Roundup: Media's Take

Abdus Sattar Ghazali: The Politics of Minaret

[Author and journalist. Author of Islamic Pakistan: Illusions & Reality; Islam in the Post-Cold War Era; Islam & Modernism; Islam & Muslims in the Post-9/11 American. Currently working as free lance journalist.] In a referendum on November 29 the Swiss voters approved a ban on the construction of new minarets on mosques. Under Switzerland's system of direct rule, the referendum is binding. Switzerland's 400,000 or so Muslims, most of whom come from Kosovo and Turkey, are

Donald Craig Mitchell: Getting Punked by Fabulists in a Technological Society

In The Technological Society, published in 1954, the French political scientist Jacques Ellul predicted that within a decade or two or three the relentlessly intertwining tentacles of technological systems would take over the world and that, when they did, maintaining the integrity of the systems would become more important than the fate of any human being the systems were intended to benefit. Ellul also predicted that, when that happened, the only form of government capable of maintaining the i

William R. Gruver: Why Clausewitz would not be happy with Obama's new Afghanistan strategy

[William R. Gruver is a professor at Bucknell University, where he teaches international relations.] In his legendary 19th century strategic treatise vom Kriege (On War), Carl von Clausewitz articulates several key principles of successful military strategy. President Obama, in his recent decision regarding our Afghanistan strategy, appears to have neglected many of these critical components. “Fog of war” is Clausewitz’s way of describing the opaqueness and resultant un

Gerald F. Seib: Obama Abroad Mirrors Bush Senior

[Gerald F. Seib is an assistant managing editor and the executive Washington editor of The Wall Street Journal.] President Barack Obama and his aides talk a lot about how his approach to the world is different from George W. Bush's. What they say less often is that his approach has a fair amount in common with that of another Bush -- the first president by that name, George H.W. Bush. Slowly but surely, Mr. Obama is molding a foreign policy that harkens back more to the

Bill McKibben: The Physics of Copenhagen

[Bill McKibben is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, a scholar in residence at Middlebury College, and the author of The End of Nature and Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future.] Most political arguments don’t really have a right and a wrong, no matter how passionately they’re argued. They’re about human preferences -- for more health care or lower taxes, for a war to secure some particular end or a peace that leaves some danger inta

Thomas Palaima and Stephen Sonnenberg: Our wounds, our duty

[Thomas Palaima, a MacArthur fellow, is Dickson Centennial Professor of Classics at the University of Texas, where he teaches seminars on the human experience of war and violence. tpalaima@mail.utexas.edu. Stephen Sonnenberg is clinical professor of psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, adjunct professor of psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences medical school in Bethesda, Md., head of the Education Dep

Chris Hedges: Liberals Are Useless

[Chris Hedges, whose column is published on Truthdig every Monday, spent two decades as a foreign reporter covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. He served for eight years as the Middle East bureau chief of The New York Times, where he shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism, for coverage of terrorism. Hedges also received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism.] Liberals are a useless lot. They talk abo

William Rivers Pitt: In Iraq, the war is far from over

[William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation," is now available from PoliPointPress.] Ever since President Obama's speech last Tuesday, all media, political and public attention has been focused exclusively on the

NYT Editorial: A Bishop's Words

In the end it was not the power of repentance or compassion that compelled the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., to release more than 12,000 pages of documents relating to lawsuits alleging decades of sexual abuse of children by its priests. It was a court order. The diocese had spent seven years fighting a lawsuit brought by The New York Times and three other newspapers to unseal the records in 23 lawsuits involving accusations against seven priests. The diocese, which s

Fred Hiatt: Shades of Iraq in Afghan Surge

[Fred Hiatt is the editorial page editor of The Post.] No wonder conservatives are unhappy with the president. Imagine undermining an announced escalation of troops by simultaneously laying out a schedule for them to step back -- and suggesting that the mission will end if the government that America is trying to help doesn't shape up. But wait -- it wasn't only President Obama who did those things but also President George W. Bush, in announcing his Iraq surge in Janu

Tara McKelvey: Is Democracy Promotion Dead?

[Tara McKelvey, a senior editor at the Prospect, is a research fellow at NYU School of Law's Center on Law and Security and the author of Monstering: Inside America’s Policy on Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War.] Last fall, Joshua Marks, a program officer from the National Endowment for Democracy, met with a group of community activists in a classroom in Abeche, a city in eastern Chad. Many of the activists had received small grants, ranging from roughly $200 to $5

James Rubin: The Decline of Human Rights in Age of Obama

[Rubin is an adjunct professor of International Affairs at Columbia University. He was an assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton Administration.] Although President Obama's address to the nation served its main purpose—articulating the national-security rationale for the use of force in Afghanistan—there was one unfortunate disconnect. Obama did not link his powerful rhetoric about America as a unique global power that believes "right makes might" to his argument for

Frank Gannon: President Obama's Vocal Minority Speech (Echoes of Richard Nixon)

[Frank Gannon won a White House Fellowship and served in the Nixon White House 1971-4. He accompanied RN to San Clemente aboard Air Force One on August 9th and organized the researching and writing of the President’s memoirs, RN.] I’ve looked at a lot of the coverage of the President’s speech at West Point last night, and, so far at least, no one seems to have noticed the precedent and example that is hiding in plain sight: Richard Nixon’s “silent majority” speech of 3 November 1969.

John J. Pitney: Provocative Nonsense

[John J. Pitney, Jr. is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College. He writes and teaches about elections, political parties, Congress, and the presidency, and has taught a course about President Nixon.] At the Huffington Post, Tom Shachtman writes:Former Vice President Richard B. Cheney in a recent interview with Politico labeled President B

Frank Rich: Obama's Logic Is No Match for Afghanistan

[Frank Rich is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times. His weekly 1,500-word essay helped inaugurate the expanded opinion pages that the paper introduced in the Sunday Week in Review section in April 2005.] AFTER the dramatic three-month buildup, you’d think that Barack Obama’s speech announcing his policy for Afghanistan would be the most significant news story of the moment. History may take a different view. When we look back at this turning point in America’s longest war, we

Tim Padgett: After Honduras ... Obama's Latin American Policy Looks Like Bush's

[Tim Padgett writes for TIME magazine.] After months of delay, Arturo Valenzuela was finally confirmed as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs last month. But for a job with such a long title, he may find it's short on clout these days. Ostensibly, Valenzuela is President Obama's new point man on Latin America; in reality, that job looks to be under the control of Republicans in Congress and conservatives inside Obama's own diplomatic corps. In fact, when it c

Fareed Zakaria: The Post-Imperial Presidency

[Fareed Zakaria is editor of Newsweek International.] If you take just one sentence out, Barack Obama's speech on Afghanistan last week was all about focusing and limiting the scope of America's mission in that country. His goal, he said, was "narrowly defined." The objectives he detailed were exclusively military—to deny Al Qaeda a safe haven, reverse the Taliban's momentum, and strengthen the Kabul government's security forces. He said almost nothing about broader goals

Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett: How Obama Wound up with Bush's Iran Policy

[Flynt Leverett directs the New America Foundation's Iran Initiative and teaches international affairs at Pennsylvania State University. Hillary Mann Leverett is the chief executive officer of Stratega, a political risk consultancy.] After months of halfhearted, fruitless attempts at engagement, the United States and its European partners are effectively re-enacting George W. Bush's Iran policy. In 2006, after Iran had ended a nearly two-year voluntary suspension of uranium enrichme

Roy Gutman: U.S.-Afghan history overlooked in Obama address

[Roy Gutman is Foreign Editor for McClatchy. He was diplomatic correspondent for Newsweek and director of American University's Crimes of War Project. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the 1993 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he provided the first documented reports of concentration camps.] President Obama left a major element out of his West Point address Tuesday as he announced the deployment of 30,0000 troops to Afghanistan: the modern history of America's

Larry Beinhart: Why Should We Get Out of Afghanistan? Because Imperialism Is a Fool's Game

[ Larry Beinhart is the author of "Wag the Dog," "The Librarian," and "Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin." His latest book is Salvation Boulevard. Responses can be sent to beinhart@earthlink.net.] Should we get out of Afghanistan? Yes. Here’s why. Imperialism, in general, is a tough business. Influence, dominate, manipulate, sure. But an occupation