The best that can be said about the upcoming presidential election is that in January 2009 President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney will be out of office. It is tempting to believe that their successors couldn't be worse. Yet only the "second tier"...
Presidential Hawks,
Surging Numbers in Iraq
Sometimes, numbers can strip human beings of just about everything that makes us what we are. Numbers can silence pain, erase love, obliterate emotion, and blur individuality. But sometimes numbers can also tell a necessary story in ways nothing else can. This...
How Hamas Got
Where It Is Today
In light of Hamas' seizure of the Gaza Strip, it is worthwhile to understand how this radical Islamist organization came to play such a major role in Palestinian political life and how Israel and the United States contributed to making that possible. Ironically, it...
Curfew-Bound Fallujah
On the Boil Again
FALLUJAH - Strict curfew and tight security measures have brought difficult living conditions and heightened tempers to residents of this besieged city. The siege in this city located 40 mi. west of Baghdad has entered its second month. There is little sign of any...
US Elites Can’t Decide Who Should Rule Palestinians
U.S. President George W. Bush threw his full support behind President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority (PA) last week, declaring the Fatah leader "the president of all the Palestinians." With Hamas, the Islamist political party backed by Iran and...
Survey: US Image Abroad
Still Sinking
Consistent with its performance since at least 2002, the global image of the United States sank further over the past year, particularly among predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East and Asia, according to the latest Pew Global Attitudes Project (GAP) survey...
Thursday: 3 Britons, 2 GIs, 89 Iraqis Killed; 100 Iraqis Wounded
Updated at 12:25 a.m. EDT, June 29, 2007At least 89 Iraqis were killed or found dead and another 100 were wounded during the latest attacks. Most of today’s victims were civilians caught in bomb or mortar attacks in Baghdad. Also, two American and three British...
Conservatives Must Oppose Militarism and War
The fetishization of all things martial by the bulk of 21st-century conservatives is inescapable and worrisome. Whether it's rapturous warmongering in the pages of The Weekly Standard or embarrassing displays of machismo on the part of our president-cum-fighter pilot,...
Neoconned Again?
That the rhetoric used to justify war against Iraq sounds eerily similar to the case being made to start a war against Iran and Syria is not purely a coincidence. Many of the advocates of a muscular policy against countries regarded as outside the pale or perceived as...
Divide and Rule, Israeli-Style
The boycott by Israel and the international community of the Palestinian Authority finally blew up in their faces with Hamas' recent bloody takeover of Gaza. Or so argues Gideon Levy, one of the saner voices still to be found in Israel. "Starving, drying up, and...


