All Commentaries
Dismembering Afghanistan
Wars are rarely lost in a single encounter; Defeat is almost always more complex than that. The United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies have lost the war in Afghanistan, but not just because they failed in the battle for Marjah or decided that discretion was the better part of valor in Kandahar. They lost the war because they should never have invaded in the first place; because they never had a goal that was achievable; because their blood and capital are finite.
A Break in Israeli-Turkish Relations?
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recently announced that, after two months of negotiations, Israel has agreed to an international inquiry on the May 31 deadly flotilla assault. International pressure and Ban Ki-moon’s personal efforts played an important role in the Netanyahu government’s unprecedented decision. Israel’s concession meets one of the demands made by Turkey, which lost nine citizens in the assault and which has threatened to break off relations with what had once been a key military ally.
The U.S. and Yemen’s President: A Lethal Cocktail
U.S. support for Yemen Saleh regime will inevitably draw it into conflicts in the country’s north and the south, with disastrous results for all concerned.
GOP on START: Side Dish of Lard With That Pork, Please
In delaying START ratification, Republicans are sacrificing national security in order to lard their larders with more pork.
If They’d Listened to the Scientists We Might Not Need to Observe Hiroshima Day
Opinions about using the bomb were solicited from Manhattan Project scientists — but not heeded.
Review: ‘China, Cambodia, and the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence’
“Why would China jeopardize its relationship with the United States, the former Soviet Union, Vietnam, and much of Southeast Asia to sustain the Khmer Rouge and provide hundreds of millions of dollars to postwar Cambodia?” asks Sophie Richardson in China, Cambodia, and the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. An advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, Sophie Richardson not only offers an explanation of China’s foreign policy but also dispels the notion that it is irrational, inherently threatening, and malevolent. Through careful historical examination, Richardson argues that a set of beliefs, referred to as the five principles of peaceful coexistence, have been driving Chinese foreign policy since the 1954 Geneva Conference.
War in Eastasia
July was the deadliest month yet for U.S. forces fighting in Afghanistan. In Iraq, while political factions continue a five-month squabble over who will lead the government, insurgent violence is growing. The WikiLeaks info-dump of more than 90,000 documents, in addition to proving to the few who had not yet realized that the United States is in deep doo-doo, have shown that our ally Pakistan is collaborating with the Taliban and al-Qaeda to plan attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Shales’ Disgraceful Dis of Amanpour
Christiane Amanpour just too darned foreign for Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales.
What the Zapatistas Can Teach us About the Climate Crisis
With their 1994 battle cry, “Ya basta!” (“Enough already!”) Mexico’s Zapatista uprising became the spearhead of two convergent movements: Mexico’s movement for indigenous rights and the international movement against corporate globalization.
“WikiLeaks is a criminal enterprise”
Hawks are not above calling for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be apprehended on the territory of close U.S. allies, even without their consent.