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Column: What Would We Do Without Albania?

by P.M. Carpenter

The Bush administration's pathology of deception continues unabated. Its most recent outbreak of conning the already conned public is the claim that the United States' illegal, virtually unilateral and unprovoked military aggression against Iraq is but a partial expression of widespread international accord. France, singularly, is made out to be the global bad guy and martial party pooper; not the world's majority voice of opposition to America's depraved conduct abroad.

Mr. Bush's War

by P. M. Carpenter

Last week a New York Times headline read, "Britain Sets Out 6 New Terms for Hussein to Avoid War." It should have read, of course, "Britain Sets Out 6 New Terms for Bush to Avoid War." After all, it is not Iraq's normally reckless kingpin who is prosecuting wholesale carnage in defiance of the United Nations; it is America's reckless kingpin doing that.

Do Bad Men Have Rights?

by Peter Maguire

The recent capture in Pakistan of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the "suspected mastermind" of the Sept. 11 attacks, is a significant victory in President Bush's "war on terrorism." The subsequent legal treatment of the reputed al-Qaida leader will say a great deal about whether the administration respects international law.

Fear on the Eve of War

by Thomas Fleming

Every American who opposes the president's decision to go to war with Iraq should read Stephen Vincent Benet's story, "By The Waters of Babylon." When he published it in 1937, Benet, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his narrative poem, "John Brown's Body," called it one of his "prophetic" stories. I read it a long time ago but have never forgotten it. Since September 11, 2001, it has acquired a terrible urgency in my mind.

Hold the Freedom Fries

by Norman Markowitz

There is an old definition of the word reactionary--those "who learn nothing from history and forget nothing from history." I was thinking of that definition when I read that the House Republicans had renamed French fries (which the French and Europeans call pomfrit) "freedom fries" and French Toast "freedom toast." All students of U.S history know that during WWI, sauerkraut became "liberty cabbage" and other German proper nouns w

Column: Who Can We Get to Fill Charlotte Beers's Big Shoes?

by P. M. Carpenter

Former High Priestess of Madison Avenue and now rather obscure bureaucrat Charlotte Beers, the State Department's undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, is leaving her post around mid-March. However underreported this news has been -- having had to compete, after all, with the media's stirring and hyperpatriotic obsession about whether the world's greatest military power will level a backward desert nation in 2 minutes with Turkey's help or 10 minutes without -- the ne

Stop President Bush Before He Wrecks the UN

by Howard N. Meyer

"Just for a scrap of paper Great Britain [is] going to war," Germany's chancellor, Theobold von Bethmann-Hollweg complained as the First World War began. The "scrap of paper" was the treaty that Germany disregarded when it invaded Belgium. Because of such dismissal of international agreements, the esteem that Germany had enjoyed until then among neutral nations quickly changed to hostility and fear. Britain and France exploited the "scrap of paper"

Who's Behind the Anti-War Movement?

by David Horowitz

To be successful in the war against terror, it is necessary to understand the enemy and his strategies, how he forms his alliances and how he shapes his tactics to achieve his goals. In President Bush's first address to Congress after 9/11, he correctly identified the forces that attacked us as "the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century," who followed "in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism." The religious roots of the pres

Why Public Opinion Matters in the Making of Foreign Policy

by Hans J. Morgenthau

Following is an excerpt from Mr. Morgenthau's classic, Politics Among Nations. The kind of thinking required for the successful conduct of foreign policy must at times be diametrically opposed to the kind of considerations by which the masses and their representatives are likely to be moved. The peculiar qualities of the statesman's mind are not always likely to find a favorable response in the popular mind. The statesman must think in terms of the national interest, concei

Are Poets Always Against War? (No)

by Edward J. Renehan Jr.

Today's headlines are full of stories about poets who rail against war with Iraq. An organization called Poets Against the War claims to have gathered poems and statements from some 12,000 American"writers," known and unknown, mostly the latter. Poets Against the War plans to take this immense ball of verse - the good and the bad, the profound and the inane, all jumbled together - and hurl it in the direction of Congress on Wednesday, March 5th. They have also declared the 5th an International D

Is the Supreme Court Likely to Back the Pledge of Allegiance?

by David Greenberg

So "Under God" is unconstitutional after all. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a controversial 2002 ruling that public schools can't make students recite that two-word phrase as part of the Pledge of Allegiance. In the nine Western states that this court covers, official recitals of the God-infused pledge are now forbidden. Unlike last June, when politicians savaged a three-judge panel that struck down public-school recitals of the religious form of th

Well, At Least President Bush Is Trying to Go To War the Right Way

by Thomas Fleming

Watching -- and listening -- to the chorus of voices opposing George Bush's call for war on Iraq has stirred ironic thoughts in this historian's mind. No one seems to be aware that he is the first president in our history to try to persuade the American people to wage war by appealing to their heads rather than their instincts.Let's start with World War II. Merlo Pusey, in 1941 an editorial writer for the Washington Post and later a distinguished biographe

Letter from Judith Apter Klinghoffer

Following is a letter Ms. Klinghoiffer emailed to friends several days ago. We thought it worth publishing and asked her permission to do so. She agreed. Yes, George W. Bush looked sad and exhausted. He may not like to second guess himself, but he knows that he has made a costly mistake. Letting Powell go the UN route has seriously damaged not only his administration but, much more importantly, American credibility. Hence, both the price of keeping the peace and fighti

My Letter of Resignation

by John Brady Kiesling

Late last month Mr. Kiesling resigned as an American diplomat. He sent the following letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Dear Mr. Secretary: I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart. The baggage of my upbringing included a felt obligation to give something back to my country. Service as a U.S. dip

Duck and Cover -- Deja Vu All Over Again

by David Greenberg

Within days, if not moments, the Homeland Security Department's duct-tape-and-sheeting advisory went from frightening to farcical. The government summons was met almost instantly with comparisons to those Cold War civil-defense programs that now strike us as relics of an hysterical age. "Duct and Cover," the headlines gibed. It takes a leap of historical imagination to conceive how the Cold War's nuclear attack drills, dog tags for school kids, and backyard

Whatever Happened to the Powell Doctrine?

by Ruth Rosen

Secretary of State Colin Powell must feel at war with his own doctrine. As the United States, Britain and Spain introduced a new draft U. N. Security Council resolution which laid the political and legal groundwork for a U.S.-led military invasion of Iraq, we couldn't help but wonder: Whatever happened to the Powell Doctrine?

Column: Are You Ready.gov?

by P.M. Carpenter

You have heard about it. You have read about it. It made its debut as deadly serious stuff. But have you actually perused the Department of Homeland Security's web site, Ready.gov? Probably not. Odds are, what you know about it has come from late-night comedians, frantic relatives, fair-and-balanced Bill O'Reilly, or hardware salesmen stuck with palettes of duct tape and plastic sheeting. So as a public service, I present to you real segments of the real

Affirmative Action is Just the First Step

by Philip Rubio

"This is about race discrimination and racial preferences!" That was Larry Purdy, Center for Individual Rights (CIR) attorney, speaking on the Tavis Smiley NPR show, broadcast in front of a live (and very lively) audience in Detroit on February 7, 2003. Purdy represents Barbara Grutter, the woman who claims affirmative action cost her admission to the University of Michigan law school. That day in Detroit he was speaking in support of Grutter's suit that will

Just Who Is Sleepwalking Through History?

by Ronald Radosh

The anti-war movement has not only been marching. It has been busy sending out mass e-mailings of Sen. Robert Byrd's recent remarks to the U.S. Senate. Anti-war groups apparently find the West Virginia Democrat's speech the most eloquent statement of their beliefs and arguments. Yet it is striking similar to a speech by Ohio Republican Sen. Robert A. Taft's in May 1940 -- a speech correctly viewed at the time as the epitome of isolationism. Byrd gave his speech just as Secretary o

Why Bush Can't Afford to Wait

by Robert Brent Toplin

Although many critics of immediate war with Iraq are requesting that U.N. weapons inspectors be given months or even a year to complete further investigations in that country, President Bush appears eager for quick military action. His resistance to a delay springs from more than just worries about conducting U.S. military operations in a desert during the heat of summer. Bush is mindful of growing difficulties with public opinion and an ailing economy, problems that could soon make w