Category: Uncategorized

Late Friday evening, after only a few short hours of debate, Congress passed legislation creating a new Department of Homeland Security. The new department represents the biggest government reorganization since the creation of the Department of Defense in the 1940s, and potentially the single biggest expansion of the federal government in our history. Over 175,000 … Continue reading “The Homeland Security Non-Debate”

The idea that oil is key to understanding the administration’s actions in the “war on terrorism” is an article of faith on the Left. Not the social-democratic Clintonite left – which naturally wouldn’t be caught dead in the company of Noam Chomsky, Alex Cockburn, and Ted Rall – but the remnants of the Old Left … Continue reading “PALACE REVOLUTION”

This agreeably short book received much uncritical praise from varieties of conservatives when first it was published in the United States. Its principal merit lay in the fact that it was taken to be another weapon with which the perpetrators of the 11th of September terrorism could be assailed. One might have thought that the … Continue reading “The Uses and Abuses of a Reasonable Man”

In early 1945, Hiram Bingham faced a tough decision: he could follow his government’s orders to ignore the Nazi holocaust, thereby keeping his comfortable position as US vice-consul in Marseilles, or he could defy State Department policy by issuing life-saving US visas to French Jews and anti-Nazi activists. Bingham chose the latter, and as a … Continue reading “Constructive Dissent”

In early 1945, Hiram Bingham faced a tough decision: he could follow his government’s orders to ignore the Nazi holocaust, thereby keeping his comfortable position as US vice-consul in Marseilles, or he could defy State Department policy by issuing life-saving US visas to French Jews and anti-Nazi activists. Bingham chose the latter, and as a … Continue reading “Constructive Dissent”

Everyone agrees the 9-11 tragedy confirmed a problem that exists in our domestic security and dramatized our vulnerability to outside attacks. Most agree that the existing bureaucracy was inept. The CIA, the FBI, the INS, and Customs failed to protect us. It was not a lack of information that caused this failure; they had plenty. … Continue reading “Department of Homeland Security – Who Needs It?”

Perhaps this description of Mordor from the film version of Tolkien’s classic is too harsh on the Balkans. After all, the peninsula is not a fountainhead of evil, merely a victim of its ravages and possession. A more apt comparison in this vein would be Moria: a crossroads once full of wealth and splendor, now … Continue reading “Snapshots Of A Nightmare”

It’s not so much that the details of the Bush plan are faultier than some other plan some other leader might have devised. The bigger question is why an American president who upon assuming office seemed to understand that American micromanagement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was a losing game is now so eager to impose … Continue reading “Bush: Planning in the Whirlwind”

The two premier magazines of foreign affairs recently featured articles with diametrically opposed themes on a much-discussed topic: is the US Empire on the rise, or in decline? In Foreign Affairs, flagship journal of the New World Order crowd, Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth celebrate the rise of the American hegemon, and disdainfully … Continue reading “DECLINE & FALL”

Opposition to the Patriot Act, legislation passed by Congress and signed by the President last year, is growing. Americans are beginning to understand that many precious liberties have been put in jeopardy by the government’s rush to enact new laws in the wake of September 11th. Federal law enforcement agencies now have broad authority to … Continue reading “Monitor Thy Neighbor”