(Updated in a subsequent post here.)
I’m not sure that I can agree fully with the estimable Glenn Greenwald’s thesis in his new book, A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency. I haven’t read the book — which is not out yet — but have read the excerpts, and Glenn’s own pieces about it, and some of the comments by other writers on the book. For
Variation on a Theme by Dostoevsky
A man appeared in the doorway of the Oval Office. He wasn’t noticed at first, in the bustle around the desk of the president, where George W. Bush was preparing to announce to the world that the “decapitation raid” he had launched on Baghdad a few hours before was in fact the beginning of his long-planned, much-anticipated invasion of Iraq.
A woman fussed with the president’s hair, which had been freshly cut for the televised
Sidney Blumenthal adds a worthy comment to the recent ruling by the arch-conservative federal court that struck down George W. Bush’s outrageous claims to tyrannical power. The court recognized what we have been saying here (and elsewhere) for years: that Bush’s claims, if accepted, mean the end of even the pretense of a constitutional republic in the United States.
However, Blumenthal also notes that the ruling has changed nothing “on the ground.” Bush has not altered
*Note: I wrote this piece shortly after the 2004 election. It still seems highly relevant to our predicament today.*
There has been much throwing about of brains on the subject of George W. Bush’s further lurch to the Right since he limped over the election finish line with his tiny, 1 percent, fraud-marred majority. And to be sure, the wholesale purges he has instituted throughout his regime — replacing a slew of merely
On Tuesday, the Christian Science Monitor asks the earnest question: “Could Pakistan Fall to Extremists?” The paper’s answer, in short, is no.
On Monday, the Guardian noted “Rushdie Knighthood ‘Justifies Suicide Attacks,'” quoting a senior member of the Pakistani government, Religious Affairs Minister Mohammed ul-Haq. He made the declaration after the lower house of the Pakistani parliament unanimously passed a resolution — sponsored by the government of President Pervez Musharraf — condemning the
The New York Times paints a pretty picture of George W. Bush’s bosom pals in Ethiopia, in an important story that once again gives the howling lie to the Bushists’ pretensions of advancing freedom and democracy in their world-encircling Terror War.
Of course, the story itself, by Jeffrey Gettleman, is marred by the usual uncritical acceptance of Administration spin on its key role in aiding the Ethiopian dictatorship’s aggression in Somalia, and ignores entirely the American airstrikes during the invasion that killed scores of civilians (and
I sent the letter below to The Guardian today, in regard to this piece of narcissistic, historically ignorant drivel: Christopher Hitchens on Karl Marx: “The Grub Street Years.” I originally thought of doing a more thorough demolition of the article, but then decided that life’s too short. Anyway, these days Hitchens is his own best parodist. Here’s the letter:
Because I’ve been ill, blogging is light. But As’ad AbuKhalil, the “Angry Arab,” is not ill — although sick at heart, no doubt — and he continues to provide a unique perspective into what is really happening in the Middle East, as the red wheel of the Terror War tears its way through the “Holy Land.” Below are some edited excerpts from one of his pieces that ran yesterday:
Jonathan Schwarz finds the smoking guns confirming that the bloody civil war now tearing the Palestinians apart has been the aim of the Bush Administration’s Middle East policy since Hamas won the free, democratic elections there in January 2006. As we wrote here just a few days ago: Everything They Say About Promoting Democracy Is, And Always Has Been, A Damnable Lie.
Excerpts from Jon’s piece (Go to his <a
You will hear repeated everywhere in the mainstream media all over the world that another “anti-Syrian” Lebanese leader was killed by a massive car bomb in Beiruit on Wednesday. The Guardian is early out of the blocks with this report: