Alan Bock

Just now it’s Blackwater USA that’s in the spotlight due to the shooting that left 17 Iraqis dead on September 16, and a history of being more aggressive than most in their duties of guarding U.S. diplomats and other various hangers-on. The Iraqi government, in a development that just might presage its coming together into … Continue reading “Why So Many Mercenaries in Iraq?”

I was planning to write about Blackwater and a growing distaste for contracting-out, privatizing or outsourcing various operations in wartime to "mercenaries," and I will a bit. But the topic of mercenaries got me to thinking about Machiavelli, who famously advised the ruler in his small masterpiece, The Prince, to avoid mercenaries. "Mercenaries and auxiliaries … Continue reading “Machiavelli’s Real Transgression”

The current unrest in Myanmar is inspiring to anybody who values political freedom and deplores the kind of oppressive regime the Myanmarese military has imposed on the country for close to half a century. And while the choice no doubt had something to do with not wanting to place too much emphasis on Iraq at … Continue reading “Myanmar’s Best Chance”

The conference in Washington, D.C. that I was attending gave us only a few hours of free time on Saturday afternoon, but fortunately that was when the big antiwar march was planned. So I wandered the Mall, where I had thought it was supposed to be held – publicity was not exactly omnipresent – and … Continue reading “Marching Against the War”

So all of Washington (and maybe even a few of those out in the rest of the country) is waiting for Gen. David Petraeus to deliver his report on the "surge" and how things are going in Iraq. It is a curious phenomenon whose curiosity has been too little noticed. We supposedly have a long … Continue reading “Waiting for Gen. Petraeus”

For months – perhaps even a couple of years – I have been downplaying the likelihood that Bush would be so foolish as to start a war with Iran, especially in light of how much more difficult such a war would be than the war on Iraq and how thinly the military is stretched. It’s … Continue reading “War With Iran Looks
More Likely”

I suspect that what’s really going on with President Bush’s invocation of the Vietnam war, which most hawks have resisted until recently, is not necessarily a late endorsement of that quagmire of a war or even an argument that the United States should have stayed longer (although it could be read that way). I suspect … Continue reading “Ending with a Whimper”

The news story in the New York Times actually painted the conviction Thursday of terrorism suspect Jose Padilla as "a significant victory for the Bush administration." The L.A. Times suggested something rather similar. It was far from that. If anything, it was a repudiation of the way the administration handled his case. But that doesn’t … Continue reading “Padilla Case a Source of Deep Shame for America”

What appears to be going on regarding Iran is a struggle within the administration over how to approach the Shi’ite mullah-dominated country that looms so large not only in the American imagination but as a regional power that is bound to have considerable influence in the region, especially with Iraq (assuming there is an entity … Continue reading “Tussling Over Iran”

Well, they went pretty far up the chain of command in the Pat Tillman case, all the way up to Lt. Gen. Phillip Kensinger, who was in charge of Special Forces until he retired last year. Army Secretary Pete Geren announced an unusually sharply-worded censure of Gen. Kensinger for "mistakes, misjudgments and a failure of … Continue reading “Pat Tillman Saga Far From Over”