Rafah: The Movie
Well I fully expected this movie to be amateurish and a bit sappy, but I wasn't prepared for this. Terrible editing paired with lame scripted lines by quintessential American liberal upper-middle-class twenty-somethings and scruffy middle-aged Berkeley-looking...
Outsourcing Torture and the Problems of ‘Quality Control’
In October 2001 a Yemeni student by the name of Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, who was suspected of involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole, was captured and turned over to the United States by Pakistan. U.S. authorities then flew him to Jordan for interrogation....
Pat Tillman and the Culture of Death
The networks and other custodians of consensus sicced the dogs of war on anyone who dared question Pat Tillman's post-Sept. 11 epiphany. Tillman, may he rest in peace, abandoned his NFL career and a $3.6-million contract to become an Army Ranger. As Len Pasquarelli of...
Rights Groups: No War Crimes Exemption for US
Amid global outrage over the abuse by U.S. soldiers of Iraqi detainees, the Bush administration has asked the United Nations Security Council to exempt its troops serving in UN-approved peace-keeping operations from prosecution for war crimes before the new...
Abu Ghraib Soldiers Were Properly Trained
Many politicians have claimed that the atrocities committed by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq were a result of improper training. The mothers of these soldiers would vouch for the fact that their youngsters were properly trained to eat...
Liberal Hawks: Flying in Neocon Circles
In the heat of Iraq the neoconservatives are seeing their visions of Pax Americana turn into nightmares and headaches. But they are not alone. Liberal hawks like Ivo Daalder, Robert Kerrey, and Will Marshall also find themselves discredited as the quagmire in Iraq...
A Sense of Wonder
When someone asked me recently what movies I had seen, I had to reply honestly: Looney Tunes, Home on the Range, Shrek, Brother Bear, and Peter Pan. One of my grandsons has just reached the age where he enjoys movies, and I love to take him. Hearing him laugh is one...
The Power of Weakness
Can anything more be said about the debacle of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, beyond the fact that it demonstrates the immense moral leveling power of war? There are two observations I have not seen elsewhere. First, the apparent breakdown in discipline among the MPs...
The Charge of the Coalition Forces
Adapted, with apologies to Alfred Lord Tennyson Half a mile, half a mile, Half a mile onward, All in the desert of Death Rode the 200 thousand. 'Forward, the Coalition Forces! Charge for the guns!' he said: Into the desert of Death Rode the 200 thousand. 'Forward, the...
