The case that I have been making in this space that, from a non-interventionist perspective, John Kerry may be worse than Bush when it comes to foreign policy was boosted, if not proved, with the Democrats' denunciation of the President's plan to...
‘Wrenching Questions’ Remain a Year After UN Baghdad Bombing
GENEVA - The bomb attack on the United Nations offices in Baghdad a year ago Thursday posed "wrenching, fundamental questions" for the world body with respect to security, to which answers have not yet been found. Speaking on the first anniversary of the...
Repositioning on the Titanic
At first it looked fairly interesting, perhaps even modestly promising, from the perspective of somebody who worries about the United States being overcommitted overseas and stretched rather thin militarily to meet some of the challenges that could arise from chronic...
War Overtakes Economy as US Voters’ Top Concern
The war in Iraq and other foreign affairs are more important to voters in the coming presidential election than the economy, marking the first time since the Vietnam era that U.S. citizens are putting more weight on foreign policy than domestic concerns, according to...
How the Media Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Rumsfeld
The nation's top dog of war is frisky again. Donald Rumsfeld has returned to high visibility after a couple of months in the media doghouse following revelations about torture at the Abu Ghraib prison now openly romancing the journalistic pack with his...
Backtalk, August 20, 2004
Abu Ghraib I was shocked to see those sick photographs. When I enlisted in the U.S. Army I heard stories about atrocities committed by US soldiers in World War II and the Korean War, but we never saw any photos. Had I seen such pictures I would not have enlisted,...
Memo: ‘Terror’ Election Barring Voters Could Stand
A recently unearthed government memorandum prepared for the U.S. Congress addresses the power of the administration to postpone elections. But more notably, it reviews actions the executive branch might take that could preclude large numbers of Americans from casting...
Maldives Unrest Worries International Community
COLOMBO Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, Asia's longest running autocratic leader, is under international pressure to stop the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in the Indian Ocean archipelago. Colombo-based diplomats, who declined to be named, said...
Doctor May Get Life for Violating Iraq Sanctions
In the eighteen months since central New York oncologist Rafil Dhafir was arrested and charged with violating the U.S. embargo against Iraq, he has been sitting in a Syracuse jail, ignored by most of the national media, as prosecutors continue to add charges...
The Outing of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan
Journalism is often defined as an attempt to "catch history on the run." We historians, when writing history, most often have at hand a range of documents on an issue, and the luxury of being able to weigh them against one another. In trying to track...


