My regular column won't appear today: I'm traveling back from my Mom's funeral. Elvera Raimondo was a real character: strong and independent long before the Women's Lib movement, holder of multiple jobs that enabled me to get out of the rotten public school system...
Tuesday: 15 Iraqis Killed, 38 Wounded
Updated at 11:45 p.m. EST, Jan. 15, 2008At least 15 Iraqis were killed and 38 were wounded in mostly small bombings. No Coalition deaths were reported. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Iraq and praised reconciliation efforts...
US, Iran One Misstep
From the Edge
Just as the Annapolis Middle East Peace Conference morphed largely into an exercise in lining up a coalition against Iran, so too is President George W. Bush's first visit to Israel quickly becoming the latest round of Tehran-bashing. The trip, which was initially...
The Hands of Esau
Which of the two men is the leader of the greatest power on earth and which is the boss of a small client state? A visitor from another planet, attending the press conference in Jerusalem, would find it hard not to answer: Olmert is the president of the great power,...
Iraqis ‘Awake’ to a New Danger
BAGHDAD – The newly formed "Awakening" forces set up by the U.S. military are bringing new conflict. For months now the U.S. military has been actively building what it calls Awakening forces and "concerned local citizens" in an effort to...
Afghan Prison Looks Like Another Guantanamo
As the world marks the sixth anniversary of the arrival of the first orange-jumpsuit-clad prisoners at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, human rights groups are attempting to focus public and congressional scrutiny on what some are calling "the other...
The Hundred-Year War
If John McCain wins the Republican presidential nomination, it seems to me that the Democrats have only to show the American people this clip: That alone would be enough to blow the USS McCain out of the water. What with polls showing [.pdf] that most voters want us...
Charlie Wilson’s Warlords
Both the book and movie Charlie Wilson's War glorify the "colorful" liberal Democratic congressman's successful crusade to bludgeon the reluctant, neoconservative Reagan administration into dramatically escalating funding, arming, and training of radical...
Gulf of Tonkin Will Be
Tough to Repeat
When the Tonkin Gulf incident took place in early August 1964, I was a journeyman CIA analyst in what Condoleezza Rice refers to as "the bowels of the agency." As a current intelligence analyst responsible for Russian policy toward Southeast Asia and China, I worked...
James Woolsey: Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind
It is quite remarkable that a coterie of neocon intellectuals and influence peddlers can exhibit bizarre personal behavior, prove utterly incompetent in high appointive office, manufacture entirely false evidence to propel us into a disastrous war, and yet still have...


