Antiwar.com

I feel pretty safe in my little netbar across from one of the biggest vegetable/meat/fish/assorted goodies markets in Chengdu. I am surrounded by Diablo (the latest computer game craze to take China by storm) playing young fellows, dirty side streets, hot pot stalls and peasant construction workers tearing down the old city. If I walk … Continue reading “Crackdown!”

Uh-Oh …. Don’t look now, but last week President Vladimir Putin had the bright idea of bringing back the five-pointed red star as the insignia of the Russian military. It all begins to make sense if we note the Russian government’s crackdown on … Barbie! The Guardian is on the story: "The Russian Ministry of … Continue reading “TO RUSSIA, WITH LOVE”

Shall we agree on a few things? If Mr Blix and his Unmovic chums are even squinted at by some Ba’athist oaf, that will be pretext enough for war. If there is then a war, it will, presumably, be waged at least as efficiently as the last one – and although there will be heap … Continue reading “What to Do With Iraq?”

Thousands of American troops already occupy Afghanistan, and perhaps hundreds of thousands more are poised to attack Iraq. The justification given for these military invasions is that both nations support terrorism, and thus pose a risk to the United States. Yet when we step back and examine the region as a whole, it’s obvious that … Continue reading “Our Incoherent Foreign Policy Fuels Middle East Turmoil”

Some of the media are politely calling it an inspired choice. But does anybody really think we will learn anything we didn’t already know from the commission to be headed by Henry Kissinger to look into the intelligence and enforcement failures that led up to the terrorist attacks of September 11? For that matter, does … Continue reading “The Whitewash Commission”

Rarely has there been a display of unanimity such as the universal hissing that greeted Henry Kissinger’s appointment as chairman of the "National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States." From Maureen Dowd’s reliably b*tchy response – "Who better to investigate an unwarranted attack on America than the man who used to instigate America’s … Continue reading “HAIL HENRY!”

History is the collective memory of a society. Individuals can be manipulated by tampering with their recollections (see Christopher Nolan’s eerie Memento), but doing this to societies is much easier. Personal memory is at least derived from human senses, unreliable as they may be. History is based on written interpretations of events that the authors … Continue reading “Forged Memories”

It had to happen sooner or later, and I don’t want to sound too full of myself, but I did predict it: I mean the attempt to tie the Saudis, Al Qaeda, and the Bush administration into one gigantic conspiracy and cover-up. Headlines are being made by Newsweek, which ran a story by Michael Isikoff … Continue reading “WAR PARTY DUMPS BUSH?”

The administration and Congress put the finishing touches on the monstrous Homeland Security bill last week, creating the first new federal department since the Department of Defense at the end of World War II. Laughably, the new department has been characterized as merely a "reorganization" of existing agencies, even though I notice no department was … Continue reading “Homeland Security Is the Largest Federal Expansion in 50 Years”

Well, President Bush has his Homeland Security Agency. I hope he’s happy. I doubt that American taxpayers and citizens will be especially pleased when it all shakes out, but the president has parlayed this year’s election results into the appearance of decisiveness and a short-term political victory. Good for him. Not so good for us. … Continue reading “Deck Chairs on the Ship of State”