Since today's dispatch is by a former federal prosecutor, let me suggest a small "law" of my own, one fit for the present moment: When it comes to the Bush administration, whatever the subject may be and however bad you think things are, they're going to be at least...
Back in September 2004, the Wall Street Journal's Farnaz Fassihi, then covering Iraq, wrote an e-mail to friends that began: "Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest." A year and a half later, it's still a striking...
In the first of a two-part dispatch, "Disintegrating Iraqi Sovereignty," Michael Schwartz explored Iraq's missing "sovereignty." Most of us take sovereignty for granted, but under the pressure of invasion, occupation, destruction, and arrogance as well as increasing...
You know things are going badly indeed in Iraq when U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad chooses to use an image – Pandora's box – previously wielded only by that critic of the Iraq War, French President Jacques Chirac. Back in September 2004, Chirac compared...
We already have "stealth" aircraft, but what about a little of the stealth that only nature can provide? Navy SEALs, move over – here come the Navy sharks. According to the latest New Scientist magazine, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA,...
The other day on Jerry Agar's radio show, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld responded to accusations about American atrocities at our prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He accused the detainees there of manipulating public opinion by lying about their treatment. He...
Look at the polls. When Gallup's pollsters go out to ask Americans about the Bush administration and Iraq, they frame their questions this way: "Do you think the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq, or not?"; "Do you favor or oppose the U.S. war...
On a cloudless day, the sky a brilliant, late-afternoon blue, my car winds its way up the Berkeley hills. Plum and pear trees in glorious whites and pinks burst into sight at each turn in the road. Beds of yellow flowers, trees hung with lemons, and the odd palm are...
Just when you thought it couldn't get worse – the al-Askariya shrine, the Golden Mosque of Samarra, one of Shia Islam's most revered sites, was invaded by gunmen in police uniforms (possibly from Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia group, though no one has yet...
Over a week ago, Vice President Cheney managed to put a couple of hundred pellets of birdshot into his 78-year-old friend and Texas Republican Party builder, Harry Whittington. As the event turned into a national joke, edged with anger, and a late night spectacle, it...
