I wish it weren’t always necessary to lay out the recent history of Somalia every time it comes up. But it seems with every current event — like US bombings and piracy — Americans are starting with a fresh mental slate. And so it is with the recent cases of Minnesota-raised Somali youths taking up [...]
The campaign against the National Iranian-American Council and its president, Trita Parsi, intensified today with the publication of a long hit piece in the Washington Times by neoconservative journalist Eli Lake. The piece’s unusual length appears to be an attempt to disguise the thinness of the allegations it contains. Most of the claims are based [...]
It was a very hard choice, but Peter Bergen has given our killing by remote control a grudging thumbs up (Pakistan drone war takes a toll on militants — and civilians, CNN, Oct. 29, 2009).
Not only do the drone attacks “consistently” kill civilians, they also prompt blowback, but as that blowback has yet to reach U.S. shores, well, the price in Pakistani [...]
October 18th’s suicide bombing in Iran near the Pakistan border was the subject of the top three articles in October 20th’s Asia Times.
“Conventional wisdom suggests that the terrorist strike by Jundallah in southeastern Iran on Sunday might have had the backing of the United States or Britain,” M K Bhadrakumar opens the first. Yet “clearly,” he concludes, Obama would have to be “out [...]
A newly created group dedicated to fighting the “Islamization of America” will be walking the streets of Washington DC on September 25th engaging passers-by in a “dialogue” about Islam in America.
The group, Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), stands out for its extensive ties to far-right bloggers in the US and Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security [...]
Former Forward editor in chief J.J. Goldberg has a fairly positive reputation among progressive Jews, and although he has never been a radical about Israel or the Middle East, neither is he a reflexive hawk or neoconservative. Hence it is particularly disappointing to read his recent hit piece on Roger Cohen in the Forward, a [...]
Billionaire gasbag “T Boone” Pickens has made a bold attempt over the last year to transform his image of oil-greased rightwing godfather to grandfatherly wind energy guru, endlessly blowing his hot air at bipartisan audiences in Washington (and reminding everyone outside the beltway that money can buy you anything in the Imperial City, even a [...]
From TheAmericanView.com:
PASADENA, Maryland – This event will occur on Friday, June 5, 2009, at 7:00 PM. As with past “First Friday” lectures, this one will be held at 8028 Ritchie Highway, Suite 315, Pasadena, Maryland 21122. Doors open at 6:30 PM and the lecture will begin promptly at 7:00 PM. The event is free but [...]
Friday on Antiwar Radio I’ll be talking with Mark Manning whose award-winning film “The Road to Fallujah,” about his travel there just after the massacre of November, 2004, recently premiered. (2-4 eastern.)
It is a great film and should be a great interview as well.
(The best part about watching films like this noticing how little American [...]
David Weigel has a good piece in the Washington Independent today on Ron Paul ’s rising influence in Washington. The articles mentions that Ron Paul has been bringing in some folks to have lunch and discuss ideas with some of his Republican colleagues. The article includes a quote from me: “There’s a [...]
Michael Ledeen, who 25 months ago announced to the world that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had died — he got this from such an exclusive source that not even Amir Taheri, another neo-con fantasist, could confirm or deny the story — once again has his hand on the pulse of the Iranian people [...]
As he makes clear in this post, The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan has finally come to the conclusion that the democracy claptrap that neo-conservatives have spouted since 9/11 has been a facade for their core foreign-policy worldview with Israel at its heart.
“I took neoconservatism seriously for a long time, because it offered an interesting critique of [...]
