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http://www.independent.org/tii/antiwar/e050301.html

The State Department’s decision to renew military training for Indonesia – a major step toward full normalization of military ties between the United States and the giant archipelago – has been greeted with skepticism by human rights groups and some lawmakers critical of Jakarta’s record. "The secretary’s determination is premature and unfortunate," noted Sen. Patrick … Continue reading “Skepticism Over Renewed Military Ties With Indonesia”

“The great motorcade,” wrote Canadian correspondent Don Murray, “swept through the streets of the city… The crowds … but there were no crowds. George W. Bush’s imperial procession through Europe took place in a hermetically sealed environment. In Brussels it was, at times, eerie. The procession containing the great, armor-plated limousine (flown in from Washington) … Continue reading “The Emperor’s Potemkin Visits”

The Iraq war is an illusion. It is just a segment on the nightly news. The death and destruction doesn’t concern us. Or so alleged all those who buried their antiwar convictions and signed on to support John Kerry in 2004. Since their pragmatic flop, the war has raged on. Thousands more have perished. Billions … Continue reading “Recovering From Kerry”

Releasing the latest edition of its annual human rights Country Reports, the U.S. State Department Monday hailed the progress it said had been achieved over the past year in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine. However, it also assailed North Korea, Belarus, China, Syria, Iran, and Venezuela, among others, for authoritarian rule or backsliding during 2004. In … Continue reading “State Department Report Assails Usual Suspects”

JERUSALEM – For now it is just the recriminations that have resumed flying back and forth between Israelis and Palestinians, not yet the bombs, missiles, and bullets in the same numbers as during the height of the Intifada. But the fatal Palestinian suicide bombing of a Tel Aviv disco last Friday night has shattered more … Continue reading “Tel Aviv Blast Spreads New Unease”

ARBIL – In the early days of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, when the international media was discovering mass graves throughout the country, journalists of all types were documenting the full scope of the old regime’s brutality. Having just arrived myself, I paid a visit to the Free Prisoners Committee. The U.S. military had given … Continue reading “Shia Party Rises From the Ashes”

Sex, Lies, and Jeff Gannon Dear Mr. Raimondo, I am a frequent reader of your articles and admire your writing. In your recent article, you write: “As a gay man, I can’t say that I understand Gannon’s appeal to his clients in the escort business – a 47-year-old male hooker camouflaging himself as a decade-younger … Continue reading “Backtalk, February 28, 2005”

If you go back to its Nuclear Posture Review of 2001 and its National Security Strategy of 2002, the Bush administration was then keen to posit an American-dominated globe until the end of time. According to those documents, such domination would involve allowing neither potential military rivals, nor rival military blocs, nor “rogue” regional powers … Continue reading “Pyongyang Waits for Spring”

S.Y. Agnon, the famous Israeli writer, once toyed with the idea that the German culture was all but forgotten, with German scholars traveling all over the world, desperately looking for exiled German Jews who were the last to preserve the lost German culture and save it from oblivion. I cannot help thinking about this fictitious … Continue reading “Democracy, a Free Press, and Other Fantasies”