What value has a human life? We usually think of this in terms of sentiment – of memories, grief, love, longing, of everything, in short, that is too deep and valuable to put a price upon. Then again, is anything in our world truly priceless? As anyone who has...
For Americans, whose view of Islam and Islamic politics is, to put the matter politely, less than complex, it's worth being reminded of just how complex, how unexpected, politics (religious or otherwise) can turn out to be anywhere on this planet. With that in mind,...
Patrick Cockburn has been hailed by Sidney Blumenthal in Salon as "one of the most accurate and intrepid journalists in Iraq." And that's hardly praise enough, given what the man has done. The Middle Eastern correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent,...
In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2002-2003, oil was seldom mentioned. Yes, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz did describe the country as afloat "on a sea of oil" (which might fund any American war and reconstruction program there); and, yes, on rare...
[Note for TomDispatch readers: On this fourth anniversary of the president's "Mission Accomplished" moment, I urge you to consider ordering yourself a copy of Mission Unaccomplished: TomDispatch Interviews with American Iconoclasts and Dissenters (Nation Books). James...
Let's be clear about what it is – when it comes to "withdrawal" from Iraq – that the president will veto this Wednesday. Section 1904(b) of the supplemental appropriations bill for the Pentagon, H.R. 1591, passed by the House and Senate, mandates that the...
Back in September 2006, I wrote a post, "The Facts on the Ground, Mini-Gulags, Hired Guns, Lobbyists, and a Reality Built on Fear," in which I wondered whether any new administration, any new president would ever be able to take real steps toward ridding our world of...
Last Jan. 16, a car bomb blew up near an entrance to Mustansiriya University in Baghdad – and then, as rescuers approached, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the crowd. In all, at least 60 Iraqis, mostly female students leaving campus for home, were killed and...
Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) released new figures on the disintegrating health situation in Iraq, where, according to the group, 100 people a day die, on average, and countless more are wounded. Of the injured who manage to make it to an emergency...
My aunt Hilda, whose very name came from some other century, once told me her earliest memory: She was a little girl standing under a large tree in the backyard of her house in Brooklyn, and she cried out for help. Her mother (my grandmother) Celia came out to ask...
