What Price Unanimity?

The 567-page final report released Thursday by the 9/11 Commission provides a wealth of data – indeed, so much detail that it is easy to get lost in the trees and miss the forest. Comments by the ubiquitous commissioners over the weekend leave the impression either that they themselves have no window on the forest, … Continue reading “What Price Unanimity?”

Conflict Spreads Within Fatah

RAMALLAH – A bullet hole in the curtain of the television room at Palestinian opposition figure Nabil Amr’s luxurious villa still attests to the shooting last Wednesday in which he was heavily wounded. Amr survived and is in hospital in Jordan, but Palestinian politics may be in a terminal crisis. “They were shooting to kill, … Continue reading “Conflict Spreads Within Fatah”

Incompetent Imperialists

There is an American Empire, but we should dump it, because we Americans are woefully incompetent when it comes to maintaining empires. One mistake that seems to be a permanent feature of our foreign policy is mirror-imaging. So many American politicians, most of them poorly educated and ignorant of other people and their cultures, tend … Continue reading “Incompetent Imperialists”

Do We Want a War Criminal as President?

Antiwar activists who thought they were going to be able to communicate their views to Democratic party delegates in Boston this week are in for an unpleasant surprise: "Protesters for the next few days will be enclosed in a shadowy, closed-off piece of urban streetscape just over a block away. The maze of overhead netting, … Continue reading “Do We Want a War Criminal as President?”

The Committee on the Present Confusion

With full-page ads in The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Washington Times trumpeting its slide down the spillways, The Committee on the Present Danger has been relaunched. The 1970s committee of Republican hawks and neoconservatives denounced détente and called for clarity, courage and perseverance in the Cold War against a Soviet empire … Continue reading “The Committee on the Present Confusion”

From China to Frankfurt

Frankfurt’s Cathedral looks out over the Main River and over into Old Sachsenhausen, as it has for the past 400 years – a focus point for artists and authors, medieval farmers and merchants, Cold War GIs, Turkish and Colombian bars and, most recently, East Asian tourists. Deeper in Sachsenhausen, retired Germans drink Applewine out of … Continue reading “From China to Frankfurt”

Iran’s Next

For at least two years the Bush-Cheney administration has been demanding that the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors judge Iran to be in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Should the IAEA Board make such a judgment, it would then be obliged to report that to the UN Security Council. It would … Continue reading “Iran’s Next”

Backtalk July 26, 2004

Daily Show with George Bush I must say I have several things in which I disagree with the Bush administration, just as I had several things I disagreed with when Pres. Clinton was in office. I am 58-years-old, follow politics on a regular basis, have watched our country make mistakes under both Democrats and Republicans, … Continue reading “Backtalk July 26, 2004”