From Miami to Mitrovica, from Ruby Ridge to Iraq, the US government propaganda machine is geared up to put the best "spin" on the violence at the core of its power. In the assault on Iraq, TV viewers in the West were entertained by the "Nintendo war" as American...
I know, at least in theory, that we are governed by criminals: after all, what kind of a person would bomb an aspirin factory in an effort to divert attention from his own sickening perversions? Who else would slaughter thousands in the former Yugoslavia in the name...
One of the pleasures of keeping fat files – sometimes outweighed, sometimes not by the general air of messiness on the desk – is the opportunity to compare what officials said they expected at various times in the past to what has actually occurred. In the...
Whatever else they disagree on when it comes to the controversy surrounding Elian Gonzalez, pundits left and right all nod their heads sagely whenever someone says that this is a great "tragedy" and offers up the bromide that "no one is a winner" in this case. This is...
THE STATE OF PLAY A few weeks ago, I dealt with the overblown reaction to the electoral success of Austrian’s "far right." Since then, the watchdogs of Euro morality have taken up other subjects, but "sanctions" remain in place. Some...
The BBC headline said it all: "Serb Hackers on the rampage" – or did it? This was the story the media went with in response to last week's spate of hacking attacks on a number of high profile sites, including Addidas and Viagra, where the content was stripped and...
With the end of the Cold War, and the implosion of Communism, the political landscape in the US is undergoing a seismic shift. The Left, which had once been antiwar and pro-individual rights (at least in theory) has been infected with a mania for militarism (albeit in...
It could well be that as somebody who makes his living manipulating words I have an undue and unjustified faith in the importance and ultimate efficacy of calling phenomena by their proper names to advance understanding and enlightenment. Even granting that such is...
It feels oddly like being at a wake in a funeral home. Our four delegation members whisper together as we wait to tour the Al Mansour Children's wing at the Saddam City Medical Centre. The Director is away, so someone has been sent to find a senior doctor to brief us....
At the height of the Kosovo war hysteria, when we were being subjected to a daily barrage of bawling refugees telling vivid horror stories of alleged Serbian "atrocities," the estimates of dead Kosovars went as high as 100,000. If "genocide" was committed in Kosovo,...
