The broader implications of the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was seen by many as the embodiment of the Lebanese people's efforts to rebuild their country in the aftermath of its 15-year civil war, are yet to unfold. A Sunni...
Lebanon: Background and Forecast
It is often pointed out that presidents get too much praise and blame for the economy, since the domestic economy has its own rhythms. We are now going to see everything that happens in the Middle East attributed to George W. Bush, whether he had much to do with it or...
Tel Aviv Blast Spreads New Unease
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...
Shia Party Rises From the Ashes
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...
Italian Media Shaken by Iraq
ROME - It was the last dispatch sent by Italian reporter Renato Caprile before he left Baghdad last week. "Don't believe those who say the situation in Iraq can be covered from abroad," he wrote in La Republica before leaving with all other Italian...
George W. Bush Fails to Learn from Jimmy Carter’s Naive Human Rights Policy
http://www.independent.org/tii/antiwar/e050301.html
Skepticism Over Renewed Military Ties With Indonesia
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...
The Emperor’s Potemkin Visits
"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...
Recovering From Kerry
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...
State Department Report Assails Usual Suspects
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,...


