Category: Uncategorized

Although the Senate hearings on a possible American attack on Iraq were generally disappointing, an inclination to ask questions does seem to have surfaced as the possibility of such a war becomes more imminent. Certainly the comments from House Majority Leader Dick Armey about the inadvisability of attacking a country without a substantial justification for … Continue reading “Invasion Complications”

It’s a sadly telling fact of American political life that Rep. Dick Armey didn’t dare tell us what he really thinks of Bush II’s war plans until he decided it was time to retire: Republican politicians (and Democrats, for that matter) don’t usually defy the War Party and live to tell the tale. But, hey, … Continue reading “HAIL DICK ARMEY!”

In 1998 the UK government did perhaps the best thing it has done to date: it conducted a Strategic Defence Review (SDR) which was foreign policy, not resource led. Instead of defence policy being cobbled together in response to whatever scraps the Treasury affords the MoD, new Labour very sensibly intended that it should be … Continue reading “Moral Truncheons”

There have been complaints that I have not named the “liberventionists.” I do not see the necessity for this, since I assume that readers of this website read widely. For the record, however, let us stipulate that liberventionists include at least the following: many Objectivists, the CATO Institute, several self-named “anarchists” writing on the web, … Continue reading “Liberventionism III: The Flight from History”

Just as the news that the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Advisory Board had declared Saudi Arabia “the kernel of evil” was rolling into Washington, and roiling US relations with the Kingdom, another far less-noticed item off the Dow-Jones Newswire was putting the whole brouhaha in its proper context:“The fate of $25 billion in foreign investment into … Continue reading “GOING AFTER THE SAUDIS”

You’ve really got to hand it to the neocons: they sure know how to conduct a bang-up propaganda campaign. The leak of a “briefing” to the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, which targeted the Saudis as the real locus of world terrorism, is all over the place: not only the Washington Post, but MSNBC, Fox News, … Continue reading “NEOCONS GO FOR THE GOLD”

One expects a certain amount of corner-cutting on both procedures and concern for civil liberties during time of war. That’s one of the main reasons some of us prefer to avoid war when at all possible, because we know that government power will grow and citizen liberty will suffer. War, as Randolph Bourne explained so … Continue reading “U.S. Government Behaving Badly”

The Senate Foreign Relations committee spent much of last week hearing testimony about Iraq. A second U.S. invasion of Iraq seems a foregone conclusion, as the testimony focused not on the wisdom of such an invasion, but rather only on how and when it should be done. Never mind that our own State department and … Continue reading “Will Congress Debate War with Iraq?”

Bill Clinton wouldn’t fight for his own country, as we all know, but now he says he’d grab a gun and fight …. for Israel:“If Iraq came across the Jordan River … I would grab a rifle and get in the trench and fight and die.”Conservatives had a good chortle over that little news item, … Continue reading “NO TRUER LOVE”

Forget the Senate hearings on Iraq, ignore Congress, and never mind our laptop bombardiers. How many of these guys have ever been anywhere near a battlefield? Instead, listen to what the US military is saying about the prospect of Gulf War II….Today’s [August 1] Washington Post reports “an increasingly contentious debate … within the Bush … Continue reading “ATTACK OF THE CHICKEN-HAWKS”