Foreign Policy & War

Book Review: To Destroy a City

by Richard M. Ebeling July 1, 2003

To Destroy a City: Strategic Bombing and Its Human Consequences in World War II by Hermann Knell (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 2003); 373 pages; $32.50. On the night of July 27, 1943, 728 Allied bombers arrived over the German city of Hamburg at one o’clock in the morning. Ten thousand tons of high explosives and incendiary bombs were dropped on ...

Is Tax Freedom Now an Act of War?

by Scott McPherson June 27, 2003

In a speech before the National Press Club last January, former New York governor Mario Cuomo charged that President Bush’s tax cut proposals were a form of “class warfare.” Challenging Bush’s claims that liberals and Democrats were fomenting class warfare with their charges that his tax plan favors the rich, ...

The Rot at the Center of the Empire

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 1, 2003

The announcement that the U.S. government had relied on fake and false evidence in the attempt to secure approval of its invasion of Iraq was, by and large, met by a collective yawn from the American people, especially the members of Congress. Its just one more example of the depths of moral depravity to which our nation has fallen. Think ...

Lying about War

by Sheldon Richman June 1, 2003

Can we believe the government? For some people, there is no pretense of objectivity about the question. Republicans have no problem doubting the word of a Democrat president, and Democrats are skeptical about Republican chief executives. But that’s politics. For others, it’s a blasphemous question no matter who’s in office. Some would ...

Vietnam Redux: All Power to Lying Politicians

by James Bovard June 1, 2003

Americans are once again dying overseas because politicians have dragged the nation into an unnecessary war. Once the U.S. military invaded Iraq, Bushs approval ratings shot up through the roof. As American blood was flowing, most Americans approved of Bushs conduct. And yet it is precisely when a politicians approval is highest when his power is greatest that the greatest ...

Property Rights and the “Right of Return”

by Richard M. Ebeling May 26, 2003

The Israeli government has been taking the position that any hope for a permanent peace settlement with the Palestinians must be preceded by a number of preconditions. One of the leading preconditions is that the Palestinian authority reject any claim for a “right of return.” What this refers to is the fact that, during the 1948 war ...

Better Late than Never on Sanctions

by Sheldon Richman May 16, 2003

The Bush administration wants the United Nations to lift the economic sanctions against the now-Hussein-less Iraq because they impose cruel hardship on the Iraqi people. Better late than never. Some of us have been saying for years that the sanctions were a cruel and futile attempt to undermine Saddam Hussein’s regime ...

The O.P.S.B.

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 16, 2003

Prior to and during President Bush's recent war on Iraq, there were multitudes of old American men (i.e., men more than 40 years old) who eagerly supported sending American troops into battle. Those American men who lacked the courage to “support the troops” in this way were denounced by ...

Terrorism Déjà Vu in Saudi Arabia

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 14, 2003

Monday’s terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia brings to mind the words of the famous New York Yankee catcher Yogi Berra: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” During the 1980s, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was a friend and ally of the U.S. government, even to the extent that our own government authorized the delivery of weapons of ...

Short-Sighted Bush

by Sheldon Richman May 9, 2003

Advocates of big government sometimes say that politicians are superior to business people because the latter are shortsighted: they only care about the next quarter’s balance sheet. This was always nonsense, because while business has strong incentives to look farther up the road, politicians have little incentive to look beyond the next election. It turns out that ...

Backpedaling on Iraqi Weapons

by Sheldon Richman May 3, 2003

The campaign of deception continues, but the handwriting is on the wall. President Bush himself now says that so-called weapons of mass destruction may never be found in Iraq. But hes not yet willing to concede that perhaps Saddam Hussein was telling the truth when he said he had none. ...

Joining the Ranks of Aggressor Nations

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 2, 2003

It really doesn’t matter whether U.S. military forces now find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or not. From a moral standpoint, it’s too late for that. As everyone knows, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, President Bush provided several justifications for the invasion, and people were ...