Antiwar.com

BEIRUT – Lebanon has not really had the occasion yet to enjoy the departure of Syrian troops and the victory of anti-Syrian groups in the parliamentary elections last month. The country is facing a period of political and economic upheaval almost unparalleled since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war. This week, a fifth bomb … Continue reading “Lebanon Has That Civil War Feeling Again”

In front of TV cameras, Pentagon officials do their best to make war sound wise and noble. Most of all, they lie. Sometimes they do it with bold assertions, other times with intentionally tangled syntax. But those who give the orders that consign young soldiers to participation in horror must assure the folks back home … Continue reading “The Fake Optimism of Washington’s Warriors”

International Herald Tribune columnist William Pfaff recently reported that the Bush administration’s new Bureau of Reconstruction and Stabilization, a State Department subgroup, has been tasked to prepare for a frighteningly expansive future of warfare. “The bureau has 25 countries under surveillance as possible candidates for Defense Department deconstruction and State Department reconstruction,” writes Pfaff. “The … Continue reading “The Politics of ‘Creative Destruction’”

Using Srebrenica The deafening din of propaganda surrounding the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica reached its crescendo Monday, on the 10th anniversary of its fall to Bosnian Serb troops during the 1992-95 war, as an ostentatious ceremony was held at the memorial site in nearby Potocari, with reportedly 50,000 people and dozens of domestic and … Continue reading “Smokescreen”

Last September, conservative columnist Robert Novak predicted the Bush administration would soon start withdrawing from Iraq: “Inside the Bush administration policymaking apparatus, there is strong feeling that U.S. troops must leave Iraq next year. This determination is not predicated on success in implanting Iraqi democracy and internal stability. Rather, the officials are saying: Ready or … Continue reading “Iraq: The Phony ‘Withdrawal’”

Long columns of trucks wait at the Jordanian border to carry their loads of supplies into war-torn Iraq. When Iraqi drivers wish to enter Jordan, they now wait up to 18 days to be allowed in. The al-Karama border is a land of waiting, but not just for the truck drivers. There have been others … Continue reading “No Man’s Land Along the Iraq-Jordan Border”

When journalist Aaron Glantz drove into Iraq from Jordan in a battered orange and white checkered taxi on April 29, 2003, he was surprised to find most of the civilian neighborhoods in Baghdad relatively unscathed by the U.S.-led bombing campaign. “It occurred to me for the first time that the Pentagon might be telling the … Continue reading “New Book Examines Occupation Through Iraqis’ Eyes”

A recent appeals court decision to acquit 12 soldiers convicted last year of a notorious 1984 massacre in Jakarta, Indonesia, could complicate efforts by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush to normalize military ties with the Southeast Asian nation. The acquittal, which was reported last week by the BBC but has yet to … Continue reading “Indonesia Court Ruling Could Set Back US Ties”

Who carried out the London massacre, we do not know. But, as to why they did it, we are already quarreling. President Bush says that the terrorists are attacking our civilization. At Fort Bragg, N.C., he explained again why we are fighting in Iraq, two years after we overthrew Saddam Hussein. “Iraq is the latest … Continue reading “Why Are They Killing Us?”

At some level, the situation is simple enough. As retired Lt. Col. Charles A. Krohn, former Army deputy chief of public affairs at the Pentagon and in Baghdad, put it recently in the Washington Post, the Bush administration has “basically committed most of the Army’s active forces (including much of the National Guard), rotating them … Continue reading “Cyberstalking the Recruitable Teen”