Dive into the archives.
- Prove It.
The U.S. administration is furious over Israeli incitement against President Barack Obama, Democratic congressmen close to Obama told an Israeli source who returned from a visit to Washington this week. (full article…)
- Afghanistan, Eight Years On
Invading Afghanistan was a clear war crime, despite the tendency to term it the “good war” by so-called antiwar voices in the West. Instead of treating the 9/11 attacks as a unique crime and cooperating with the international community to arrest Bin-Laden and his acolytes, Bush launched his Global War on Terror and invaded Afghanistan [...]
- “Our” Airspace
“We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?” he told the news site ‘The Beast’. (full article…)
- How 9/11 Should Be Remembered
After 9/11, it could all have been different, profoundly different. And if it had, there would have been no children imprisoned without charges or release dates in our gulag in Cuba; there would have been no unmanned drones slaughtering wedding parties in the rural backlands of Afghanistan or the Iraqi desert; there would have been [...]
- Popular Opinion
A new survey of global opinion reveals strong negative feelings toward U.S. foreign policy, even as an average of 61 percent of those polled have at least some confidence in President Barack Obama to make sound decisions. (more…)
- Reach Out to Cuba
[R]ecent decisions by Costa Rica and El Salvador to restore relations with Cuba leave the United States as the only country in the hemisphere that does not officially recognize the government of the Caribbean island. (more…)
- Saying Less and Less
Some academics say that while the growing gap between theory and policy may have costs for policy, it has produced better social science theory, and that this is more important than whether such scholarship is relevant. Also, to some extent, the gap is an inevitable result of the growth and specialization of knowledge. Few people [...]
- This is “Change”
Rice explains: “I think the challenge in Iraq is not to lose focus. It is not a question of when American combat forces withdraw. The distance between what the Obama Administration is talking about and what we negotiated is very small, but Iraq is on its way to becoming a strategic asset, but it’s not [...]
- Chomsky on the Upcoming Khmer Rouge Trials
“It [the trial] shouldn’t be limited to the Cambodians,” said Chomsky in an interview that appeared on the weekend. “An international trial that doesn’t take into account Henry Kissinger or other authors of the American bombings and the support of the KR [Khmer Rouge] after they were kicked out of the country, that’s just a [...]
- Juan Cole on Obama’s Domino Theory
[Obama's] latter-day domino theory of al-Qaida takeovers in South Asia is just as implausible as its earlier iteration in Southeast Asia (ask Thailand or the Philippines). Most of the allegations are not true or are vastly exaggerated. There are very few al-Qaida fighters based in Afghanistan proper. What is being called the “Taliban” is mostly [...]
- When Puppets Don’t Deliver
History tells us that Washington is quite willing to look the other way when it comes to corruption as long as the crooks under their control do its bidding. Indeed, the very presence of US forces and money is part of the dynamic which encourages such corruption. Apparently, Mr. Karzai is no longer considered to [...]
- When Puppets Need Supervision
The US and its European allies are preparing to plant a high-profile figure in the heart of the Kabul government in a direct challenge to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, the Guardian has learned. (more…)
- Condoleezza Rice Redux
Earlier this month, newspapers here in Cairo carried front-page photographs of Clinton being kissed by Israeli President Shimon Peres during her visit to Jerusalem. Arabs saw in that a clear message. Ditto what she said – and did not say – about Gaza, Israeli settlements, Hamas, and human rights in Egypt. Many Arabs fear it’s [...]
- Who Created the Taliban?
Again, Gorbachev sees the turn of events as the U.S.’s just deserts. “Who created the Taliban? Saudi Arabia financed it with the political support of the United States,” he said, sipping tea with lemon and honey. (more…)
- We’re Waiting, Mr. Obama
When Barack Obama signs the draft order to tear down the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, he will end at a stroke one of most shameful chapters in American foreign policy history. (more…)
- Somehow I Don’t Think He Was Referring To Israel
“…and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.” (more…)
- Martin Luther King Jr. (Belatedly)
Yesterday was Martin Luther King Day and it got me thinking about the irony of becoming larger than life—on becoming a national icon. Despite King’s pacifism and incisive rejection of American foreign policy, he has been mainstreamed and virtually removed from the ideology he represented. How many children are made to recite King’s “I Have [...]
- Israel Lobby?
In the face of U.S. denials, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office confirmed Wednesday that he personally intervened to ensure that the U.S. abstained from voting on UN Security Council Resolution 1860 last week. According to Olmert, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was forced to abstain from voting on the resolution, which called for [...]
- Franken & Coleman Come Together
Al Franken and Norm Coleman were able to just briefly put aside their legal fight over who actually won the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota, the Star Tribune reports, and come together on one issue: Showing support for Israel. (more…)
- Crossing the Line
I don’t feel encouraged — not by the putative Ross-redux team, nor by the nonbinding resolutions passed last week in the Senate and the House of Representatives. The former offered “unwavering commitment” to Israel. The latter recognized “Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza.” Neither criticized Israel. It seems that among liberal democracies, [...]
- The Morning After
President-elect Barack Obama took only a few days after his election victory before tossing his most liberal supporters overboard. While loading up his administration with war-hawks of various stripes, including Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton, he left antiwar activists weeping in their blogs. (more…)
- She Came Up With This All By Herself?
The one exception to the view that our values and interests were inextricably linked had really been the Middle East, where I think we had really focused more on stability at the expense of values. We didn’t talk much about democracy in the Middle East. (more…) Let’s put aside Condi’s view that the Middle East [...]
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“I expect him not to follow a confrontational approach like Bush,” said Ezlan Benbasar, a pilgrim from Malaysia. “But at the same time, I don’t expect deep changes in U.S. policy or changes in favor of Muslims.” (more…)
- Jeremy Scahill: Obama Doesn’t Plan to End the Iraq Occupation
The New York Times is reporting about an “apparent evolution” in president-elect Barack Obama’s thinking on Iraq, citing his recent statements about his plan to keep a “residual force” in the country and his pledge to “listen to the recommendations of my commanders” as Obama prepares to assume actual command of US forces. “At the [...]
- The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy
I have been trying to avoid writing this review, not because of the book’s subject matter (this is not a profound book any sense of the word) but because it has been done so many times before and has by now become quite dated in the ephemeral world of controversy. But I finally read the [...]
- Jeremy Scahill: Obama’s Kettle of Hawks
Barack Obama has assembled a team of rivals to implement his foreign policy. But while pundits and journalists speculate endlessly on the potential for drama with Hillary Clinton at the state department and Bill Clinton’s network of shady funders, the real rivalry that will play out goes virtually unmentioned. The main battles will not be [...]
- Noam Chomsky: What Next? The Elections, the Economy, and the World
Well, let’s begin with the elections. The word that the rolls off of everyone’s tongue is historic. Historic election. And I agree with it. It was an historic election. To have a black family in the white house is a momentous achievement. In fact, it’s historic in a broader sense. The two Democratic candidates were [...]
- Jeremy Scahill: This Is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites & Neocons to Watch for in Obama’s White House
U.S. policy is not about one individual, and no matter how much faith people place in President-elect Barack Obama, the policies he enacts will be fruit of a tree with many roots. Among them: his personal politics and views, the disastrous realities his administration will inherit, and, of course, unpredictable future crises. But the best [...]
