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The Criminal Iraq War

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Much ink (or bandwidth) has been expended writing about the tenth anniversary of the U.S. government’s invasion of Iraq. That is justified, for the Iraq war was an act of naked aggression and a crime against humanity. While apologists for the Bush administration have cited “bad intelligence” or even incompetence as an excuse for what the late Major General William Odom called “the greatest strategic disaster in American history,” such claims cannot withstand scrutiny. The evidence is overwhelming that George W. Bush and his henchmen cooked intelligence in building their case for the invasion and knowingly lied the country into an unnecessary war. The enormity of this crime is compounded by the fact that the war plunged Iraq, a nation already ravaged by a 12-year-long economic embargo, into a bloodbath that cost the lives of at least a hundred thousand civilians and displaced millions more. Now, some claim that it is not fair to hold the Bush administration responsible ...

Saber Rattling in Korea: Cui Bono?

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North Korea has announced plans to restart a nuclear reactor that will enable production of weapons-grade plutonium. The announcement coincides with Pyongyang ratcheting up its rhetoric, issuing threats to wage atomic war against South Korea and Japan, and even to target American cities with long-range nuclear missiles it does not yet possess. For decades, North Korea has used its ramshackle nuclear program and the threat of war to wring concessions from the West. This latest round of saber rattling is probably designed to do just that. Of course, it would help matters a great deal if the United States ceased flying B-2 stealth bombers and B-52 heavy bombers over the region. Such military exercises are particularly provocative given what occurred during the Korean War (1950–1953), when the United States carried out massive carpet-bombing raids against the North. Now, despite all this chest beating, war is still very unlikely. None of the concerned parties have any interest in a shooting war resuming on ...

Dress Codes and a Free Society

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At first glance, the idea of dress codes seems foreign to a free society. Actually, however, the case is just the opposite. That truth was manifest most recently at, of all places, a press conference held at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington, D.C., to announce the inauguration of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. As recounted by Executive Director Daniel McAdams, The front desk called nervously as we closed in on a half hour before the press conference start time yesterday. Two young men fully dressed in Ron Paul regalia, but unfortunately of the T-shirt-and-shorts variety, were desperate to get into the press conference announcing Ron Paul’s new Institute for Peace and Prosperity. Unfortunately the venue had a dress code, and shorts and T-shirts were definitely out, Ron Paul fans or not. The young men were dejected, pleading with the front desk as I arrived downstairs. According to the rules of the Capitol Hill Club, Members and ...

The Democratic Way of Killing: The President as Judge, Jury, and Executioner

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One wonders whether Americans felt pride when they discovered that, according to the New York Times, their president was “a student of writings on war by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.” As a result, Barack Oba-ma believes that “he should take moral responsibility” for U.S. policy, including killing anyone and everyone seen as a terrorist threat to the United States. ...

Syria Remains a Target of the U.S. Empire

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A Russian diplomatic initiative has forestalled U.S. military strikes against Syria. The U.S.-Russian-Syrian agreement would have Bashar al-Assad’s regime turn over its chemical-weapons to the UN Security Council so that they can be destroyed under international control. The deal was proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made an apparently off-the-cuff remark suggesting that ...