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...
We’ve Been Warned
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...
The Dangers of Abstract Nationalism
Serious conservatives, men such as Scott McConnell of The American Conservative and economist Paul Craig Roberts, along with such eminent libertarians as Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com and Lew Rockwell, are raising a surprising question: do the war in Iraq and the...
Misreading the Middle East
Juan Cole discusses the Iraq election, U.S. foreign policy, and American misconceptions about the Middle East in this C-Span interview recorded Jan. 27, 2005. (40 minutes: click here, then click on the top Juan Cole link) Juan Cole is professor of history at the...
Who’s Afraid of Venezuela?
The vagueness of the "war on terror" is easily the greatest known-but-hardly-reported scandal of the Bush administration. Words like "terror," "terrorism," and "terrorist" have no singular definitions, and Team Bush has added to the confusion with uses that conflict...
Rights Groups Urge Gonzales to Commit to Independent Probe
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is urging senators on both sides of the aisle to insist that Attorney General-designate Alberto Gonzales commit to immediately appoint a special counsel to investigate and prosecute any criminal acts in the torture and abuse...
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...
In Mosul, Many Pleasantly Surprised by Election
MOSUL - Election day in Iraq's violence-prone, third-largest city Mosul ended as it began, with a spate of bomb attacks. But in between a fair number of people voted. Iraqi and U.S. troops remained on high alert Monday after returning to their units. But authorities...


