The Blackwater scandal has gotten plenty of media coverage, and it deserves a lot more. Taxpayer subsidies for private mercenaries are antithetical to democracy, and Blackwater's actions in Iraq have often been murderous. But the scandal is unfolding in a U.S. media...
"Starting from Zero" To the extent that the media spotlight is ever directed at Africa, it has focused on Darfur, in western Sudan, where several hundred thousand people have died in ethnic violence since 2003. Just next door, beyond the glare of the spotlight,...
When I hear mention of the "Clash of Civilizations," I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. To laugh, because it is such a silly notion. To cry, because it is liable to cause untold disasters. To cry even more, because our leaders are exploiting this...
I'm not surprised that Christopher Hitchens, the village atheist, is now advocating genocide. His recent speech to a conference of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, in Madison, Wisc. – a portion of which can be seen here – dramatizes the completion of...
Speaking to journalists last week, Navy Capt. Theodore Fessel Jr., the chief representative at Guantánamo for the Pentagon's Office of Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants (OARDEC), which oversees the tribunals and review boards convened to assess...
Updated at 11:55 p.m. EDT, Oct. 17, 2007On a relatively quiet Wednesday, at least 37 Iraqis were killed and 28 more were wounded while tensions on the Turkish border continue. An American soldier died of a non-combat-related illness in Germany after being flown out of...
Updated at 12:12 a.m. EDT, Oct. 17, 2007Bombings in Baghdad and Mosul injured scores of people. Overall, 56 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 144 more were wounded. No foreign military deaths were reported. In Baghdad, four unidentified bodies were found dumped in...
While the world holds its breath in anticipation of the Mideast Summit in Annapolis – which, no doubt, will constitute a historic landmark, giving a most significant boost to the economy of that small town in Maryland – the Israeli right wing comes up with a...
Picture the scene: The head of a private military company is appearing before the legislature. For years, his firm has prospered from the occupation of a resource-rich Asian country, protected by its shareholders' powerful political connections. Only now are years of...
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has admitted knowing for several years about the Bush administration's eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant. She said she was briefed on it when she was ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. But was she told...
