When a court in Guatemala convicted former U.S.-backed dictator Rios Montt of genocide a couple weeks ago, I was skeptical. I wrote then, “But don’t be surprised if this does not last and the current president, who served in the military under Montt, finds some way to void the result.” And here’s the least surprising …
Category Archive: Foreign Policy
Apr 09 2013
Obama and North Korea: Damned If He Does, Doesn’t
As Kim Jong-Un of North Korea engages in a series of provocative but mostly pointless “threats,” some Republicans are calling for a first strike and criticizing Obama for not taking decisive action. The Worldnutdaily, on the other hand, is criticizing Obama for taking any action at all. They know the real reason Obama has shifted …
Mar 26 2013
Anti-War Messaging = Bad Ratings
Here’s something few people probably remember. In 2003, Phil Donahue had the most popular show on MSNBC. And he was fired. And a leaked memo from network executives said that he was fired because his strong stand against the impending invasion of Iraq made him a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of …
Mar 25 2013
Richard Perle Runs From Reality
David Corn draws attention to an NPR interview with Richard Perle, who looks — and acts — like a neo-con sith lord and was one of the architects of the invasion of Iraq. And despite the fact that he was wrong about absolutely everything, he refuses to even entertain the obvious question:
Mar 22 2013
Bush, Cheney Distorted Intelligence Data
I know, it’s hardly a revelation that the Bush administration, especially Dick Cheney, distorted the assessments of the intelligence community in order to build a dishonest case for war in Iraq. But one of the members of the CIA team that briefed Cheney on the subject just wrote an article for Wired about her experiences. …
Mar 22 2013
Ten Years Later: The Pre-War Rhetoric
On the 10th anniversary of our invasion of Iraq, it’s certainly worth looking back to see some of the statements made by supporters of that invasion before it began. Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, President Bush and many others weren’t just wrong, they had invented their own alternate reality that wasn’t even close. Radley Balko offered …
Mar 21 2013
Wolfowitz Admits the Obvious About Iraq War
Paul Wolfowitz, probably the most important driving force behind the invasion of Iraq in 2003, is finally admitting that they may have made some mistakes. But he still thinks it was all worth it and that it would have been far worse if we’d let Saddam Hussein stay in power.
Mar 21 2013
Judis on Political Consensus and the Iraq War
Ten years after we invaded Iraq, it’s worth examining how the decision to invade became a matter of bipartisan consensus at the time. We like to think that it was just Bush and the neo-cons who wanted it, but nearly all the leading lights of the Democratic party supported it too, including both Clintons. John …
Mar 15 2013
Kim Jong Un: Dictator as Troll
North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un is quickly proving to be, like his father Kim Jong-Il and grandfather Kim Il-Sung, adept at the art of trolling. His latest comments to military troops about potentially destroying a South Korean island and turn it into a “sea of fire” have American officials predictably jumping in response.
Mar 11 2013
Another Pro-Iraq War Conservative Admits Mistake
Andrew Sullivan is not the only supporter of the invasion of Iraq who has admitted he was wrong and been intellectually honest enough to evaluate why he was so wrong. Rod Dreher, one of the bright and intellectually honest voices on the right, cops to it as well:
Mar 08 2013
Unhappy Anniversary, Iraq War
Ten years ago this month, the United States invaded Iraq in a war that was sold on the basis of some truly absurd lies. James Fallows, one of the nation’s best journalists and an early opponent of the war, has a review of how we got there and how we’ve suffered for it. For one …
Feb 22 2013
The Lies That Launched the Iraq War
Rachel Maddow did an hour long special called Hubris: Selling the Iraq War that is exactly the kind of investigative journalism that the cable news networks should be doing more often. I was glad that she began with the Tonkin resolution, which was the lie on which the Vietnam war was based. The war in …
Jan 18 2013
Gaffney Continues to Rant Against Brennan
I think making John Brennan the director of the CIA would be a big mistake because he was one of the apologists for the Bush torture regime. Frank Gaffney, firmly entrenched in the alternate reality of Planet Wingnuttia, thinks Brennan shouldn’t be CIA director because he loves Muslim terrorists. And he speaks Arabic.
Dec 31 2012
Rich Lowry Keeps Using That Word…
Rich Lowry, the National Review editor most famous for seeing starbursts when Sarah Palin winked at him through the TV during the 2008 vice presidential debate, has a column at Politico objecting to the possible naming of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. And he doesn’t seem to have any clue what the word “mainstream” …
Dec 05 2012
Why I’m Not Afraid of a Nuclear Iran
If there’s one thing that is a matter of absolute consensus among elected officials of both parties, it is that we cannot, must not, ever allow Iran to develop the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon. Romney and Obama both agreed that we must do everything in our power, including going to war if necessary, …
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