To their credit, top Pentagon officials cautioned journalists and the public, since the Iraq war's early days, that the dissemination of misinformation would be a vital weapon in their war strategy. Needless to say, they have certainly held true to their word. But...
On June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-3 decision ruled that President Bush's effort to railroad tortured Guantanamo Bay detainees in kangaroo courts "violates both U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions." Better late than never, but it sure took a long time...
As demonstrated by yesterday's landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the legality of military tribunals to try "enemy combatants," the administration of President George W. Bush has consistently sought to expand the power of the presidency in the name of the...
Public attention is focused on Iraq, but a bitter war rages in Afghanistan as well. In mid-June, reported the Associated Press: "U.S. soldiers descended on a mountain ridge Sunday, quickly setting up fortified posts and mortar positions overlooking a key Taliban...
Imagine your adult daughter is a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for five years. You notice lately that, when you go out to dinner with her she reads the restaurant's wine list, when she walks past a liquor store her pace slows and she stares at the window,...
You know you are either getting somewhere or losing ground fast when the Democrats begin to exploit your slogans during an election year. Howard Dean, the Democratic National Committee chair, last weekend plugged the necessity of pulling troops out of Iraq by year's...
Last March, the U.S. Congress passed legislation requiring Justice Department officials to give them reports by certain dates on how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is using the USA PATRIOT Act to search homes and secretly seize papers. But when President...
Humanitarian groups trying to assess the number of innocent civilians killed in Iraq are demanding the Pentagon back up its claims that fewer Iraqis are being killed by accident at U.S. military checkpoints. Last week, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli told reporters in...
The pretext under which the Israelis have re-invaded the Gaza Strip speaks volumes about the mentality of the settler state and those who hold it up as an exemplar of heroic virtue worthy of American support: one of their soldiers, Gilad Shalit, was kidnapped, and so,...
One of the least noticed success stories of George Bush's years in power has been his administration's ability to focus the world's attention so singularly first on Saddam Hussein 's "nuclear program" – remember that yellowcake brick road? – which had...
