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William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, has the best public relations operation around: in spite of the fact that his puny little magazine has significantly less readers than Antiwar.com, and regularly loses millions, he is the liberals’ favorite conservative, and thus gets touted by ABC News (where he once served as the “conservative” counterpoint … Continue reading “Kristol and Buchanan”

ON MAKING REALITY CONFORM TO PRECONCEPTIONS The whole history of US-Chinese relations could be written as a history of the delusions held by US policy makers and business interests about China. What China actually was, or is, entered into matters very little, aside from occasional US attempts at meddling and influencing the course of events … Continue reading “China Syndrome”

It was Wang Wei’s birthday on Friday. Who? Well, I can tell you’re not Chinese, my friend, because by this time practically every citizen of the PRC knows the name of a man who has become a national hero virtually overnight. He’s the object of admiring profiles in the Chinese government-controlled media – one account … Continue reading “Ode to Wang-Wei”

Novelist Gore Vidal has been chosen by Tim McVeigh to be one of a very few who will be allowed to witness McVeigh’s upcoming execution – and the legion of the politically correct (neoconservative division) is up in arms. Andrew Sullivan, gay neoconservative poster boy and rising star of the moment – if I see … Continue reading “In Defense of Gore Vidal”

Today [Thursday morning] Matt Drudge used the “H”-word for the first time in a headline: POWELL HAS HOPE FOR ‘LITTLE SITUATION’ WITH CHINA, Matt notes with apparent disdain, darkly adding: HOSTAGES ENTER 6TH DAY OF CAPTIVITY. How long before Dan Rather opens his newscasts by solemnly intoning that it’s “Day [pick a number, any number] … Continue reading “War Party Plays the Race Card”

The story we are getting about the “accidental” downing of an EP-3 spy plane, packed with sensitive electronic equipment, over the South China sea, and its emergency landing on Hainan island, at a Chinese military base, makes absolutely no sense – no matter whom is doing the telling. A GAUNTLET THROWN The Chinese say that … Continue reading “The Ressurrection of Gary Powers”

It might turn out to be fortunate, although I see no evidence yet that the timing was other than coincidental, that the current Serbian government arrested Slobodan Milosevic the same week the Bush administration was confronted with its first major foreign-policy incident with the downing of a U.S. spy plane near Chinese territorial waters. With … Continue reading “Let the Serbs Handle Slobo”

It was hardly a heroic last stand. Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian strongman who presided over the destruction of Yugoslavia, had vowed never to be taken alive. Unfortunately, he failed to deliver on his promise. After a 26-hour stand-off, in which Yugoslav police twice stormed the villa in which he was holed up, Milosevic finally … Continue reading “Slobo’s Last Stand”

In my last column, I presented the first part of a proposed “Platform” for noninterventionist conservatives, a statement of principle and policy broken down along geographical lines. Part I dealt with Europe and Eastasia; what follows are sections covering the Middle East, the Americas, and the status of America’s colonial possessions. A Time for Truth … Continue reading “America Come Home (Part II)”

This morning’s [March 27] New York Times has yet another story about the developing split within the Bush administration over foreign policy, with the partisans of Donald Rumsfeld, unreconstructed cold warrior, versus Colin Powell’s (relatively) noninterventionist State Department. As is usual with the arbiter of the conventional wisdom, the Times defined the two camps in … Continue reading “America, Come Home”