Category: Uncategorized

It is a symptom of the consensus disease in American politics that veteran Justice Department bureaucrat Robert Mueller was confirmed as head of the FBI without a single dissenting vote in the U.S. Senate. Despite a good deal of posturing in the Judiciary Committee, accompanied by some reasonably telling critiques of the direction and culture … Continue reading “FBI Taking Wrong International Path”

In the Golden Age of the exploring colonists, the trailblazers were anthropologists, botanists, soldiers and, later, benevolent trading companies. These fine gentlemen categorized and conquered, bringing glory, wisdom and riches back to the motherland, but little changed for the farmers and petty merchants whose lives they jotted down into their notebooks. One hundred or so … Continue reading “Trailblazing”

I‘ve always loved needling Bill Kristol and his neoconservative buddies as lefties in conservative drag: their whole “national greatness” agenda is such a dead giveaway that I often wondered how anyone to the right of, say, John McCain, could possibly be taken in by it. In column after column, I’ve exposed and excoriated the neocons … Continue reading “SEDUCING BILL KRISTOL”

On August 31, the UN will convene a conference on racism that has already caused a storm of controversy here in the United States and abroad. We have only to invoke its formal name, the “World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance,” to get some idea of the bogus nature of this … Continue reading “IS ZIONISM RACISM?”

AN ECHT LIBERAL IN BISMARCKIAN GERMANY Somehow, in my last column I wandered into 19th-century Germany. I wish to dwell there long enough to say something about perhaps the most echt (“genuine”) of all late 19th-century German liberals, Eugen Richter. Anyone who has suffered through a standard course on the history of that period will … Continue reading “Eugen Richter on War and Empire”

A recent New York Post editorial deplored the deepening US commitment in the Balkans and wondered why the Bush administration wasn’t following through on Dubya’s campaign promise to get us out of that particular quagmire. Noting the President’s pronouncement that the "American contribution is essential, both militarily and politically," because "ethnic extremists are still stoking … Continue reading “THE BALKANS: WHAT IS BUSH UP TO?”

Our political culture – insofar as it is intelligible to speak of such a concept – seems to have a gift for asking the wrong, mostly irrelevant, questions and then obsessing about them at great and usually unhelpful length. Thus in recent weeks we have heard a great deal about “unilateralism” and various talking and … Continue reading “Defining Terms Unilaterally”

The Balkans have long been the focus of the War Party, and now here’s your chance to experience the consequences of US intervention firsthand – while learning more about the ancient culture and uniqueness of the region. The Rockford Institute is sponsoring a trip to Serbia and Montenegro, September 17-28, and I’ll be going – … Continue reading “I’M GOING TO SERBIA!”

Life in the Israel is so difficult – and it’s not just because of the hot and humid summer. No, it’s the neighbours, they are the real trouble. It’s so hard to be the only democracy in the Middle East, surrounded by all those bloodthirsty Arab dictatorships. Prime Minister Shimon Peres (Nobel Prize Winner for … Continue reading “The Chosen Pariah”

"Bah," spat my buddy Victor. "Chinese love face too much." It seems the $10 million performance was so unpopular that the organizers were giving away tickets at the end just to fill the 30,000 seats – the cheapest of those being 800 yuan, a months wage for 80 percent of the population and the most … Continue reading “Too Much Face”