Alan Bock

The news of the moment, especially the escalating rhetoric of certain U.S. spokesmen on Syria, is fascinating and worthy of some tut-tutting a bit later. But for me the most fascinating news of the past week was almost taken for granted: the virtually instant crumbling of Saddam Hussein’s regime after decades of brutal totalitarian rule. … Continue reading “The Harder They Fall”

Despite the 24/7 triumphalism on the cable news channels, the war isn’t over yet, although it’s difficult to see an outcome other than eventual U.S. and British supremacy, at least for now. The U.S. decision to send convoys of tanks and Bradley vehicles into the heart of Baghdad was a bold stroke, but it didn’t … Continue reading “Picking Up the Pieces”

Perhaps the oddest phenomenon of the current moment is the insistence by top military brass – and their doppelgangers disguised as retired-military consultants on TV networks – that the original plan for the invasion of Iraq was just hunky-dory and everything is right on schedule and anybody who suggests otherwise must be some kind of … Continue reading “Strange Insistence that No Miscalculations Were Made”

It looks as if it’s going to be a real war, not a video game, a TV "reality" show or a cakewalk. The apparent setbacks to the American battle plans over the weekend might well turn out to be less strategically significant than some would make them out to be. But they have demonstrated, as … Continue reading “Reality Discredits the Chickenhawks”

I write before President Bush’s address, on the assumption that it will offer an ultimatum that will trigger war within days, without offering justifications that persuade me this war is necessary, justifiable or constitutional. So what do we do once the war begins? Polemicists like Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, of course, argue that once the … Continue reading “Making Lemonade”

As the appalling people who rule us back and fill and improvise on the winding road toward what now seems a virtually inevitable war, it seems almost fruitless to try any more to dissuade our warbent president. Perhaps the Russians or the French, for esoteric diplomatic or power-politics reasons, can delay the introduction of long-planned … Continue reading “Waiting on War”

I‘ve been doing a bit of radio lately, sometimes brought on as one of those curious folks who question this war and should be examined like a pinned butterfly, sometimes by hosts who seem grateful to have an antiwar spokesman who doesn’t think it all goes back to Mumia. (Your local station can reach someone … Continue reading “What’s the Real Key to Our Freedom?”

I thought it might be useful to know a little more about North Korea than what is in the latest headlines, so I talked to a couple of people who have a bit of expertise and knowledge of recent history. Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, wrote Tripwire, a book on … Continue reading “Korea: Background and Implications”

Perhaps it’s being pleasantly surprised at just how large the antiwar demonstrations around the world were last weekend. Perhaps it’s the stubborn conviction that sooner or later enough people will figure out, and communicate to the administration, that the odds are strongly in favor of almost every problem a war is supposed to address being … Continue reading “Holding Out for Hope?”

Most of the media are trying to make the very difficult case that in boosting defense spending President Bush is starving domestic programs. Unfortunately, too few people are questioning the defense budget itself. We’re at war, after all, and the military probably needs the money, right? We know we’ve dropped a lot of bombs, lost … Continue reading “Military Pork by the Barrel”