It's not a bad idea to step back a few paces and remember the track record of those doing the estimating. Any discussion of a threat estimate from the vaunted U.S. intelligence "community" must begin with an acknowledgment that U.S. intelligence has often...
At the end of June, a few members of the US Congress made a discreet move to limit this country's exports of cluster bombs, a weapon that has been used around the world since the Second World War to devastating humanitarian consequences. Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat...
President George W. Bush and his supporters live in the world of "what ought to be." The U.S. ought to be able to crush the insurgency, establish liberal democracy, and impose Western values in Iraq. America ought to be able to spread U.S.-style political systems...
It was a chilling moment on a split-screen of history. While the Senate debated the Iraq war on Tuesday night, a long-dead senator again renounced a chronic lie about congressional options and presidential power. The Senate was in the final hours of another failure to...
President Bush's announcement of a new Middle East summit is being dutifully reported as a move to "revive" the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, designed to culminate in a two-state solution. But the meeting, if it ever comes about, will be nothing of the sort. U.S....
This is a tale about politics, influence, money and murder. It began more than 40 years ago with a bloodletting so massive that no one quite knows how many people died. Half a million? A million? Through four decades, the story of the relationship between the United...
Responding to the call of Pope Urban II at Claremont in 1095, the Christian knights of the First Crusade set out for the Holy Land. In 1099, Jerusalem was captured. As their port in Palestine, the Crusaders settled on Acre on the Mediterranean. There they...
What in the name of all that's holy is going on with Russia and the Brits? The British government has recently expelled four Russian diplomats, supposedly in retaliation for the Russkis' refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi – a suspect in one of the most bizarre...
The United States intelligence community's latest assessment of al-Qaeda and the threat it poses to the homeland appears to have both renewed questions about the wisdom of invading Iraq and returned the spotlight to an increasingly strife-ridden Pakistan. The latest...
After a week and a half of Senate debate, including an all-night session Tuesday, the possibility that legislation to de-escalate US military intervention in Iraq soon could be adopted by a strong bipartisan majority appears to have receded, at least until...
