Alan Bock

Even though I still think it could be a turning point, and one that just might lead to a relatively large-scale rethinking of what we might term the imperial imperative, I’m reluctant to write about Fallujah just now because I really have little or no idea what’s going on there. It’s not that I haven’t … Continue reading “How Wars Subvert Freedom”

I keep thinking that sooner or later a cumulative effect will kick in and the American people will succumb to the evidence that the rationales for the Iraqi war and its still-bloodier-than-expected aftermath were the fantastical and thoroughly unjustified. True, the enthusiasts are still out there (in more ways than one), but their case keeps … Continue reading “Iraq Rationales Getting Weaker (If That Is Possible)”

I keep trying not to take it personally, the fact that this president annoys me more and more every time I see him in public. There’s the slow explanation part, over-pronouncing words, as if addressing a rather slow-witted fourth-grader, when he thinks he’s explaining what seems to me what he actually views as a complex … Continue reading “Bush in Deep Denial?”

Perhaps the one thing you can be reasonably sure of is that we’re not getting the whole story about the current troubles in Iraq (even by reading almost everything, from all the different sources made available to you on Antiwar.com). This is not necessarily because the media are hiding anything, but simply because they can’t … Continue reading “Defining Moments in the War on Iraq”

I can’t deny that it has been fun to see all the Bushies pushed on the defensive or jolted into attack mode so dramatically that you can’t help but discern just how insecure and vulnerable they are – as are most people who are at least dimly aware that they have advanced themselves on false … Continue reading “Missing the Point on the New Terror”

You might think, if only for the sake of increasing the entertainment value if not for the perhaps more worthy goal of getting a wider array of viewpoints, that they would include a wild card or two on some of these dreary government commissions – especially on something so important as how the United States … Continue reading “A Pride of Wrong Answers”

I suppose you could make a case, and in fact not a bad one, that the bombings of hotels and attacks on hotels and patrols in Basra, Baghdad, Falluja and Baquba should be viewed in some context. Even if things were going reasonably well, we could have expected opposition forces to be able to muster … Continue reading “A Year On: Time to Change Course”

As I was finishing a piece for the Orange County Register on Iraq a year after hostilities began (if you’re interested it should be available on the Register web site) on Sunday morning, or maybe even on Saturday if they post earlier) I got to thinking about some of the more fundamental problems that make … Continue reading “Middle East: More Fundamental Problems”

It took barely 24 hours for the spirit of celebration over the fact that the Iraqi Governing Council’s unanimous approval of a relatively liberal – at least on paper – interim constitution to be overshadowed by a series of attacks and explosions that left about 280 Iraqi Shiites dead on the festival of Ashoura, the … Continue reading “Getting Ready to Leave Iraq”

Haiti is devolving into what conventional political observers call anarchy, in the sense of being a place where chaos, disorder and violence reign supreme. For better or worse – mostly for worse – as has been the case for most of its 200-year history as a nominally independent country, Haiti’s problems do not arise from … Continue reading “Haiti: Resisting Imperial Temptation”