By enacting new legislation this week governing the treatment and trial of suspects in Washington's "global war on terror," Congress has turned its back on both international law and the U.S. Constitution, according to the country's major human rights...
Although Afghan president Hamid Karzai may not be much of a ruler of the kind that firmly establishes control of the entire country – which might not be a bad thing in less parlous times in Afghanistan, which has never really cottoned to central government –...
Last week at the United Nations, Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, called President George W. Bush "the devil" and complained he could still smell the sulfur. The reaction was immediate, visceral, and scary. Even the president's most virulent enemies took...
A mistake too often made by those examining Israel's behavior in the occupied territories – or when analyzing its treatment of Arabs in general, or interpreting its view of Iran – is to assume that Israel is acting in good faith. Even its most trenchant...
A deluge of experts, attracted by government money, is drowning Washington. So many elected and appointed officials know even less than the phony experts that it's like a gold-rush town for the briefcase-toting fast-talkers. You, however, don't need to be an expert...
There is nothing "normal" or "ordinary" about Pakistan, from the rationale for its creation to the fact that it played a crucial role in the last epic battle of the Cold War, the expulsion of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. It played an equally...
Shinzo Abe has become the youngest postwar prime minister of Japan. He is seen as a reformer, following the lead of his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi. Of greater significance to the U.S. and the rest of world, Abe also is a nationalist dedicated increasing his...
The media missed the real story regarding the National Intelligence Estimate of the global terror threat. It's not what's in the declassified executive summary of the report – Iraq, which was unavoidable – it's what's absent from it – Afghanistan, where...
At America's behest, Pakistan sent its army into the tribal territories along its northwest frontier. Predictably, its army got beaten. The Pakistani government has now signed a truce with the tribes in North Waziristan, a wise move given that government's fragility....
