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How’s this for a pincer movement? The same issue of the Wall Street Journal that ran Benjamin Netanyahu’s screed calling on the US to "expand democracy" and "free speech" to the Middle East – presumably by overthrowing the current brutes in power – featured WSJ deputy features editor Tunku Varadarajan demanding that the parameters of … Continue reading “Winning Through Intimidation”

We’ve talked on the phone several times, but when I had an almost-free day last week I thought it was time to talk with Chalmers Johnson face to face. His 2000 book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (Henry Holt Metropolitan, now in an Owl books paperback, $15.00, 266 pp.) was selling well … Continue reading “Chalmers Johnson: Changed Cold Warrior”

The stunning victory of the French National Front‘s Jean Marie Le Pen over Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin has European and American elites in a tizzy. They are right to tremble. For the grandfatherly ex-paratrooper represents everything they hate – nationalism, traditionalism, populism – and threatens the values they seek to ensconce: Euro-federalism, multiculturalism, and … Continue reading “The Meaning of Le Pen”

On April 17, we entered the Jenin camp for a third time,accompanied by Thawra. We had met Thawra the night we first entered Jenin. She came into the crowded, makeshift clinic organized by Palestinian Medical Relief Committee workers, cradling Ziad, an 18 day old infant born on the first night of the attack against Jenin. … Continue reading “Searching For the Truth In Jenin”

Jenin – the name is now a synonym for the brutality of the Israeli war machine, and for the heroism of the Palestinian people as they seek to defend themselves against a merciless assault. The Israelis and their amen corner aren’t going to spin their way out of this one, and they know it. Here’s … Continue reading “The Meaning of Jenin”

What I’d really like to do is to tell you some good news for a change, that something has changed, and changed for the better, but I’m afraid that, by the lights of this column, there’s not much of that on the go. ‘Airstrip One,’ inasmuch as it has a theme, is all about whether … Continue reading “Introducing Ameroscepticism”

p align=”left”>On Wednesday I left the wasteland of Gaza and came to East Jerusalem where it is easier to base oneself for traveling. For two days I stayed in the Jenin refugee camp, returning only late this evening. I know I will have to write about it soon in much greater detail than here, even … Continue reading “Oracle At Jenin”

"That such remoteness from reality and such thoughtlessness can wreak more havoc than all the evil instincts taken together which, perhaps, are inherent in man – that was, in fact, the lesson one could learn in Jerusalem." (Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, a Report on the Banality of Evil.) Even when some of the atrocities … Continue reading “In Times of War Crimes”

At the end of every edition of The McLaughlin Group, the panelists are called upon to make their predictions. On a recent broadcast of the show, Pat Buchanan looked into his crystal ball and saw the following: "A huge Israeli spy ring using alleged art students was broken up last year. The story will surface."Well, … Continue reading “Smearing Alex Cockburn”

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I learned that I had the opportunity to meet with Robert Fisk, the British journalist, who was in Southern California last Friday for a speaking engagement at Chapman University in Orange. Of course, I knew his work, in part because Antiwar.com features it regularly and the Register used … Continue reading “Meeting Robert Fisk”