Roundup: Media's Take

Simon Worrall: The Fanatics Who Founded America

[Simon Worrall is the author of The Poet and the Murderer. He is writing a book about the Pilgrim Fathers.] RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM of the sort that lay behind the July 7 outrages in London is nothing new to Britain. We’ve seen it before, or something very like it, in the early 17th century, when a fanatical group of extremists sought to transform England into a theocracy governed by a strict interpretation of scripture. These were the Protestant Christians remembered as the Pilgri

Brendan Miniter: How Conservatives Have Stolen Arguments from Liberals

Quick, someone call Howard Dean. It appears the right has stolen the left's playbook and is now using tactics liberals have used for decades. Unlike Jimmy Carter's debate briefing book, which someone slipped to Ronald Reagan's staff in 1980, there are actually useful nuggets that the old Reaganites and the new Bushies can use. It's hard to know when this began. But on a variety of fronts conservatives are using arguments and tactics heretofore under patent protection by the left, in

Francis X. Clines: The C.I.A. Goes Gentle Into the Spooky New Night

When the end came, eight former czars of central intelligence gathered in the Langley, Va., headquarters for an eerie moment of nostalgia - and devotees of the fact and fiction of the Central Intelligence Agency were already walking back the cat (spy talk for retrospectively figuring out how a careful scheme turned disastrous). Porter Goss, the former spy and congressman who was awarded the intelligence directorship last year, generously summoned his predecessors and two of their widows on Tuesd

Anthony Paul: An Iraq Watershed?

HISTORY never repeats itself exactly and the Iraq War differs in so many respects from wars in Indochina, but developments over the past few days invite this question: Is Washington's commitment in Baghdad encountering what I'll call its Westmoreland Moment? The circumstances in Vietnam in 1968 were different in detail, of course. Nevertheless, perhaps they're close enough for us to wonder whether America's Iraq adventure may have reached a watershed similar to that associated with

Paul Krugman: Don't Prettify Our History (Re: 2000 Election)

The 2000 election is still an open sore on the body politic. That was clear from the outraged reaction to my mention last week of what would have happened with a full statewide manual recount of Florida. This reaction seems to confuse three questions. One is what would have happened if the U.S. Supreme Court hadn't intervened; the answer is that unless the judge overseeing the recount had revised his order (which is a possibility), George W. Bush would still have been declared the w

Robert Fisk: Interview About Iraq

Q: What's the reaction here to all the attention Washington has recently been paying to Lebanon, celebrating the demonstrations and the so-called Cedar Revolution? Fisk: Well, that's a State Department phrase. The Americans don't understand what's happening here. These were not demonstrations for democracy. This was an insurrection against the corruption of government here and the lack of freedom of speech in parliament, which is weighted down with pro-Syrian MPs. It has been misint

Austin Bramwell: Defining Conservatism Down

[Austin Bramwell is a lawyer in New York City.] Had conservatism a Cassandra, she might, amidst the current mood of triumph, point out that whereas 50 years ago the American Right boasted several political theorists destined to exert a lasting influence, today it has not one to its credit. In the 1950s and ’60s, James Burnham, Richard Weaver, Leo Strauss, Harry Jaffa, Russell Kirk, Friedrich Hayek, and Willmoore Kendall (among others) were all at the apex of their powers. No figure

Fred Kaplan: Philadelphia 1787 vs. Baghdad 2005

When things go particularly badly in Iraq—anarchy, insurgency, and now the delays in crafting a constitution—President George W. Bush and his top aides point reassuringly to the turbulence surrounding our own Founding Fathers' exertions to forge a republic. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld first sought solace in history back in March 2003, only weeks after Saddam Hussein was toppled. America in the 1780s, he noted, was marked by "chaos and confusion … crime and looting … po

David Morse: Why Don't the Media Explain that Oil Drives the Genocide in Darfur?

[David Morse is an independent journalist and political analyst whose articles and essays have appeared in Dissent, Esquire, Friends Journal, the Nation, the New York Times Magazine, the Progressive Populist, Salon, and elsewhere. His novel, The Iron Bridge (Harcourt Brace, 1998), predicted a series of petroleum wars in the first two decades of the 21st century. Morse may be reached at his website: dmorse@david-morse.com.] ... Why is it, I wonder, t

Paul Krugman: Al Gore Was Elected President in 2004

By running for the U.S. Senate, Katherine Harris, Florida's former secretary of state, has stirred up some ugly memories. And that's a good thing, because those memories remain relevant. There was at least as much electoral malfeasance in 2004 as there was in 2000, even if it didn't change the outcome. And the next election may be worse. In his recent book "Steal This Vote" - a very judicious work, despite its title - Andrew Gumbel, a U.S. correspondent for the British new

Economist: Repression Did Little to Stop Anarchist Violence But Eventually the World Moved on and the Movement Withered

BOMBS, beards and backpacks: these are the distinguishing marks, at least in the popular imagination, of the terror-mongers who either incite or carry out the explosions that periodically rock the cities of the western world. A century or so ago it was not so different: bombs, beards and fizzing fuses. The worries generated by the two waves of terror, the responses to them and some of their other characteristics are also similar. The spasm of anarchist violence that was at its most convulsive in

Douglas R. Burgess Jr.: The Dread Pirate Bin Laden

[Douglas R. Burgess Jr. is the author of Seize the Trident: The Race for Superliner Supremacy and How It Altered the Great War, published this year by McGraw-Hill.] INTERNATIONAL LAW LACKS A DEFINITION FOR TERRORISM as a crime. According to Secretary General Kofi Annan, this lack has hampered "the moral authority of the United Nations and its strength in condemning" the scourge. But attempts to provide a definition have failed because of terrorists' strangel

Cahal Milmo: The Leisure 'Interests' of Public Figures

Rather as medieval peasants believed that touching the hem of the king's robe would cure them of disease or bring them good luck, we are pathetically grateful for any scrap of information that reveals the true character of our rulers. In theory, we should be looking for the things that make them special: magic and mystery among the Royal Family, wisdom and foresight among presidents and prime ministers. In fact, we want to feel that, underneath, they are just like us. W

Gideon Rose: The Bush Administration Embraces Realism

[Gideon Rose is the managing editor of Foreign Affairs.] SEVEN months into George W. Bush's second term, it is clear that whatever his expansive second Inaugural Address may have promised, American foreign policy has taken a decidedly pragmatic turn. In practice, the Bush administration has recently begun to pursue interests rather than ideals and conciliation rather than confrontation. First-term foreign policy hardliners like John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas

NYT Editorial: Brief History of Gaza Occupation

... Without denying the genuine grief of many of the protesters, it's perhaps helpful to do a historical reality check. Gaza, a 25-mile-long, 6-mile-wide strip of land, was part of Mandatory Palestine, which was ruled by the British after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. It was never part of the Zionist state intended by the United Nations partition plan that led to the establishment of Israel in 1948. At that point, five Arab nations immediately attacked the new nation, but Gaza wasn't even part

Robert J. Samuelson: A Nation of Big Spenders

Every so often the government spits out some factoid that seems crammed with special significance. The Commerce Department did just that recently when it reported that Americans' personal savings rate had dropped to zero. As a society, we seem unwilling to devote even a penny to the future. How could this be, considering all of our huge contributions to retirement accounts? There are two possible answers. One is alarming: A low savings rate reflects national character -- an addiction to immediat

Norman Solomon: So Now They Are Trashing Cindy Sheehan?

The surge of antiwar voices in U.S. media this month has coincided with new lows in public approval for what pollsters call President Bush’s “handling” of the Iraq war. After more than two years of a military occupation that was supposed to be a breeze after a cakewalk into Baghdad, the war has become a clear PR loser. But an unpopular war can continue for a long time -- and one big reason is that the military-industrial-media complex often finds ways to blunt the effectiveness of its most pro

Max Boot: Hamastan? Gaza pullout is worth the risk

FOR ALMOST 40 years, the conceit has been growing around the world that Palestinian terrorism can be explained and even excused by Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This was always a dubious proposition in light of the fact that Arabs have been fighting Israel since its formation in 1948, not since its conquest of those territories in 1967. The Palestine Liberation Organization began its attacks while the West Bank was still part of Jordan and Gaza was part of Egypt.

Geoffrey Stone: What You Can't Say Will Hurt You

[Geoffrey R. Stone is a law professor at the University of Chicago and the author of "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism."] ON Aug. 5, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain announced his intention to carry out a series of new antiterrorism measures, including deporting foreign nationals who justify the use of "violence to further a person's beliefs"; authorizing the denaturalization of British citizens who

George Melloan: Suicide Bombers Have a Lot in Common with Kamikaze Pilots

... The Japanese Imperial Army had been noted for its cruelty and fanaticism, much as Muslim jihadists are today. Shinto, an ancient Japanese religion somewhat akin to animism, was employed by Japanese militarists to arouse nationalism, much as today's jihadists dredge up primitive doctrines from Islam to inflame their shadowy armies against the West. Islam and Shintoism have very little in common, the one coming out of the Old Testament tradition and other with roots in far-eastern