Charley Reese

Gen. David Petraeus proved my point. He’s a political general. Worse than that, he said something in his Senate testimony that should infuriate the loved ones of every man and woman fighting in Iraq. “Is everything you are doing over there making America safer?” Sen. John Warner asked. Petraeus tried to evade the question, but … Continue reading “Petraeus the Politician”

It’s sensible to be afraid of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. These people are killers who will murder women and children and not bat an eye. I predicted we’d be hit by terrorism in a column I wrote in August 2001. I had no idea, of course, that the attack would come so soon afterward. … Continue reading “Shock and Horror”

This is the month of the reports. The Government Accountability Office has already made its report on the war in Iraq; next comes a Marine general, and then the big kahuna, Gen. David Petraeus. All of the reports are predictable, and none of them will sway President Bush from his stay-the-course policy. Nor will the … Continue reading “A Month of Malarkey”

I have a rifle, a shotgun and a few rounds of ammunition locked away in my gun safe. Should I learn that enemy soldiers are landing on the beach, I will hobble down to the dunes and kill as many of them as I can before they kill me. That being said, as long as … Continue reading “A New Motto for America”

Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is rising a notch in my estimation. He’s begun to snap back at his American critics. Bully for him. Arrogant American politicians, in calling for his ouster, shed all pretense of any interest in democracy. Clearly they see themselves as imperial overlords dissatisfied with someone they consider an American stooge. … Continue reading “Black Comedy”

The most important issue facing America is not even being debated by the presidential candidates. With the exception of Ron Paul, all of the candidates are acting on the assumption that America’s interventionist foreign policy should continue. They only differ on the details of the intervention. Since Dr. Paul doesn’t have a chance of winning, … Continue reading “Who Cares?”

Dec. 7, 1941, and Aug. 6, 1945 – and what happened on those dates – are fading from the world’s memory as the generations who experienced those events die off. Those two dates mark the beginning and the beginning of the end of World War II in the Pacific. They were the dates when the … Continue reading “Instant Death”

A couple of policy wonks, Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack, spent a week in Iraq and came back. One said he thought it was less violent. They both said in an op-ed piece that the war was winnable. It’s characters like these who make a man like Juan Cole so valuable. Cole is a scholar … Continue reading “Wonky Nonsense”

It is now clear that the proper name for the war going on in Mesopotamia is the "Republican War." Never before has a political party so decisively asserted ownership of a foreign war. The Republicans refuse to share it with the Democrats, who, despite their many resolutions, have yet to call for a complete withdrawal … Continue reading “The Republican War”

One of the myths created by the Israeli lobby is that Jews around the world are unanimous in their support of Israel, regardless of what it does. That’s not true and never has been true. Modern political Zionism, whose ideology demands a Jewish state with a Jewish majority, was invented by an Austrian journalist and … Continue reading “Cracks in Zionism”