On Tuesday, the Senate voted 90-9 to approve the landmark Homeland Security bill. What follows is the full transcript of Sen. Byrd's remarks during the conclusion of the Homeland Security debate. We have come to the end of a long, long road. For nearly five months...

In two commentaries this past week, Empire’s Balkans adventures were brought up in connection with the planned invasion and occupation of Iraq. They didn’t say, though they could have, that the new UN resolution paving the way for weapons inspectors was akin...

One of the under-explored aspects of the upcoming war against Iraq is whether it's really upcoming at all. Whether, in fact, it's much as many of the leading personalities involved – Colin Powell, a plurality of his American peers still in uniform, even by times,...

So, you're depressed about the supposedly unstoppable war about to break out in the Middle East: polls say that most Americans, no matter what their views on this matter, are convinced that war is "inevitable." But, you know what? It just ain't so. To begin...

Government efforts at benevolence always backfire. Inevitably, unintended consequences overwhelm the short-term and narrow benefits of authoritarian programs designed to make the economic system fair, the people morally better, and the world safe for democracy. One...

Congress spent just a few short hours last week voting to create the biggest new federal bureaucracy since World War II, not that the media or even most members of Congress paid much attention to the process. Yet our most basic freedoms as Americans – privacy in...

In the months prior to 9/11 a flurry of activity by Israeli intelligence agents in the U.S. signaled that something big was going on – but the FBI, the CIA, and the myriad of federal agencies charged with protecting this country from terrorism hadn't a clue. Now,...

In the field of foreign policy one hears a lot about "realists" vs. "idealists," Marxists, and so on. In such discussions the term "realist" does not necessarily mean hard-headed, feet-on-the-ground, practical, pragmatic, worldly, ready...

As I have listened to the discussions about Saddam Hussein and Iraq, some disturbing questions have arisen. As an ordinary citizen with no special expertise in foreign policy, I am unable to get to the bottom of them. As a skeptic, however, who remembers how the Gulf...

When the process of creating a Department of Homeland Security commenced, Congress was led to believe that the legislation would be a simple reorganization aimed at increasing efficiency, not an attempt to expand federal power. Fiscally conservative members of...