Peace and Security
The Media Flunks WikiLeaks 101
Maybe we were fortunate that the U.S. press chose to print any WikiLeaks disclosures at all. Given the media’s generally supportive stance of unilateral American foreign policy, it could have simply said, “We’re not interested.” Luckily it did better than that, but not much. The media reported articles of minor diplomatic embarrassment with glee, but let matters revealing serious U.S. government perfidy or brutality slide.
Egypt and Reversing the Dominoes of Domination
The U.S. policy of policing the world and imposing our will on every aspect of the international system is now tumbling–from Tunisia, Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan, Egypt, and onward throughout the Middle East. The domino theory, coined to justify our war in Vietnam, is making a comeback. Not because we ignored communist threats, but because we intervened too much in too many countries.
My Favorite Republican
Can you imagine a Republican leader saying something like that now? Not if the leader is Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Sarah Palin, Jon Kyl, or Eric Cantor. Had Ike been that kind of Republican he’d have said: “I want our new president to be a one-term president and I expect our party in Congress to work to make him so.”
Military Industrial Humor
No More Mr. Nice Autocracy
Egyptian current events prove one point for good: Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, U.S. presidents wish their favored Arab states would forever remain nice, docile autocracies.
What if Jared Loughner Were a Muslim Arab Immigrant?
The repercussions of the attempted assassination in Tucson of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in which six people were murdered and 13 wounded, continue to resonate. The discussion–and discussions about the discussion–continues. Meanwhile, we’re failing to have a meaningful debate about how we can achieve real changes that would make a repeat of this tragedy impossible.
El-Oughner
Be Glad You’re Not Yemeni
Yemen is finally being thrust upon American consciousness. Little good can come of that. Up to now, the Yemenis had been allowed to suffer in private desperation. That’s over.
Wanted: 21st-Century Gun Laws for 21st-Century Weapons
Before the Tucson shootings are lost forever in the mists of time (which, given this country’s attention span, figures to be two weeks from now), we might do well to ponder the various reactions to the outrage.
The Eternal Drug War
The Afghanistan War sometimes seems interminable. It just became the longest hot war in U.S. history. The Cold War was longer; Now Pentagon officials dream of holding Kabul longer than that. Europe’s Hundred Years War remains the record holder, but things moved slower back then.
