Pardon me if I have, at least for the moment, a certain amount of hope that the abiding institutions and attitudes in the United States just might be able to weather the sustained and systematic assault on our liberties and our better traditions that has characterized...
Betrayals, Backsliding, and Boycotts
Anyone who has kept half an eye on the proceedings at the military commissions in Guantánamo the unique system of trials for "terror suspects" that was conceived in the wake of the 9/11 attacks by Vice President Dick Cheney and his close...
Backtalk, May 19, 2008
Senator Rambo Dear Mr. Reese: Being taken as a POW does not make one a hero. Please note that is not a shameful thing and is frequently unavoidable. But your having been a POW usually means that you had some bad luck with a SAM or a torpedo or something. Period. A...
Sunday: 1 US Soldier, 28 Iraqis Killed; 56 Iraqis Wounded
Updated at 7:50 p.m EDT, May 18, 2008Clashes reignited in Sadr City, but otherwise Iraq was relatively calm today. At least 28 Iraqis were killed and 56 more were wounded in violence limited mostly to the capital. One American soldier was killed and another wounded in...
On Independence Day, Israeli Arabs Reminded of Their Place
It has been a week of adulation from world leaders, ostentatious displays of military prowess, and street parties. Heads of state have rubbed shoulders with celebrities to pay homage to the Jewish state on its 60th birthday, while a million Israelis reportedly headed...
Soldier Refuses Iraq Tour, Citing ‘Stomach-Churning Horrors’
A US Army soldier who served as a military journalist in Afghanistan, Japan, Europe and the Philippines announced Thursday his intent to refuse orders to deploy to Iraq. "As an Army journalist whose job it was to collect and filter service members' stories, I...
World’s Deadliest Weapon
On the 60th anniversary of the establishment, within the Mandate for Palestine, of Israel as a sovereign Jewish state, President Bush told Israel's legislature, that "Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapon would be an...
Gates’s Hope to Reform the Pentagon Is Barking at the Moon
In a recent speech, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pleaded with the armed services to emphasize preparing for war against guerrillas instead of spending so much money and effort getting ready for conventional wars. He said that he wanted to avoid the erosion of...
Iraq Veterans Describe Atrocities to Lawmakers
Antiwar veterans of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan took their case to Capitol Hill Thursday, baring their souls with stories of killings of innocent civilians, torture and wrongful detentions. "On several occasions our convoys came upon bodies that had...
Saturday: 33 Iraqis Killed, 54 Wounded
Updated at 10:43 p.m. EDT, May 17, 1008At least 33 Iraqis were killed and 54 more were wounded during light violence. A female suicide bomber attacked a Sunni checkpoint in Baquba, while eight bodies were unearthed near Basra. No Coalition deaths were reported, but an...


