Hamas won the Palestinian elections. Huge surprise. Years of Israeli policy to crush secular Palestinian nationalism succeeded beyond expectation. Who could predict that in the Middle East, where causes invariably produce unintended effects (oh, those irrational...
For the last two years he has grown no poppy, and his family have begun to feel the pinch. This year, this farmer from Nangahar province in Afghanistan plans to resume poppy cultivation. And not just he but thousands of others, and not just in Nangahar province but...
The Bizarro World illogic started right off the bat when George W. Bush intoned that what we need more of in public life is "a civil tone." This from a man who has repeatedly impugned the patriotism of his opponents, and just the previous week declared that critics of...
He's Not Your Commander in ChiefMr. Eddlem,Sir, thank you for an excellent article and lesson on the American Constitution. When I joined the Marines in 1968 (OK, I was young and dumb) I swore an oath to defend the Constitution, NOT to any person or office. By the...
The president passed through his State of the Union address – ill-digested chunks of so many other speeches he's given ("We're writing a new chapter in the story of self-government – with women lining up to vote in Afghanistan, and millions of Iraqis marking...
Both law-enforcement and intelligence agencies fundamentally depend on informants. Informants in foreign intelligence are at best traitors to their respective countries. Informants in domestic crime issues are often paid, either in cash or in deals cut on crimes they...
DOHA, Qatar – Its foreign bureaus were bombed by U.S. warplanes, it is banned from reporting from four Middle East countries – and al-Jazeera is only growing in popularity. An interesting, and sometimes tragic path has led to the success of al-Jazeera since...
Why is President Bush hell-bent on getting Iran’s alleged violations referred to the UN Security Council before March? Perhaps it’s because John Bolton is President of the Security Council this month. Bonkers Bolton has been point man in Bush’s campaign...
Since the fall of 2002 at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay (GITMO), and during the fall of 2003 and early winter of 2004 at the now infamous U.S. Army detention facility at Abu Ghraib, Iraq, several Iraqi, Afghan, Pakistani and other "enemy combatant" detainees...
US officials and analysts here are hoping that Haiti's elections next Tuesday will run smoothly and bring to power a credible government two years after Washington itself helped oust the last elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Unlike recent elections in the...
