Clearly buoyed by Sunday's election in Iraq, a confident George W. Bush told the nation that the Middle East will dominate U.S. foreign policy during his second term as president, just as his proposals to privatize the 70-year-old U.S. Social Security system will be...
Now for the Hard Part
There's little point in denying, as some people were wont to do, that the election in Iraq on Sunday was a significant step toward the possibility of a reasonably stable Iraq. It went better than almost everybody except the most optimistic of observers expected. While...
Nothing Accidental About This Disaster
"The story today is going to be very discouraging to the American people. I understand that. We value life. And we weep and mourn when soldiers lose their life. And but it is the long-term objective that is vital ." - George Bush, Jan. 26, 2005, referring...
Living Under the Bombs
One of the least reported aspects of the U.S. occupation of Iraq is the oftentimes indiscriminate use of air power by the American military. The Western mainstream media has generally failed to attend to the F-16 warplanes dropping their payloads of 500-, 1,000-, and...
US Invokes Secrets Privilege in Torture Lawsuit
NEW YORK - The Justice Department has again asserted "state-secrets privilege" in seeking to dismiss a lawsuit by Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen who was detained in the United States in 2002 and sent against his will to Syria, where he says he...
Casualties of Polling
He writhes in pain, moaning with every other breath. The Iraqi police colonel's chest is covered in bandages, his legs from the knees down nearly completely hidden from view due to thick bandages holding what is left of his shins together. "We gave him first aid...
The New Kosovo War
A Diplomatic and Propaganda Assault Last weeks report by the International Crisis Group advocating the "independence" of Kosovo seems to have been the first shot in an all-out propaganda war to decide the future of that occupied Serbian province. The report has...
We’ve Been Warned
The state of our union:
perpetual war
The State of the Union was, in many ways, a reiteration of the president's second inaugural address: the look on that chimpy little face as he repeated "the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" was at once self-satisfied and defiant, as if he were telling...
Neocons: More Cannon Fodder, Please
Amid rising concern about the over-extension of U.S. military forces and the growing budget deficit, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neoconservative group whose past foreign policy recommendations have often been followed by President George W....
Liberal Wimps for War
Liberal columnist Mark Brown, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, is a typical liberal: he opposed the war but "not to the point of joining any peace protests," heaven forfend. Content to wave from the nearest Starbucks, where he was nursing his...


