Stephen Walt, Foreign Affairs blog, January 26: Although it was the official policy of every President since Lyndon Johnson to oppose the construction of settlements, none of them put any serious pressure on Israel to stop. The first President Bush briefly withheld some loan guarantees in 1992 over this issue, but the guarantees were authorized…
Showing all posts tagged Bush administration
The eternal victim
My following article appeared yesterday in the Canadian magazine Adbusters: Each side in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict believes criticisms in the media are biased, but the Palestinians are the ones doing almost all the suffering and dying these days. Antony Loewenstein argues for reality-based… coverage. Israel’s highly decorated Chief of Staff, Mordechai Gur, once said, “we make…
The Jewish state likes being alone
Saudi Arabia is a brutal dictatorship run by crooks. Despite this, however, it remains a close friend of the US and “ally” of Israel. The recent war against Gaza may have changed all that, writes Prince Turki, chairman of King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh. He has also been director of…
America’s journey to a rogue state
My following book review appeared in the Melbourne Age on January 10: The gloves came off after September 11 and left leaders petrified, writes Antony Loewenstein. The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals By Jane Mayer Scribe, $35 Near the beginning of this…
We can breath a little easier
It is a brand new day: The Daily Show With Jon StewartM – Th 11p / 10c Changefest ’09 – Obama’s Inauguration Barack Obama InterviewJohn McCain Interview Sarah Palin VideoFunny Election Video
Are these days really over?
With Barack Obama now President of the United States, a necessary trip down memory lane: Number of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and North African men detained in the U.S. in the eight weeks after 9/11: 1,182 Number of them ever charged with a terrorism-related crime: 0 Number charged with an immigration violation: 762 Estimated number…
Please pick me, sir
Why Christopher Hitchens, one of the key slobberers over the Bush administration’s “war on terror” and its war in Iraq, still thinks he should be taken seriously over American foreign policy. Commentators who crave closeness to power aren’t journalists; they’re stenographers.
Will he change a thing?
The incoming Obama administration will need to put human rights at the heart of foreign, domestic, and security policy if it is to undo the enormous damage of the Bush years, Human Rights Watch said today in issuing its World Report 2009.
Peace will only come thanks to us
Natan Sharansky, a former Israeli Deputy Prime Minister and inspiration for George W. Bush’s “freedom agenda”, writes: Peace can be found only when Palestinians are given the freedom to build real civic institutions, and a leadership can emerge unafraid of telling its own citizens that violence, fanaticism and martyrdom aren’t the Palestinian way. But this…