Throughout the Cold War, the West (calling itself the "free world") argued that the Communist bloc wanted to conquer the world, because for Communism to triumph it could allow no alternatives. Yet the Communist faction advocating a global revolution –Trotsky...
20 Killed, 97 Wounded As Baghdad Suffers More Blasts
Salt and Terror in Afghanistan
Two weeks ago in a room in Kabul, Afghanistan, I joined several dozen people, working seamstresses, some college students, socially engaged teenagers and a few visiting internationals like myself, to discuss world hunger. Our emphasis was not exclusively on their own...
Misread Telexes Led Analysts to See Iran Nuclear Arms Program
When Western intelligence agencies began in the early 1990s to intercept telexes from an Iranian university to foreign high technology firms, intelligence analysts believed they saw the first signs of military involvement in Iran’s nuclear program. That suspicion led...
Iraq Near Implosion: The ‘Bad Years’ Are Back
As U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry hurried to his helicopter ready to take off at the end of a visit to Iraq last year, it was becoming clearer that the Americans have lost control of a country they wished to mold to their liking. His departure on March 24, 2013...
Iraq: 106 Killed, 141 Wounded in Clashes and Bomb Attacks
Free Barrett Brown
Why is the talented journalist Barrett Brown in jail – awaiting trial on charges that could keep him there for one hundred years? A writer for Vanity Fair, the Guardian, and at one time an unofficial spokesman for the internet pirates known as "Anonymous,"...
A War Is Not Over Till It’s Over
Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, has refused to sign a security deal with the United States that could keep about 8,000 to 12,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan after "combat operations" end at the end of 2014. These forces would train still-pathetic...
Baghdad and Mosul Bombed: 27 Killed, 70 Wounded
Ordinary Citizens Need Not Apply
I read in the newspaper last week now the US Chief Negotiator on the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Martin Indyk, met with a group of Jewish leaders to brief them on the "tightly held" details of what was being proposed by Secretary of State John Kerry. A...