Let's look at two recent instances of political violence directed against a popular figure who has come to symbolize the democratic hopes of his people: the similarities between the death of Rafik Hariri and the attempted assassination and disfigurement of Viktor...
"They've only just begun, To kill. White lace and Abu Ghraib, A kiss for luck and we're on our waaaaaay…" With apologies to the shade of Karen Carpenter, the lyrics of her famous song – with a few creative tweaks here and there – pretty much sum up the...
The best news in a long time has got to be Time magazine's remarkable story about negotiations taking place between the U.S. and the Iraqi insurgency. Time reports: "Pentagon officials say the secret contacts with insurgent leaders are being conducted mainly by...
A gay prostitute, a phony media organization that managed to sneak its "reporter" into White House press briefings, and the lies that were fed to the media and the American people in the run-up to war with Iraq – what possible connection could these items have...
I walked into the Arab grocery store just in time to see Michael Young – opinion editor at Beirut's Daily Star newspaper and a contributing editor at Reason magazine – declaring on television that Syria will almost certainly be blamed for the assassination...
On Meet the Press Sunday morning, Natan Sharansky had his head handed to him by Pat Buchanan, a sight both instructive and inspiring to behold. Sharansky's recent book, The Case for Democracy, has been identified by none other than our president as a primary source of...
Remember that Iraq election everyone was hailing last week as a triumph of democracy and a model for the region? A quagmire was transformed almost overnight into a stunning victory: when election day dawned, Iraq turned on a dime and was supposedly rendered relatively...
Why have nearly 1,500 American soldiers died in Iraq? To what purpose have 20,000 been wounded and otherwise put out of commission? Why are we spending billions to put police on the streets of Iraq's cities, and cutting back by 95 percent on funds that put 100,000...
It's a full-time job keeping track of all the lies the Bush administration has told – and is telling – about the reasons we went to war in Iraq. First it was all about "weapons of mass destruction" – but when that didn't pan out, they trotted out...
The State of the Union was, in many ways, a reiteration of the president's second inaugural address: the look on that chimpy little face as he repeated "the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" was at once self-satisfied and defiant, as if he were telling...
