A news story that broke late yesterday makes it clearer than ever that the U.S. government plans to use the drug war as the pretext to intervene in the Colombian civil war on a massive scale. Exultant press conferences were held in Washington and Bogota to announce...
AN UNCIVIL WAR The controversy over Patrick J. Buchanan’s A Republic, Not an Empire is most remarkable. One could expect a presidential candidate’s critics to use his words against him – “Oh, that mine enemy had written a book.” What is odd is...
A tattoo of war drums over Colombia has begun and can be expected to increase in volume and frequency. National Public Radio's "Morning Edition'' has been doing a five-part series on "the crisis in Colombia.'' The first few reports have had some decent...
I have promised to survey theories of empire. My warrant is simply that empire, where it exists, is burdensome and destructive to the lives and property of real human beings in both the imperial center and its protectorates, allies, and possessions. Keeping empire...
Whether the United States will become involved in a more open way in the ongoing battles by the Colombian government against both narcotraffickers and left-wing guerrillas (sometimes in alliance) is still unknown, but despite official denials it looks more likely by...
Nonintervention – the notion that the purpose of American foreign policy is the actual defense of the United States themselves – is the essential American perspective on foreign affairs. It is the foreign policy most consistent with the republican and...
What is wrong with Serbian nationalism? No one will tell you exactly, but that there is something seriously wrong is taken for granted. It is such an affront to human decency that just mentioning it suffices to justify the most savage bombing since Dresden or a decade...
The UN intervention in East Timor – taken in a larger context than simply the insertion of troops – raises some interesting questions to which I don't claim to have the answers. Are we seeing signs of decentralization or devolution of power here or a...
The unanswered questions about the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the NATO air war against Yugoslavia seem to have raised little interest among the courtier media in the United States, although the London Observer has cited an unnamed intelligence...
In sharp contrast to last spring when we were being literally barraged with anecdotal accounts of alleged atrocities in Kosovo, supposedly committed by Serbian troops against ethnic Albanians, the media are largely silent this summer. The media chose, for the most...
