The War Party is facing disaster on a number of fronts, both foreign and domestic: in Iraq, the stubborn defiance of the insurgency and squabbling political factions underscores the failure of the occupation and its unraveling into an all-out civil war. Under the...
In Praise of Kevin Benderman
Conscience is not in the chain of command. "Before being sentenced to 15 months for refusing to return to Iraq with his Army unit, Sgt. Kevin Benderman told a military judge that he acted with his conscience, not out of a disregard for duty," the Associated...
A Costly Education for America
In a desperate 11th-hour bid to save face and salvage credibility amid the violent collapse of their predictions of a "cakewalk" victory over Iraq, neoconservative opinionmakers appear to be preparing to spin America's likely troop drawdown as just another...
Disengagement’s Foreplay
Historic days in Israel: a showdown between the government and the settlers. Though the sides do negotiate behind the scenes, this time it does not look like the cat-and-mouse games for the media a few years ago, Prime Minister Barak's favorite dissimulation, when a...
Is America’s War Winding Up?
Is America preparing to pull out of Iraq without victory? Are we ready to leave that war-ravaged land without any assurance a free, democratic, pro-Western Iraq will survive? Is President Bush willing to settle for less than we all thought? So it would seem. For it is...
No Stinking Badges
According to neo-crazy media sycophants at the New York Times and elsewhere, the Bush-Cheney administration is currently engaged in the six-party talks "aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programs" and is "supporting" European Union...
Reality Bites Back
There's been a distinct shift in the way U.S. officials talk not only about the war on terror, but about the "mission" in Iraq. As the International Herald Tribune noted in a story Wednesday, the "global war on terror" has been transmogrified into...
Discouraging Lessons From Imperial Spain
In the 16th century, Europe was devastated by wars of religion, a fact that gives that unhappy time some relevance to our own. The foremost soldier and commander in 16th-century Europe was the duke of Alba. An excellent new biography of the duke by Henry Kamen offers...
Gaza Will Be ‘Vacated but Still Occupied’
JERUSALEM - A growing number of Palestinians are beginning to believe that Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip will not mean the end of occupation. "The Gaza Strip will still be occupied territory under international law," says Renad Qubbaj of the...
Grannies Rage Against the Machine
The five elderly women stood in front of a U.S. Army recruiting office in Tucson, Arizona, and began to sing. To the tune of "There's No Business Like Show Business," they belted out the lyrics they had written: "There's no business like war business...


