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”