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No wonder all those crunchy-granola kids hate capitalism, or think they do. Getta loada this from today’s [September 15] Washington Post: "Although senior Bush administration officials say they have not begun to focus on the issues involving oil and Iraq, American and foreign oil companies have already begun maneuvering for a stake in the country’s … Continue reading “ATTACK OF THE GREED-HEADS”

p> The House Committee on International Relations is holding hearings this Thursday on the question of whether we ought to invade Iraq – and only one side, the pro-war side, is going to be heard. Here is a list of the witnesses: Richard Perle – a chicken-hawk of the first order, who has been all … Continue reading “House Iraq Hearings – Only War Party Allowed to Testify”

I am not actually going to say much about Henry Cabot Lodge here. He is useful, however, as a symbol of one particular approach to U.S. imperial policy. Lodge was an influential Senator (R., Massachusetts), a crony of Theodore Roosevelt and other high-toned turn-of-the-20th-century Republican imperialists. He was thus one of the architects of what … Continue reading “The Ghost of Henry Cabot Lodge”

Not long ago, an Off-Broadway play opened with the tantalizingly relevant title, Now That Communism is Dead My Life Feels Empty! I thought immediately of the writer Mark Danner’s perceptive remark that this country is "marooned in the Cold War." Today we see that in the hearts and minds of Washington’s relatively small but very … Continue reading “Don’t Ignore Conservative and Liberal Antiwar Groups”

The President’s war speech to the United Nations, delivered just a day after the first anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, not only underscored the paucity of his case, but pointed to the great diversion represented by this new adventure: "We meet one year and one day after a terrorist attack brought … Continue reading “WHY THIS WAR?”

On the anniversary of 9/11, newspapers throughout China ran front page photos of the burning Towers – many with an inset depicting mourning Americans. Articles focused on America’s War on Terrorism, the anguish of the victims’ familis and the few Chinese nationals that died in the attack. The newspapers tended to be very sympathetic toward … Continue reading “Deciphering the Chinese Smile”

"The world has changed. Nothing is the same any more." Those were the two most common sentiments last year, in the shell-shocked aftermath of Black Tuesday, as the horrors of war stopped being something that happened elsewhere. A year later, those phrases ring hollow – along with the pledges to fight "terrorism" and "evil." On … Continue reading “The Day Nothing Changed”

I had landed at JFK Airport just seven hours earlier, on 9/10, and was groggy when my father roused me at 9:50 that fateful morning—but what was happening on the television screen burnt through the veil of sleep and seared me in my soul. "Good God, look what they did!" I was on the phone … Continue reading “9/11 DISCONNECT”

Soon we hope to have hearings on the pending war with Iraq. I am concerned there are some questions that won’t be asked – and maybe will not even be allowed to be asked. Here are some questions I would like answered by those who are urging us to start this war. 1. Is it … Continue reading “Questions That Won’t Be Asked About Iraq”

Do you believe President Bush and Prime Minister Blair that there are new reports suggesting that Saddam Hussein is getting somewhat close to being able to manufacture a nuclear weapon, or do you believe the International Atomic Energy Agency, which says it has no such evidence? In terms of justifying an attack on Iraq, it … Continue reading “Preventive or Preemptive War?”