The Iraq Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, is being portrayed as a magic wand that will conjure up a solution for Iraq the same way rabbits jump out of empty hats.
With power comes responsibility. Once they take over both houses of Congress on January 3, the Democrats will have the responsibility to get American troops out of Iraq as soon as practicable.
War, instability, and high oil prices have created a perfect storm of profit for the world’s weapons manufacturers. This year, military analysts predict the biggest arms bonanza since 1993 Â which is saying something because in the aftermath of the first Gulf War the global industry reaped the benefits of a $42 billion arms race.
The election of a Democratic majority in the House and Senate is unlikely to result in any serious challenge to the Bush administration’s support for Israeli attacks against the civilian populations of its Arab neighbors and the Israeli government’s ongoing violations of international humanitarian law.
The recent U.S. election was an exercise in redemption. At a time when many throughout the world had written off the American electorate as lifeless putty in the hands of Karl Rove, the voters woke up to deliver the Republican Party its worst blow in the last quarter of a century. Not only independents and centrists voted to repudiate Republican candidates, but a third of evangelicalsÂBush’s fundamentalist Christian baseÂvoted for Democrats.
ÂWar is hell, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman famously said 14 years after the end of the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history. ÂIt is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation.Â
Back on February 15, 2003 millions of people across the globe made headlines as they protested against the impending Iraq War. While that mass mobilization failed to stave off that unpopular and tragic war, it’s hard to believe that President George W. Bush will miss the message voters delivered on Election Day–it’s time to change course in Iraq.
This month, the Shurat HaDin Law Center is taking foreign tourists on an eight-day "exploration of Israel’s struggle for survival and security" that includes briefings by intelligence officers and demonstrations by masked commandoes, as well as visits to military trials of Hamas members.
When the news broke on November 4 that the lead editorial in the Gannet-owned Army Times newspaper group had called for Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation, the cable news organizations portrayed the announcement as if it were a blow like no other.
Photo: Jonathan McIntosh