Iraqis are optimistic about the future but frustrated with unreliable services like electricity, and concerned about the quality of governance, according to a major poll released here Friday. "Iraqis are hopeful about events improving, have not yet realized gains...
Once you've been terrorized – attacked without warning by an unknown attacker for no apparent reason – you'll want to know what the terrorists hoped to accomplish by terrorizing you. The 9/11 Commission attempted to answer that question by focusing on the...
Thomas Kean, Chairman National Committee on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States 301 7th Street, SW Room 5125 Washington, D.C. 20407 Dear Chairman Kean: It has been almost three years since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, during which time we have been placed...
The enemies of the ayatollahs doubtless applauded loudly earlier this week when U.S. spokesmen ventured their latest pronouncement about the status of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), which has long claimed to be the "official opposition" to the current regime...
I had to laugh out loud when I read Adam L. Penenberg's recent piece in Wired News, bemoaning the low status of the New York Times in Google's hierarchy of knowledge: "When I googled the terms 'Iraq torture prison Abu Ghraib' – certainly one of the most...
The Pentagon is learning that things work differently here in the United States than they do in Iraq. In this country, when the judiciary issues an order, the Pentagon is required to obey it. That’s why the government is now permitting Ali Saleh al-Marri to meet...
Ever since the attacks of 9/11, unsanctioned alternative explanations of what happened and why have been in ample supply. What are the American people to make of these explanations? That depends on the alternative offered. My purpose here is not to lend credence to...
Americans are still learning the details of some of the abuses that were committed against those rounded up as suspected terrorists after 9/11. The Justice Department inspector general issued superb reports in June and December 2003 detailing violation of rights,...
NAIROBI (IPS) – Sudan has "accepted" a UN resolution to rein in pro-government militias, known as Janjaweed, in the western region of Darfur, within 30 days, a surprising move that seems to reflect a split in the Islamic regime. Until late Friday,...
In reading the Abu Ghraib articles Seymour Hersh wrote for the New Yorker in May (here, here, and here), what struck me about the revelations of abuse and torture was the similarity in detail to what I experienced in Vietnam 35 years ago. The one major difference has...
