The newspapers are full of stories about the successful alliance struck between the American military and Sunni tribes in Iraq, and how said alliance augurs well for the future. “In…
George Bush made a detour to Anbar Province, Iraq, en route to the upcoming Australian summit. He spoke there encouragingly about the progress achieved by his policies. Anbar is no…
Wem Zeit ist wie Ewigkeit, Und Ewigkeit ist wie Zeit, Der ist befreit Von allem Streit. He to whom time is like eternity, And eternity is like time, Is liberated…
President George W. Bush predicted a “nuclear holocaust” if Iran develops weapons of mass destruction and accused the country of undertaking “murderous activities in Iraq”; Iran’s foreign minister described Bush’s…
For the last several weeks I’ve had some data on a very curious contract award made by the administration of Alabama Governor Bob Riley. I held off doing anything with…
Betray: a great word. What is betrayal? They talk of a man betraying his country, his friends, his sweetheart….All a man can betray is his conscience. And how is my…
No sooner had Alberto Gonzales announced his resignation, than the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment going after a high-profile attorney linked to the presidential campaign of John Edwards with…
The cornerstone of British foreign policy for the last generation has been a much vaunted “special relationship” with the United States, in which British national security policy was closely connected…
The quote for the day is Herman Melville’s discussion of the notion of American Exceptionalism found in White-Jacket. A couple of readers have written asking that I flag for them…
But in many things we Americans are driven to a rejection of the maxims of the Past, seeing that, ere long, the van of the nations must, of right, belong…
In an interview with CNN on May 16, 2006, Alberto Gonzales said that he was the grandson of immigrants from Northern Mexico; in response to a question, he confirmed that…
With the court-martial of Lt. Col. Jordan now complete, the official apologists will be out busily explaining that Abu Ghraib is all over now—see, we even court-martialed an officer, and…
The quote for the day is Machiavelli’s speech from Christopher Marlowe’s play The Jew of Malta. It’s a curious play, filled with the wonderful blank verse for which Marlowe is…
A recently retired flag officer friend of mine, who describes himself as a “once solid, and now wavering Republican” tells me : Most officers, you know, are Republicans, but we…
There are four separate cases out there that I have been tracking where the Bush Administration appears to be evolving a truly novel version of the state secrets exception. In…
An attentive reader who followed my piece on the Mobile Press-Register from Thursday, which contains a few mocking asides that I imprudently failed to suppress, writes and asks: “You’re quoting…
Albeit the world think Machiavel is dead, Yet was his soul but flown beyond the Alps; And, now the Guise is dead, is come from France, To view this land,…