So is it time for critics of the Iraq War to eat a little crow? According to this editorial from Denmark’s leading newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, Iraq is far better off today – despite Bush’s motives for the war and the massive civilian deaths – than it would have been with Saddam Hussein at the helm in Baghdad. And most controversially, it compliments the U.S.-led coalition for avoiding...

It seems absurdly simple and much cheaper than what we’re doing now: Buy the poppy crop from Afghan farmers to deny the Taliban the funds they need to attack allied forces, and then destroy the poppy crop. According to this article from Die Welt columnist Ansgar Graw, if NATO can’t beat the Taliban on the battlefield, it should do so in the drugs trade. For Die Welt, Ansgar Graw writes in part: With...

He was born in 1944 near end of WWII right before men and women coming home from one of the most brutal wars that ever was. A ‘tween’ during Korean War. Twelve years old when Hungarian Uprising was broadcast on television for weeks on end in 1956. A teenager during Selma and slaying of civil rights workers, a young man eligible for VietNam War, which was also the first time a war had been broadcast...

Close on the heels of the WikiLeaks comes yet another shock for the US Administration. This time from America’s so-called “closest ally in its war against terror” in Afghanistan. In an interview to France-based daily newspaper Le Monde, President Asif Zardari of Pakistan had said, “the international community, of which Pakistan is a part, is losing the war against the Taliban because...

Anywhere But Here by Michael Reagan Plans to build a mosque and Islamic center just 200 meters from the former site of the World Trade Center where 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks are not merely inappropriate, they are an outrage. This isn’t about some sort of reconciliation between Muslims and their New York neighbors, it’s the equivalent of plunging a dagger into the very heart...

Shame on ADL for opposing Mosque 2 blocks from Ground Zero by Rabbi Michael Lerner The ADL (Anti-Defamation League) publicly opposes the construction two blocks from Ground Zero of the Cordoba House (also known as Park 51), which the planners imagine as hosting a range of activities similar to those offered at the 92nd Street Y, and including a Mosque at which Muslims could worship. The plan, supported by Mayor...

As an atheist I think all  organized religions are dangerous nonsense.  But some things are more dangerous than others and one of those things is the bru ha ha over the Islamic Community center near ground zero in New York.  Thanks to FOX – the black/brown people are coming to get you network – uninformed white people see all Muslims as evil. An unlikely source, Jefferey Goldberg,...

Today’s 9-0 vote by New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission against granting historic landmark status to the building near Ground Zero where a Muslim group wants to build an Islamic cultural and community center is a victory for the First Amendment and a rejection of religious bigotry:

Was the engagement in Afghanistan a ‘colonialist war’ from almost the very beginning? According to this article from Algeria’s Le Quotidien Oran, people in the Middle East and North Africa have known all along what the NATO allies had in mind when they invaded the country in 2001. What from an American point of view was an effort to capture and/or kill those who had attacked the United States,...

The Right Manipulates Muslims – and Boy Scouts by Michael Winship I was never a Boy Scout but I was a helluva Cub Scout. Pack 30, First Congregational Church. I rose through the ranks: Bobcat, Wolf, Bear, Lion. I accumulated Gold and Silver Arrow Points, the Cubs’ junior varsity version of merit badges. My mom was a Cub Scout den mother and spent a lot of time teaching fake Indian campfire...

Pakistanis, already frothing at the mouth with anger about classified documents showing collusion between the Taliban and their intelligence services, had their angst ratcheted up a few more notches on Thursday. During a trade visit to India, British Prime Minister David Cameron sided with India’s Prime Minister in demanding that Pakistan do more to combat terrorism, particularly along the India border. This...

Ironically, with the release of 90,000 classified U.S. documents by WikiLeaks, there appears to be a growing chorus of U.S. allies criticizing President Obama for continuing President Bush’s failed Afghan strategy. This editorial from Spain, which has 1,600 troops in the country, laments how the most civilized nations on earth appear to have dispensed with the Geneva Conventions to pursue policies that...

Cross-posted from The Debate Link Absolutely outrageous. The Anti-Defamation League has released a statement approving of efforts to bar the construction of a Muslim mosque in southern Manhattan, several blocks from the WTC site. While attempting to disassociate themselves from the conceded “bigotry” which they acknowledge animates some of the mosque’s opponents, the ADL claims that the site...

For years science fiction authors have tinkered with the theme of a time machine — one that could take man back in time. Now, lo and behold, it seems as if we’re in a time machine as America is being whisked back decades when race was a red-scab raw issue — and comments about all those powerful, rich Jews were shamelessly uttered without embarrassment. For our latest entry into evidence that...

The shock waves from WikiLeaks’ mammoth release of classified material continue to spread. One of the stories we’ve posted today, an editorial from Brazil’s Estadao, highlights that after the release of 97,000 classified U.S. military documents showing how badly the Afghanistan War is going, in the words of one senior diplomat, the NATO allies ‘don’t know how to respond.’ The...

Since, as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has told the press, only a few thousand of the 90,000 classified documents his organization released have even been examined, there is likely to be a stream of fascinating revelations for months to come. According to this news item from Afghanistan’s Outlook Afghanistan, the documents reveal that among other things, in 2008, retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul,...

What lessons can the NATO draw from the mind-choking release of classified Afghanistan data by Wikileaks? According to columnist Arno Widmann of Germany’s Frankfurter Rundschau, it all boils down to choosing one of two options. For Frankfurter Rundschau, Arno Widmann writes in part: One thing seems certain now: There will be no peace in Afghanistan for the next few years and it’s sure that there will...

As Worldmeets.US’ postings from the Iraqi press have shown, tensions surrounding the standoff blocking the formation of a new Iraqi government are rising fast. And according to this article by columnist Abd al-Jabbar al-Jabbury of Iraq’s Kitabat newspaper, pressure from Washington on the one side and Tehran on the other is rapidly leading to yet another outbreak of sectarian and political war. For...

Peter Galbraith, the former United Nations’ deputy special representative for Afghanistan, raises a pertinent point regarding the White House response to WikiLeaks documents: “The Wikileaks documents, splashed in the Guardian and several other papers, provide useful confirmation of what is readily discerned from public sources: the Afghanistan War is going badly, the Taliban are exceptionally brutal,...

Between the withdrawal of U.S. forces and the continuing failure of Iraqi leaders to form new government, the level of despair in the country seems to be on the rise. In this article from Iraq’s Sotal Iraq, columnist Mahdi Qassem despairs of the helplessness of the average Iraqi, who from his point of view have been turned into subjects of a massive experiment, the beneficiaries of which reside chiefly...

Earlier I wrote this post about director Oliver Stone’s controversial comments about the Holocaust and how he said the Jews dominated the news media. Now he has issued this apology via his New York p.r. rep: A Statement from Oliver Stone: “In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust,...

The world media is in a spin. The Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel have published a huge cache of secret military files from the whistleblowing website Wikileaks, detailing the war in Afghanistan. Readers can folllow the latest reactions to the Afghanistan war logs here at this Guardian blog. The huge cache of classified papers – posted by Wikileaks as the Afghan War Diary – is one of...

If the ancients had oracles and soothsayers, why not the president of the United States? That is the question posed by columnist Shawki Hafez of the newspaperAl Watan of Oman, who recommends the impeccable Paul the Oracle Octopus, fresh off a perfect run of World Cup football predictions, as a senior adviser to President Obama. For Al Watan, Shawki Hafez writes in part: A multi-appendaged soft marine creature...

Is there any hope of Western forces honorably leaving Afghanistan by their announced date of withdrawal? According to Die Welt columnist Richard Herzinger, if NATO withdraws too soon, as it now plans to do based on last week’s international conference on Afghanistan, it will be an abrogation of its responsibility based on a pipe dream. For Die Welt, Richard Herzinger writes in part: Specifying 2014...

My last post criticizing Constitutional Originalists seemed to have hit a delicate nerve with many TMV readers and other contributors. One commentator noted that my post had no point but was entertaining. Thanks for the left-handed compliment. There was an underlying point that most people missed and might not have appreciated, particularly if they have not read or fully understood some of my other TMV rants...