Antiwar.com

I have promised to survey theories of empire. My warrant is simply that empire, where it exists, is burdensome and destructive to the lives and property of real human beings in both the imperial center and its protectorates, allies, and possessions. Keeping empire intact and expanding its sway calls for unending military intervention. Some of … Continue reading “Cui Bono? Imperialism and Theory”

Whether the United States will become involved in a more open way in the ongoing battles by the Colombian government against both narcotraffickers and left-wing guerrillas (sometimes in alliance) is still unknown, but despite official denials it looks more likely by the day. This Monday Reuters ran a story based on an interview with Ivan … Continue reading “Colombia Still Heating Up”

Nonintervention – the notion that the purpose of American foreign policy is the actual defense of the United States themselves – is the essential American perspective on foreign affairs. It is the foreign policy most consistent with the republican and libertarian values of the American Revolution and the ongoing peaceful “revolution” of the free market. … Continue reading “Nonintervention or Empire:”

What is wrong with Serbian nationalism? No one will tell you exactly, but that there is something seriously wrong is taken for granted. It is such an affront to human decency that just mentioning it suffices to justify the most savage bombing since Dresden or a decade of severe economic sanctions by the “international community.” … Continue reading “Kostunica’s “Nationalism””

The UN intervention in East Timor – taken in a larger context than simply the insertion of troops – raises some interesting questions to which I don’t claim to have the answers. Are we seeing signs of decentralization or devolution of power here or a centralizing move? Can East Timor be viewed as part of … Continue reading “Which Way, Old World?”

The unanswered questions about the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the NATO air war against Yugoslavia seem to have raised little interest among the courtier media in the United States, although the London Observer has cited an unnamed intelligence officer to the effect that NATO targeted the building deliberately because it was … Continue reading “Embassy Questions Persist”

In sharp contrast to last spring when we were being literally barraged with anecdotal accounts of alleged atrocities in Kosovo, supposedly committed by Serbian troops against ethnic Albanians, the media are largely silent this summer. The media chose, for the most part, not to report on the most recent wave of KLA atrocities against the … Continue reading “Word Games and the Lexicon of Denial”

I got several objections to my recent column on East Timor pointing out that Indonesia had taken over the former Portuguese colony by force in 1975, an acquisition not recognized diplomatically by a number of countries and protested by numerous human rights campaigners. So the general rule under the older theory, that the "international community” … Continue reading “Timor Complications”

Some people like to say that photographs of President George Bush and other high US officials taken while the Berlin Wall was coming down and Eastern Europe liberating itself (with no real heroics and bloodshed from the likes of NATO, thank you) reveal much unhappiness on the part of men who had given "the whole … Continue reading “STUNNED!”

So, are you ready to answer the call for volunteers for the East Timor Expeditionary Force? Actually, if anybody were seriously thinking of organizing a volunteer force, on the order of the Abraham Lincoln Brigades during the Spanish civil war, I would have no objection, though I wouldn’t be especially tempted to volunteer myself. There … Continue reading “A Timorous Expedition”