat energy as a “strategic” commodity, which is just a way of justifying inefficient government meddling in the industry sector. Before the 1973 Middle East oil crisis, the federal government tried to keep oil prices high to subsidize the oil industry. Ever since the Arabs wrested control of their …
Continue reading “Energy Protectionism Is Not Good Policy”
While top officials in the Barack Obama administration insist that U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is working, the violent aftermath of last week’s apparently inadvertent burning of copies of the Quran at a military base is fueling growing pessimism about the U.S. and NATO mission there. Some three dozen Afghans were killed in anti-U.S. protests that …
Continue reading “Growing Pessimism on Afghanistan After Quran Burning”
The Shi’ite militant group Asaib al-Haq says it wants to leave violence behind and join peaceful politics instead. At least 12 Iraqis were killed and 17 more were wounded.
It’s got to be hard for most Americans looking at the fleeting images of angry Afghans today shouting “death to America” and not think, “What the hell are we still doing there?” Certainly it’s not a stupid question — in fact it’s a pretty relevant one. After a weekend of our media mavens insipidly wagging …
Continue reading “Do Afghan Riots Spell E-X-I-T?”
AIPAC’s Washington policy conference next month is drawing intense scrutiny and unprecedented resistance. AIPAC has worked quietly for years to tripwire the United States into war with Iran. Soon it will “ask” Congress and the president to define “nuclear weapons capability” as the threshold for war, essentially demanding an immediate attack. Because Iran presents no …
Continue reading “The Mossad Has Long Given Marching Orders to AIPAC”
The family of a U.S. soldier who went missing in 2006 has learned that his remains were positively identified and returned to the United States in recent days. Meanwhile, at least three Iraqis were killed and five more were wounded in today’s attacks.
Peter Beinart, former editor of The New Republic – a magazine instrumental in getting us into every major war we’ve ever been in – and a born-again peacenik when it comes to Iran, wonders aloud: “How can it be, less than a decade after the U.S. invaded Iraq, that the Iran debate is breaking down …
Continue reading “Hope in the Belly of the Beast”
No, I’m not talking about déjà vu all over again in Iran (like Iraq) or Syria (like Libya), although no one should be shocked when either or both of those happen. I’m talking about 29-year-old Moroccan Amine El Khalifi, who is accused of an attempted suicide bombing of the U.S. Capitol. Among other things, El …
Continue reading “WMDs Redux”
Here’s how, in his classic Vietnam War history, The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam summed up Washington life via the career of Dean Rusk, the hawkish secretary of state under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson: “If you are wrong on the hawkish side of an event you are all right; if you …
Continue reading “Antiwar Critics Forgotten on Oscar Night” 
