KABUL - Western officials are increasingly turning to new strategies in an effort to stabilize Afghanistan and defeat the insurgency here, according to U.S. and Afghan officials. The various initiatives from negotiating with the Taliban to arming tribal...
Tuesday: 36 Iraqis Killed, 69 Wounded
Updated at 2:53 p.m. EST, Nov. 4, 2008A spate of bombings greeted Baghdadis today as U.S. soldiers there await results in the U.S. presidential election. Overall, at least 36 Iraqis were killed and another 69 were wounded across the country, but the lion's share of...
Obama’s Neocon in Residence
The grip that the Israeli lobby has over both political parties means that any real shift in U.S. Middle Eastern policy is unlikely, whoever is elected president today. It might also be argued that no change in policy outside the Middle East is likely either, except...
Turning the Page
In a world where a person like Barack Hussein Obama can appear from nowhere and advance within a few years to the highest levels of world politics, nothing is predictable, and therefore everything is possible. Today, it seems at the moment, the incredible will happen:...
Life Sentence Fails to Justify Gitmo Trials
In any credible court system, the eve-of-election conviction of an associate of Osama bin Laden for producing promotional material for al-Qaeda, which directly encouraged impressionable young men to join a violent jihad against the United States, would be a resounding...
The End of a Subprime Administration
They may have been the most disastrous dreamers, the most reckless gamblers, and the most vigorous imperial hucksters and grifters in our history. Selling was their passion. And they were classic American salesmen if you're talking about underwater land in...
Will the Next President Be Any Better?
U.S. voters will elect a new president on Tuesday who will at least not be George W. Bush. Whether he will be wise enough to adjust to emerging realities in the world at large is another question. Despite its importance do you think the financial crisis would...
Two, Three, Many Grand Bargains?
As the United States waded ever deeper into the Indochinese quagmire in the early 1960s, the Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara called for "two, three, many Vietnams" to bog down the superpower in unwinnable Third World conflicts that would drain its...
The Limits of Change
As I write this, we are 24 hours away from the end of this seemingly endless presidential campaign, and all the signs point to a victory some would say an overwhelming victory by Barack Obama. I won't make any predictions here, what with the Bradley...
Top Obama Adviser Has Long Ties to Neocons
With the 2008 presidential campaign at its end, pundits have begun to discuss in earnest what expected winner Barack Obama's administration might look like. An important piece of evidence is Obama's campaign team, which largely escaped the harsh scrutiny that his...


