Alan Bock

Election years are typically full of the kind of vulgar sound and fury calculated to make sensible people despair of the possibility of civilized life. In his remarkable autobiography, “Memoirs of a Superfluous Man” (an underappreciated masterpiece that deserves a much wider audience) the American essayist Albert Jay Nock tells of the “wigwam,” or political … Continue reading “Resisting Intervention”

One must be careful not to crow too quickly. Perceptions in a large and complex society can shift quickly, often for reasons that seem to make little sense to those of us inclined to be excessively rational or coldly analytical. But it seems more than possible that events and perceptions are converging in such a … Continue reading “For Bush, It’s All Unraveling”

Chalmers Johnson, who is one of those people I consider interesting enough to have taken the trouble, now that I’m advanced enough chronologically to have developed a grudging and still mostly fleeting sense of mortality, to meet personally, is carving out for himself an honorable position as – Cassandra is too strong a word perhaps, … Continue reading “Lament for the Lost Republic”

The resignation of David Kay, the CIA’s chief weapons inspector, combined with statements he has made in connection with his resignation, puts something of a capstone on the crumbling of any remotely valid case for the recent (or ongoing, not to put too fine a point on it) Iraq war. Every justification (or rationalization, if … Continue reading “Lessons for the Future”

It seems likely that the Iraq war, aside from a few phrases about our brave men and women in uniform fighting for freedom and perhaps a mention of Saddam’s capture, will not figure too heavily in tonight’s State of the Union address. Even though Howard Dean, the most prominent war critic among the Democratic contenders, … Continue reading “Iraq: A Military Critique”

It is a little frustrating to write that the main hope is that the American people will be more vigilant the next time a president and his administration put on a full court press on behalf of a dubious war. At this time, however, it is probably the best we can hope for. It is … Continue reading “The Crumbling Case for War”

While I was pleased finally to have been able to visit Israel, and I certainly know a little more than I did before about how to place events in Jerusalem in context, I would not want to suggest that a visit of four or five days makes me an expert; in fact my dislike of … Continue reading “A Visit to Israel”

Remarks delivered by Alan Bock December 19, 2003 at the Middle East Peace Initiative symposium of the Interreligious and International Peace Council, Sheraton Plaza Hotel, Jerusalem. Being in this city at this time, at a conference devoted to the great subject of peace and eventual reconciliation between two great peoples, cannot help but induce a … Continue reading “Media and Middle East Peace”

It is almost impossible not feel a certain degree of karmic satisfaction at the photos of Saddam Hussein looking like a homeless bum brought in during a sweep of notorious hangouts for hopeless drunks. It reminds us that we are all human, that political power is fleeting and seldom entirely satisfactory even (or perhaps especially) … Continue reading “Saddam Captured – Now What?”

The Russian parliamentary election, in which maximum leader Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party (which seems to stand mainly for “we’re in power and handing out favors, so keep us in power”) got 37.1 percent of the vote – which could translate into a working majority with coalition parties in the Duma and maybe even a … Continue reading “Russian Regression?”