In a 1972 book, Victims of Groupthink: A Psychology Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes, Irving Janis identified the Vietnam War and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba as particularly compelling examples of how very smart people can collectively make very...
THE SETTING Toby Dodge's Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied 1 (03) constitutes a very interesting guide to the British period in Iraq - or Mesopotamia, as it was then called. The period began, naturally enough, in World War I. Like...
As the United Nations prepares to organize elections and help create a new interim government in Iraq starting in July, skepticism is growing about the wisdom of risking UN lives in a country swirling in violence and chaos.. The UN mission in Iraq is bound to fail,...
The blithering, the blathering, the pontification, and the grandstanding – that about describes the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on the Abu Ghraib filth-fest. The Democrats were so hot to link Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld directly to the...
The star witness before yesterday's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba. Taguba carried out an investigation on the activities of the Army's 800th Military Police Brigade at Abu Ghraib prison. Afterward, he wrote a 6,000 page...
In the old Hollywood westerns, the white settlers circle the wagons to defend themselves against attacks by the Indians until the U.S. Cavalry can arrive to rescue them and chase off their assailants. But in Washington over the last few days it seems that the Cavalry...
The US 1st Marine Division sent a small convoy into Fallujah today in order to meet with the mayor and show cooperation with the Iraqi Police (IP) and Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC). But the supposed show of force was a pre-arranged exercise. Immediately following...
The new U.S. plan to "hasten a transition to democracy" in Cuba has met with more opposition than support among the Cuban people, and even from the very dissidents it is designed to back. The recommendations set forth by the Commission for Assistance to a...
The S&M War What you are suggesting is not only not farfetched; there are several decades of historical experience to support your conclusion. If you have not read it, Edward Herman's The Real Terror Network, written in the early '80s documents the same sort of...
UK Armed Forces in Iraq have shot and killed Iraqi civilians, including an eight-year-old girl and a guest at a wedding celebration, in situations where there was no apparent threat to themselves or others, says a new report from Amnesty International. The report also...
