Roundup: Media's Take

Robert Fisk: America Performs Its Familiar Role of Propping Up a Dictator

[Robert Fisk is an award-winning Middle East correspondent for the Independent. A journalist with decades of experience in foreign reporting, Fisk has interviewed Osama bin Laden multiple times and has been repeatedly recognized and awarded for his work.] Could there be a more accurate description of the Obama-Brown message of congratulations to the fraudulently elected Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan? First the Palestinians held fair elections in 2006, voted for Hamas and were brutall

Dr. Wilmer J. Leon: A Social Agenda for all Americans

[Dr. Wilmer Leon is the producer/host of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program "On With Leon," and a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Howard University in Washington, DC. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: wjl3us@yahoo.com.] Early on the campaign trail, presidential candidate Barack Obama said, "This country is ready for a transformative politics of the sort

Ari Fleischer: President Bush put a curse on my New York Yankees

[Ari Fleischer was the press secretary to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003.] IT is hard to find a bigger admirer of President George W. Bush than me. I support his policies; I believe in him; he’s a really good guy to be around; and he throws a mean fastball. As his press secretary, I stood by him through thick and thin. But recent events require me to speak out about my former boss: For eight long years, President Bush put a curse on my New York Yankees. It’s

David R. Stokes: The November Chronicles

[David R. Stokes (www.davidrstokes.com) is a minister, broadcaster, and free-lance writer. He currently serves as Senior Pastor of FAIR OAKS CHURCH in Fairfax, Virginia (www.fairoakschurch.org )] Mark Twain often suggested that history doesn’t always repeat itself, “but it does rhyme.” This chronological cadence is particularly true when you note some of the key events in the past century that hap

Ellen Goodman: What Option for Afghan Women

[Ellen Goodman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning commentary appears in more than 300 newspapers. Since 1976, she has written about social change and its impact on American life. She was one of the first women to open up the oped pages to women’s voices and is today, according to Media Watch, the most widely syndicated progessive columnist in the country.] Boston - It's been 11 years since I looked through a photo album smuggled out of Afghanistan by a brave young woman. "This is a docto

Matthew Kaminski: From Solidarity to Democracy (on Adam Michnik and the end of the Cold War)

[Mr. Kaminski is a member of the Journal's editorial board.] 'Fantastyczne!" That's the word Adam Michnik, the man who played one of the starring roles in bringing the Cold War to an end, exclaims in Polish as he thinks back over the two decades since the Berlin Wall fell that Nov. 9 evening. He repeats it in rapid fire, each time flawlessly, with no hint of his trademark stutter. "Fantastic! Fantastic! Poland has not had such 20 years in its last

Joshua Keating: Today's Berlin Walls

[Joshua Keating is deputy Web editor at Foreign Policy.] The Israel/Palestine “Separation Barrier” What: The Israeli government first proposed a physical barrier between Israel and the West Bank in 2002, saying it was necessary to prevent terrorists from entering Israeli territory. It is now more than half complete. Although often referred to as "the wall," in most places the barrier consists of an electronic fence surrounded by trenches and barbed-wire fences

Bitta Mostofi: Death to No One, 30th Year Since the 444-day Iran Hostage Crisis

[Bitta Mostofi is cofounder of Where Is My Vote, New York. She is an immigrant and civil rights attorney who can be reached at bittamostofi@gmail.com. Kathy Kelly, a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, contributed to this article.] Wednesday, November 4, marked the 30th year since the 444-day Iran hostage crisis began in 1979. On this day, the media traditionally offer us images of Iranians burning American flags and effigi

Adrian A. Basora: US-Spain Relations From the Perspective of 2009

[Ambassador Basora is currently a Senior Fellow and Director of the Project on Democratic Transitions at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. During his prior diplomatic career he had several postings in Europe and Latin America, including an assignment in Madrid in 1986- 1989 as Deputy Chief of Mission and Deputy U.S. Base Negotiator, and subsequently as Charge‚ d'Affaires. He then served as Director for European Affairs at the

NYT Editorial: Tribal Chiefs and the President

White House receptions of American Indian leaders have too often been patronizing historical footnotes. President Obama opened what we hope will be a more promising chapter on Thursday when he met with the leaders from all 564 federally recognized tribes. He vowed that there would be no more “going through the motions” and that his administration would finally face the severe economic and social problems that are the result of centuries of federal abuse and neglect... ... The tribes

Charles Gasparino: Three Decades of Subsidized Risk

[Mr. Gasparino is a CNBC on-air editor and the author, most recently, of "The Sellout: How Three Decades of Wall Street Greed and Government Mismanagement Destroyed the Global Financial System," just published by HarperBusiness.] I recently sat down with legendary investor Ted Forstmann to discuss why, on the one-year anniversary of the financial meltdown, the press has largely ignored the role of government in creating the meltdown—and possibly setting the stage for anoth

Zainab Mohammed: Is Iraq right to reclaim the Ishtar Gate from Germany?

[Zainab Mohammed, Iraqi Archaeologist, NY, Former Employee- State Board of Antiquities and Heritage/Excavations and Archaeological Protection Department-Baghdad; M.A. Anthropology and Museum Studies] Having read Michael Kimmelman’s article, “When Ancient Artifacts Become Political Pawns” in the October 23, 2009 edition of the New York Times, I would like to discuss some important issues regarding ownership of Middle Eastern archaeological artifacts. Although Iraq

Melvin A. Goodman: President Obama's Timid Use of the "Reset Button"

[Melvin A. Goodman is national security and intelligence columnist for Truthout. He is senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and adjunct professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. His 42-year government career included service at the CIA, State Department, Defense Department and the US Army. His latest book is "Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA." ] President Barack Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, will go down in history

Huffington Post: Too Soon To Tell? Judging A President's Progress

The New York Review of BooksHuffington Post: At the anniversary of the election of Barack Obama, we're taking a close look at how he's done and what his administration has accomplished. In the midst of the current news swirl around whether or not health care reform, Afghanistan, Iraq and other issues have been moving along at a swift enough pace, and whether or not

Michael Collins: The Case of the Cuban Five: American Justice as a Political Weapon

[Michael Collins is a research assistant for the Americas Program of the Center for International Policy (www.americaspolicy.org).] The case of the Cuban Five is inextricably linked to the ongoing standoff between Havana and Washington. In the early 1990s, the Cuban government sent a group of men known as The Wasp Network to the United States to infiltrate anti-Castro organizations, which had been operating from Miami with apparent impunity since the 1960s. After these anti-Castro

David Rogers: Democrats want to seize historic moment

[David Rogers is Senior Congressional Reporter for Politico] Health care is big for House Democrats: big like Social Security in the ’30s and civil rights in the ’60s, big like the war stories retold now in party caucuses as lawmakers grapple with the floor vote that is just days away. All politicians live in the present — or risk perishing, as seen Tuesday night. But history also sits on the shoulders of Democrats these days, and having failed to act on health care in

Nick Turse: The Pentagon's Building Boom in Afghanistan Indicates a Long War Ahead

[Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com and the winner of a 2009 Ridenhour Prize for Reportorial Distinction as well as a James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, In These Times, and regularly at TomDispatch. Turse is currently a fellow at New York University's Center for the United States and the Cold War. A paperback edition of his book The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives (Metropolitan Boo

Ray McGovern: Heeding George Kennan's Wise Advice

[Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He was an analyst at the CIA for 27 years, and is on the Steering Group of VIPS. ] ... As a young Army infantry/intelligence officer turned junior CIA analyst in 1963, I was given responsibility for reporting on Soviet policy toward China and Southeast Asia and was just beginning to get a feel for the complexities. My degrees were in Russian studies; I knew something

Robert Parry: Cheney and the Plame-Gate Cover-Up

[Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, "Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush," was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, "Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq" and "Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth'" are also available there. Or go

Michael Barone: Lessons from the 2009 election results

[Michael-Barone is senior Political Analyst for the Washington Examiner.A resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, he is also a Fox News Channel contributor and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. His column is published Wednesdays and Sundays.] My Wednesday Examiner column, written as the 2009 election returns were coming in, stands up pretty well. But let me add some observations written as the course of the elections became clearer. First, in