Updated at 12:45 a.m. EDT, May 5, 2007Violent activity was elevated for a Friday. At least 71 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 89 Iraqis were wounded. One foreign fighter identified as an al-Qaeda leader was killed as well. Also, the U.S. military today reported...
Invasion of the Party Snatchers
Victor Gold, Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP (Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks, 2007), 246 pp., $26.95. The Republican party, nicknamed the "Grand Old Party," isn't looking so grand these days. Pompous paladins and...
Tragic Russia
The death of Boris Yeltsin, who might be described as the first and apparently the last relatively democratic leader of Russia, makes one wonder whether Russia will ever have anything approaching decent governance. (I'm not sure there is any such thing as good...
America’s Coming Dictatorship
The Iraq war and the inquiry into its origins has provoked interest in a number of subjects formerly considered obscure, the discussion of which was once limited to the rarified aeries of academia and specialty journals. Some examples are neoconservatism, just war...
Iraq War May End With an Isolationist US
The war which resulted in the ouster of a dangerous despot ended and the US troops, who had fought in a bloody conflict overseas, were returning home. But the human and financial costs of the war were very high and its promise of helping to spread democracy in regions...
Divide and Rule: US Blocks Israel-Syria Talks
Even as American officials reluctantly agreed last month to include Syrian representatives in multiparty talks on Iraqi security issues, the Bush administration continues to block Israel from resuming negotiations with Syria over its security concerns. In 2003,...
Back in the EUSSR
Historians still argue over the reasons why one particular geographical region managed to achieve such overwhelming military, economic and cultural power as to subordinate the rest of the planet, but the fact remains that as late as 1914, Europe dominated the world in...
Lebanon’s Palestinian Refugees Learn to Substitute Government
BEIRUT - The influx of refugees from Palestinian areas and the inability of the government to do much for them has strengthened a unique NGO providing essential services. The Popular Aid for Relief and Development (PARD), which began working in the early 1980s before...
Thursday: 2, GIs, 43 Iraqis, 4 Filipino Contractors Killed; 30 Iraqis Wounded
Updated at 12:59 a.m EDT, May 34, 2007Although very few reports of violence came out of Iraq today, at least one high-profile militant leader was killed and perhaps a second one as well. Overall, 43 Iraqis and four Filipinos were killed and 30 Iraqis were injured. In...
A High Price to Pay for Ignorance
The Pentagon and White House continue to argue that they are not planning a war against Iran in spite of the continuing buildup of naval forces in the Persian Gulf, which will peak with the arrival of a third carrier group at the end of May. The naval aviation and...


