Every time Iraqi soldiers and policemen boogie away from combat, the standard answer that comes out of the U.S. government is that they need to be "trained up" better. That's nonsense. Training teaches technique; it does not teach the will to fight. Given...
Blowback is a term invented by the Central Intelligence Agency to describe the unintended consequences of policies kept secret from the American people. Chalmers Johnson's excellent book, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, helped popularize the...
Feeding the Iraq Moloch ... There is no excuse for government's paying for innocent hostages. Killing innocents will isolate the terrorists to the support of immoral people. The exchange of hostages is only reasonable if all are combatants. As long as we release their...
It was a Maalox moment for Donald Rumsfeld. At a forum held with U.S. troops in Kuwait who are headed to Iraq, the barrage of friendly fire soon scored a direct hit when a scout with the Tennessee National Guard, one Specialist Thomas Wilson, rose, and, his voice...
"When truth becomes war's first fatality, Trust quickly becomes the second." "Since my son's death … I don't trust them [the Pentagon] one bit." One need only read the article in the Los Angeles Times to sense the loss felt by Mrs. Mary...
Although I had some thoughts at the time, I thought it would be churlish to question the decision of Pat Tillman, in his fourth year as a linebacker for the NFL Arizona Cardinals, with a $3.6 million contract, to give up professional sports and enlist in the Army...
During the Balkans wars of the 1990s, quite a few people who dared question the Official Truth as presented by the Western media and governments frequently complained that reports from Bosnia and Kosovo at the very least distorted the truth, and sometimes even made it...
U.S. management of the Iraqi economy was plagued by irregularities, corruption, failures, and the mishandling of billions of dollars, according to analysts and multiple recent audits. Sloppy accounting and lax oversight of contracts were routine under the now defunct...
President Bush said last week that, "Any election [in Ukraine], if there is one, ought to be free from any foreign influence." I agree with the president wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, it seems that several U.S. government agencies saw things differently and sent U.S....
While opinions are divided over whether the revamp of the U.S. intelligence community laid out in the compromise bill just approved by Congress will improve the performance of the relevant agencies, there is little doubt that the failure of President George W. Bush to...
