[This is the text of a speech given at the Future of Freedom Foundation conference "Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties" on June 1.] To listen to the public spokesmen of the War Party, one would think that the 9/11 attacks tore a hole in the...
U.S. Ramps Up Missile Tests in the Pacific
Earlier this year, when China blasted one of its satellites into thousands of little floating pieces, it was condemned by Washington as a provocative act. But some arms-control experts believe Beijing was baring its teeth to send the White House a different message....
Bush’s Iraq-Korea Analogy Sparks New Debate
While President George W. Bush appears, however belatedly, to be embracing recommendations by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) to begin withdrawing U.S. combat troops by early 2008, he has implicitly rejected the ISG's call to renounce any intention to establish...
Sunday: 15 GIs, 106 Iraqis Killed; 115 Iraqis Wounded
Updated at 12:20 a.m. EDT, June 4, 2007Fifteen American servicemembers were killed and at least 21 were wounded in separate attacks in Iraq over the weekend; dozens more were sickened by a chlorine gas explosion near Baquba.. At least 106 Iraqis also lost their lives...
Israel: Mythologizing a 20th Century Accident
One of the many quirks of the nineteenth century's intellectual heritage was the great intensification of nationalism and to quote one expert the creation of "nation-ness," the consequences of which have varied dramatically all the way from the...
Words in a Time of War
A few weeks ago, I offered Tomdispatch readers, "Close Your Eyes," my fantasy graduation speech for the class of 2007, given from the podium of some university of my mind. Mark Danner, however, recently stood at an actual podium at the University of California,...
Dying for Nothing
I didn't watch any of the Memorial Day events on television. Memorial Day, it seems to me, should be only for the families of the dead. It's really impossible to remember someone we never knew. Of course, these days Memorial Day gets larded with politics and...
Anxiety in Wake of US-Iran Talks
ARBIL, Iraq - US-Iranian talks about Iraq have been received with skepticism and some foreboding here, with some calling for limitations on the extent of issues that the two countries can negotiate regarding Iraq. The ice-breaking ambassador-level talks Monday between...
Sick of Iraq’s Government
BAGHDAD - Reports of the poor health among high-ranking Iraqi politicians are being seen as symbolic of the popular mood here about the US-backed government. In late February, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was flown to neighboring Jordan for medical treatment amid...
Hardly the Whole Truth but…
If you want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about how the CIA and later the United States as a whole coped with the terrorist threat posed by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda and later invaded Iraq on specious grounds, this relentlessly...


