Antiwar.com

It was 1996, and Bill Clinton was president. To give the rascal his due, he was laboring mightily to make the Middle East peace process work. That same year, three American neoconservatives produced a policy paper for the newly elected Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The neocons were Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser. … Continue reading “AIPAC’s Power, or America’s Cowardice?”

There is nothing very complicated or mysterious about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Never trust those who present it as an extremely complex issue, with endless political, historical, religious and cultural repercussions, on which you cannot take an informed stand without a Ph.D. in history and three decades of political activity for AIPAC. It’s quite simple: the … Continue reading “Back to Indirect Occupation?”

Sometimes the perverse consequences of federal government policies and programs are evident immediately and sometimes they take a bit longer. For example, at the end of World War I, statists, imperialists, and interventionists were in ecstasy over the U.S. intervention, proudly claiming that the loss of more than 100,000 American deaths was worth the conquest … Continue reading “Another Perverse Consequence of the “War on Terrorism””

In early 1943, J. Robert Oppenheimer – professor of theoretical physics at the University of California (UC) – set out to recruit a scientific staff for a purpose he could not disclose, to work at a place he could not specify, for a period of time he could not predict. In April, Robert M. Underhill, … Continue reading “Outsource Nukes?”

Three years after al-Qaeda-commandeered planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York and the Pentagon, the leaked ruminations of Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld seem more pertinent than ever. "Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror," he wrote in a memo to his … Continue reading “After Three Years, War on Terror Looks Like a Loser”

Democrats should face it: they are incompetent and Bush will be reelected. With less than two months to go before the election, John Kerry is yet to address a single important issue. William Rivers Pitt, who runs the liberal web site Truthout, vented his frustration by declaring the election the dumbest ever. The entire election, … Continue reading “Hate and Delusion Have the Bit in Their Teeth”

"The American political system has never been as sick as it is today," says Belgian philosopher Lieven De Cauter, in a wide-ranging interview where he discusses his theories about the "state of exception" in the context of the Bush administration’s "war on terror." De Cauter’s ideas are especially timely in light of the continuing revelations … Continue reading “Bush ‘Exceptionalism’ Led to Abu Ghraib”

Soon after the American death toll in Iraq passed the 1,000 mark, I thought of Saadoun Hammadi and some oratory he provided two years ago. At the time, Hammadi was the speaker of Iraq’s National Assembly. "The U.S. administration is now speaking war," Hammadi said. "We are not going to turn the other cheek. We … Continue reading “The Brave Posturing of Armchair Warriors”

According to the geniuses who misled Americans into supporting the war against Iraq, the fighting should have been over a long time ago. The dancing in the streets should have long ago blossomed into a democracy Thomas Jefferson would have been proud of. The soothing effects should have spread throughout the Middle East. Unfortunately, reality … Continue reading “Debased Citizenship”

BAGHDAD – Armed groups and foreign terrorists have established new camps in central Iraq as government forces attack rebels in the north and south, officials say. The reports follow an admission by U.S. central command chief Gen. John Abizaid that there are more areas in Iraq under rebel control today than there were last year. … Continue reading “Iraqi Rebels Expand Area of Control”