Antiwar.com

It was Wang Wei’s birthday on Friday. Who? Well, I can tell you’re not Chinese, my friend, because by this time practically every citizen of the PRC knows the name of a man who has become a national hero virtually overnight. He’s the object of admiring profiles in the Chinese government-controlled media – one account … Continue reading “Ode to Wang-Wei”

Today [Thursday morning] Matt Drudge used the “H”-word for the first time in a headline: POWELL HAS HOPE FOR ‘LITTLE SITUATION’ WITH CHINA, Matt notes with apparent disdain, darkly adding: HOSTAGES ENTER 6TH DAY OF CAPTIVITY. How long before Dan Rather opens his newscasts by solemnly intoning that it’s “Day [pick a number, any number] … Continue reading “War Party Plays the Race Card”

The story we are getting about the “accidental” downing of an EP-3 spy plane, packed with sensitive electronic equipment, over the South China sea, and its emergency landing on Hainan island, at a Chinese military base, makes absolutely no sense – no matter whom is doing the telling. A GAUNTLET THROWN The Chinese say that … Continue reading “The Ressurrection of Gary Powers”

It might turn out to be fortunate, although I see no evidence yet that the timing was other than coincidental, that the current Serbian government arrested Slobodan Milosevic the same week the Bush administration was confronted with its first major foreign-policy incident with the downing of a U.S. spy plane near Chinese territorial waters. With … Continue reading “Let the Serbs Handle Slobo”

It was hardly a heroic last stand. Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian strongman who presided over the destruction of Yugoslavia, had vowed never to be taken alive. Unfortunately, he failed to deliver on his promise. After a 26-hour stand-off, in which Yugoslav police twice stormed the villa in which he was holed up, Milosevic finally … Continue reading “Slobo’s Last Stand”

In my last column, I presented the first part of a proposed “Platform” for noninterventionist conservatives, a statement of principle and policy broken down along geographical lines. Part I dealt with Europe and Eastasia; what follows are sections covering the Middle East, the Americas, and the status of America’s colonial possessions. A Time for Truth … Continue reading “America Come Home (Part II)”

This morning’s [March 27] New York Times has yet another story about the developing split within the Bush administration over foreign policy, with the partisans of Donald Rumsfeld, unreconstructed cold warrior, versus Colin Powell’s (relatively) noninterventionist State Department. As is usual with the arbiter of the conventional wisdom, the Times defined the two camps in … Continue reading “America, Come Home”

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE….. Over the last few weeks a realization has been trickling down into the dimmer reaches of the US media. It is a realization that a specter is haunting Europe, the specter of Greater Albania. There is much open shock and dismay – now – that our little pals, the Albanian guerrillas, … Continue reading “Same Old Story: Film at Eleven”

THE MYSTERY OF SELF-CRUCIFIXION What I don’t get is this: how come American born-again Christians slavishly rationalize the casual brutalities of Israel’s every twist and turn, close their eyes to the killing of Palestinian children, and hail the butcher Ariel Sharon as some kind of modern-day Moses – but, when it comes to defending a … Continue reading “America’s War Against Christianity”

Israel is presently experiencing a clear return to the past. The younger generation – Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, born in the 1940’s – was forced out of the political arena, and the older generation – Ariel Sharon (as Prime Minister) and Shimon Peres (as Foreign Minister), born in the 1920’s – returned to power. … Continue reading “BARAK’S LEGACY”