Salwa Salam Qupty clutches a fading sepia photograph of a young Palestinian man wearing a traditional white headscarf. It is the sole memento that survives of her father, killed by a Jewish militia during the 1948 war that established Israel. "He was killed 60...
Elected Affliction
By this time next week, it should be known who will become the 44th President of the United States. Once a "chief magistrate of a confederated republic," the holder of that office is now a "global tyrant part secular pope, part military despot,...
US Cutoff Threat Unlikely to Save Iraq Troop Pact
The threat by the George W. Bush administration last week to withdraw all economic and military support from the Iraqi government if it does not accept the US-Iraq status of forces agreement has raised the stakes in the political-diplomatic struggle over the issue....
You Can’t Cut Spending
and Spare ‘Defense’
With less than a week to go in the presidential election and the economy in a tailspin, Sen. John McCain is claiming, "We [McCain and Sen. Barack Obama] both disagree with President Bush on economic policies. My approach is to get spending under control."...
An Empty Trial at Guantánamo
Now here's a problem that anyone with half a brain could have seen coming. On Monday the second trial by military commission at Guantánamo in other words, the second U.S. "war crimes" trial since the Second World War, following the...
Analysts Question Timing of Syria Raid
A cross-border raid into Syria by U.S. forces in Iraq and subsequent stonewalling by U.S. officials unwilling to divulge details have led to rampant speculation among U.S. analysts about the origins and meaning of the attack. "So the question is: Why?" wrote...
The Other Election
While the world's eyes are fixed on the American election coming up soon, another election with equal importance for America's future crawled onto the calendar over the past weekend (don't expect a monarchist to think highly of elections). Israeli Foreign Minister...
Is War Good For the Economy?
Editor's note: The following originally ran June 25, 2008. The idea that warfare helps the economy is a prime example of Bizarro logic, which has pervaded our collective consciousness since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, ideological fallout from the explosion of national...
Wednesday: 1 US Soldier, 20 Iraqis Killed; 73 Iraqis Wounded
Updated at 6:40 p.m. EDT, Oct. 29, 2008At least 20 Iraqis were killed and another 73 were wounded in the latest round of violence. A number of small incidents occurred in Mosul, while two larger attacks occurred in Diyala province. A U.S. soldier died from non-combat...
The Collapse of Omar Khadr’s Guantánamo Trial
Hardly a day goes by without some extraordinary news from the military commissions, the system of "terror trials" conceived in the office of the vice president in November 2001, and their days now seem to be as numbered as those of the Bush administration...


