As Washington prepares to resume military trials of "war on terror" detainees, a debate over their status is heating up in the U.S. Congress, with even some prominent Republicans demanding higher standards for interrogations and a ban on "cruel,...
G. Federsel's BacktalkAfter reading Paul Roberts' reply to my letter posted on July 19, I felt compelled to register my rebuttal. It seems to me that I touched a raw nerve.I have been called all kinds of names, but this is the first time I have been called an...
Imperial Policy in Action Judging by news coming from the Balkans this past week, the usually languid days of summer were anything but. Bosnia underwent another major centralization effort, while Serbia-Montenegro signed a treaty giving free passage through the...
It's almost tempting to breathe a sigh of relief. Raw, heads-in-the-sand stupidity is not limited to those who prop up the Bush agenda here in the land of polarized red and blue. Last week the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) issued a report [.pdf]...
The acclaimed New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has often voiced enthusiasm for violent destruction by the U.S. government. Hidden in plain sight, his glee about such carnage is worth pondering. Many people view Friedman as notably articulate, while others find...
One of the first stories I covered as the Business Times correspondent in Washington in the early 1990s was the post-Cold War transformation of the relationship between the United States and India. India was beginning to shed the vestiges of its earlier policies of...
That an innocent Brazilian was shot dead on the London Underground is tragic; but the near-justification of that killing by the police is frightening. The police have now openly declared a shoot-to-kill policy, and declared that they can shoot to kill just on...
Dear President Bush, I am writing to help you out. You have painted yourself into a bit of a corner in Iraq. But not to worry. I looked back to a speech you gave on April 10, 2003. In that speech, you promised the Iraqi people that the United States had come to their...
In an eye-opening interview with Aaron Glantz, a Pacifica Radio reporter and author of How America Lost Iraq, Iraqi Minister of Civil Affairs Ala'a al-Safi echoes the demand that many in Congress, and certainly those of us who opposed this war from the beginning, have...
BEIRUT - This is a city marked by a civil war and molded by divisions that still run deep within the country and through the fabric of society. With typical Lebanese gusto, much has been done over the past 15 years to repair the physical damage, but much more has been...
