In 1989, students were at the forefront of the protests that ended in bloodshed in Tiananmen square. The protests called for democracy and reform, but they actually began with a demand for better conditions on Chinese campuses. Crowded dorms without electricity...
When Umberto Bossi, the leader of Italy's Northern League – now "Minister of devolution" in the newly-installed government of Silvio Berlusconi – described the European Union (EU) as "the Soviet Union of the West," Europe's elites went ballistic: Belgian...
As President George W. Bush arrived in Europe to the sneers and jeers of the Europeans, coverage of his trip was dominated by a focus on the irrelevant: Star Wars missile defense (we're going ahead with it, whether they like it or not), America's position on the...
Just when you were wondering what direction George W. Bush's foreign policy will be taking, Charles Krauthammer has it all figured out: in his Washington Post column [June 8, 2001] and in the Weekly Standard, the secret doctrine that animates our seemingly random and...
Various loyal acolytes including CNN, most of the newspapers and the major networks worked diligently to make the killing of Timothy McVeigh into something of a solemn religious event that bolstered the power and dignity of the State and the Empire it fitfully tries...
A CLASSIC WORK REVISITED Albert K. Weinberg’s Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1963 [1935]) still repays close and careful reading. Already in 1935, this work brought together most of the themes...
The vortex of intrigue and international politics swirling around the murder of Nepal's King Birendra – a deed supposedly committed by his own son – and the slaughter of practically the entire royal family threatens to engulf the Himalayan kingdom, and...
The memoirs of ex-Communists – from the embittered fulminations of Benjamin Gitlow (an early defector from the Left) to the tale of espionage and angst told by Whittaker Chambers in his famous book, Witness – constitute a literary subgenre, one that, with...
The Bush administration is putting out all sorts of statements that are presumably supposed to be reassuring. I just wonder who is supposed to be reassured by some of these statements. For example, in domestic affairs, the Bushies want to reassure us that they are...
Why is the Japanese media out to get Makiko Tanaka? Ever since she took office, Japan's "Iron Lady," the blunt-talking daughter of a former prime minister, has been the target of leaks from within her own Foreign Ministry, and vicious attacks in the Japanese media....
