The World Bank, the planet’s largest lender to poor nations, will soon have a new leader. The Bush administration should support a candidate who will bring about changes within the mammoth institution necessary to make it more effective at its primary task: ending World poverty. Given that by tradition, the U.S. picks the World Bank president, this is a golden opportunity to help mend some fences and improve the nation’s standing internationally at a time when U.S. popularity is suffering.

The news is leaking out that the Pentagon will be making deep cuts in its 2006 budget for weapons. The cuts appear headed in the right direction: toward scaling back weapons systems that were designed to fight the cold war and have little relevance to the wars we are actually fighting. Calling them “deep cuts,” however, is a stretch. It would be another stretch to believe that there will be anything left over to address important deficits in U.S. security.

Is the United States the good St. Nicholas or an Ebenezer Scrooge?

Most Americans hold these truths to be self-evident: Torture is wrong; attacking another country that hasn’t attacked you is wrong; occupying another country with your army and imposing your will on its people is wrong. These policies are not only immoral. They are illegal.

Blowback is a term invented by the Central Intelligence Agency to describe the unintended consequences of policies kept secret from the American people. Originally intended for internal use only, blowback today increasingly characterizes global reaction to American policies in and out of the Middle East.