U.S. military officials are now saying that yesterday’s reports of the capture of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, were somewhat premature.
U.S. military officials were surprised about the report of Abu Ayyub al-Masri’s capture — first reported by Iraqi media and picked up by The Associated Press. And intelligence officials said they were skeptical, even though Iraqi officials said al-Masri was already in U.S. military custody.
Al-Masri (”the Egyptian”), also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, took the reins of the Iraqi al Qaeda offshoot in June 2006 after a U.S. missile strike killed his predecessor, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
You may recall that announcements have been made over the last year or so that al-Masri had been captured three times, killed twice, and horribly injured once. It is somewhat reminiscent of the revolving door position of the “number three man in al Qaeda” who seems to be routinely killed and/or captured in Afghanistan or Pakistan every six months or so.
The position al-Masri holds clearly makes him one of the more dangerous, high value targets in our fight to get al Qaeda under control. The man is apparently part feline in nature and is using up his nine lives quickly. For the time being, though, it seems the hunt goes on.
As the Bush era draws to a close, Europeans are anxious to know what about American policy will change when he’s gone - particularly if a Democratic victory occurs as planned.
“In view of the ongoing presidential campaign, the American exception seems as strong as ever. Where else but in America would a primary race go on for more than a year? Where else would candidates obtain tens of millions of dollars a month from their supporters? Where else would party foot soldiers have the chance to select the candidate for the highest post? … All three candidates take lyrical flight in discussing the American dream. Above all, none will hesitate to resort to force.”
“Clearly, a Democratic victory in November would undoubtedly open the door to a more left-wing America. But it would be a kind of American left, certainly not modeled on Europe. Both candidates have rejected a “single payer” system for health insurance, like the Canadian and European models. The change ahead will not mean the end of the American exception, but the end of American triumphalism.”
LEADING ARTICLE
Translated By Kate Davis
May 8, 2008
France - Challenges - Original Article (French)
All countries are exceptional. But the United States gladly considers itself exceptionally exceptional, different from all other developed countries in its social organization and its fundamental values. The State is less extensive and the distribution of wealth more unequal. The United States is also more strongly committed to what Margaret Thatcher called the “Victorian values:” individualism, voluntarism, patriotism.
Thus the Bush government, which supports conservative values domestically and demonstrates an unlimited self confidence externally, is the most “exceptional” known in recent years. But at the end of Bush’s mandate, isn’t the United States entering a new cycle, characterized by the rejection of conservatism and a convergence with Europe’s standards?
In reality, three quarters of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and for example, vigorously support a system of universal health care. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both have promised to address that. They also want to improve their image in the world. The next government will certainly initiate significant reforms, such as closing Guantanamo or adopting a more rigorous environmental policy in order to address some of the country’s more aberrant characteristics.
Yet in view of the ongoing presidential campaign, the American exception seems as strong as ever. Where else but in America would a primary race go on for more than a year? Where else would candidates obtain tens of millions of dollars a month from their supporters? Where else would party foot soldiers have the chance to select the candidate for the highest post? John McCain won the nomination of his party despite strong internal opposition. Barack Obama is the leader of an uprising against the Democratic old guard.
All three preach a patriotism specific to the United States. John McCain boasts of his service in Vietnam. Barack Obama claims that there is no red or blue, but only one America united by common values. The three candidates take lyrical flight in discussing the American dream. Above all, none will hesitate to resort to force. John McCain sings, “Bomb, bomb [bomb, bomb bomb] Iran.”
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the U.S. elections.
While at WORLDMEETS.US, we have seen a good deal of support for John McCain in the Portuguese-speaking countries ofBrazil and Portugal, chiefly due to McCain’s promise to include Brazil in the G8 and his relatively liberal trade policies, this op-ed from Portugal’s Jornal de Negicios is decidedly concerned about what might happen under a McCain presidency.
After examining some of the specifics of McCain’s foreign policy plans, including his plans to create a “League of Democracies,” “expand NATO to include all democratic states,” exclude Russia from the G-8 and include Brazil and India, João Carlos Barradas writes for Jornal de Negocios:
“McCain’s plans are frightening in their incoherence, total lack of realism and underestimation of economic and financial constraints. … Even before Beijing or Moscow put the heat on the eventual Republican president, the apprehension of allies in Berlin, Tokyo and Riyadh would be such that either McCain will have to change course or he will condemn the United States to a proactive interventionism capable of bringing even greater misfortune.
After six years at Guantanamo Bay prison, the only journalist yet to be incarcerated there, Sami Al-Hadj, was released last week. The case of Mr. Al-Hadj, who was a cameraman for Al-Jazeera, has sparked renewed outrage around the world.
It’s not easy reading for an American, but a good sampling of the emotion in the Arab world over the case can be found in this article from Algeria’s French-language Le Quotidien d’Oran.
“The United States is indeed a democracy: Within its own borders, the rule of law is enshrined. But beyond its walls, only the law of the jungle prevails. Read the rest of this entry »
There is angst on North Africa - otherwise known as the Maghreb - over the second-class treatment meted out to the region by the Bush Administration.
And since this is where the Pentagon intends to headquarter its new African Command - and since it hosts a blossoming al-Qaeda presence - this is not an inconsequential matter.
In the latest in a series of articles WORLDMEETS.US has translated that one might call “we can’t get no repect,” Read the rest of this entry »
Could the Northern Alliance - America’s allies who helped bring down the Taliban Government in 2001 and bring Hamid Karzai to power - be behind the brazen attempt on his life during a military parade last week?
“Who was behind the April 27 attempt on the life of the President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, and what did they have to gain? Read the rest of this entry »
What’s poses the greatest danger to NATO’s effort in Afghanistan? According to Dutch Scholar Gunnar Heinsohn, the answer is clear: Afghanistan’s birth rate.
“In 2008, there are 4.5 million male Afghans within the traditional warrior age of 15 to 29 years. Out of that group come the insurgents that the approximately 35,000 NATO soldiers are now dug in to confront … and behind Read the rest of this entry »
Why is it that Iraq’s wealthy Arab neighbors refuse to forgive its debts or restore full relations with in the country, while Western and Asian countries have forgiven billions and long ago reopened their Baghdad Embassies?
“One can understand their reasons. The damage done to many of them during the years of the Saddam Hussein regime was simply too great, despite the fact that today, Iraq is ruled by a different regime. … one would have though that this page would have been turned long ago. … However, Iran stated in the conference’s final communique that relations with Iraq during the dark past would not prevent it from developing new relations with Baghdad. And it is here that we see the true cause of Arab reluctance. It is Iran’s influence on the new Iraqi Government, which largely represents the Shiite community, that is making the Sunni-led governments of Iraq’s Arab neighbors so reluctant to develop new ties and cancel its debts.”
By political commentator Maria Appakova
Translated By Igor Medvedev
April 23, 2008
Russia - Novosti - Original Article (Russian)
MOSCOW: For some reason, the outcome of the Third Expanded Ministerial Conference of the Neighboring Countries of Iraq, in Kuwait City on April 22, which was designed to combine the efforts of countries interested in stabilizing Iraq, has instead created a sense of unease.
The opening speech by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the final communiqué released by the conference raises the question of who needs Iraq more - its neighbors or the West (and Russia, for that matter).
The Kuwait conference was already the third event of its kind in the past year. The first meeting of Iraq’s neighbors, with the participation of other concerned nations, was held in May 2007 in Egypt; the second, in November in Turkey. And in that intervening year, very little of the underlying intrigue in regard to the U.S.-Iran standoff has changed, nor has the agenda of these meetings - discussing the possibility of writing off Iraq’s debts to other Arab countries and the reopening of their embassies in Baghdad.
In his speech, Nouri al-Maliki appealed to creditor countries to forgive Baghdad’s debts - a legacy of the government of Saddam Hussein. And he asked Arab countries to re-open their embassies in Baghdad.
According to Maliki, it’s difficult to understand why they have yet to restore diplomatic relations with Iraq, while many other countries have reopened embassies in Baghdad despite ongoing difficulties in the security sphere. With regard to Arab countries, they seem to be biding their time - Saudi Arabia promised to reopen its embassy a year ago, but still hasn’t implemented its intentions. Now Kuwait and Bahrain are making vague promises, careful not to mention specific dates.
On the one hand, one can understand these Arab countries. The first attempts some of them made to reopen embassies in Baghdad ended tragically - in August 2003, during a terrorist attack mounted against Jordan’s diplomatic mission, 17 people were killed. In 2005, several Algerian and Egyptian diplomats were abducted and killed. And then, for example, there was the murder of Russian Embassy staff in 2006, although this was not used as a pretext to close the mission.
Granted, security is a sensitive issue. But what prevents Arab countries - and these countries are not poor - from easing Baghdad’s debt burden?
Over the past three years, $66.5 billion of Iraq’s $120 billion debt burden has been forgiven. Along with Russia’s $12 billion in debt relief, the Paris Club waived a total of $42.3 billion, while non-Paris Club members cancelled another $8.2 billion under the same conditions as the Club. Commercial creditors relieved Iraq of $16 billion. Of the remaining amount - between $56.6 and $79.9 billion - about half is owed to the nations of the Arab Gulf, which seem in no hurry to help.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the War in Iraq.
Bill Moyers did his best last night on PBS to put Barack Obama’s controversial pastor into perspective. He succeeded in showing the man’s brilliance but created unease in an observer who, by taste and temperament, is not attracted to apocalyptic preaching about the human condition.
From the interview, it’s easy to see what Obama found in Jeremiah Wright and his church that gave a new dimension to his secular desire to help the poor and dispossessed during his early days in Chicago.
Wright’s church apparently did and does good work in uplifting its community, but the social benefits come with a moral price–the preacher’s selective view of good and evil in the political world.
Consider Wright’s use of Martin Luther King to justify his own history. “Dr. King, of course, was vilified,” he told Moyers, asserting that, after King talked about racism, militarism and capitalism, he was “ostracized not only by the majority of Americans in the press; he got vilified by his own community. They thought he had overstepped his bounds…He was vilified by all of the Negro leaders who felt he’d overstepped his bounds talking about an unjust war.”
Martin Luther King’s opposition to the war made him unpopular with Lyndon Johnson but not the rest of America, least of all African-Americans and, unlike Wright, he did not use it to condemn all of American history, from the mistreatment of Native Americans to plotting drug addiction in black communities.
The Rev. Wright’s need to “damn” America leads him to a peculiar view of history. He goes back centuries to mine our national past for evil but, when asked about Louis Farrakhan’s racist and anti-Semitic speech, dismisses it with “That was twenty years ago” and praises him for getting African-Americans off drugs and giving them self-respect.
Perhaps most troubling of all is his smiling intimation that Barack Obama is only distancing himself from his views for political expedience: “(W)hat happened in Philadelphia where he had to respond to the sound bites, he responded as a politician. But he did not disown me because I’m a pastor.”
April 25th, 2008 by DAVID SCHRAUB, Assistant Editor
There is a persistent tendency amongst people (all people, not just Americans) to deny their group or nation’s role in oppression or atrocities — something I discovered recently when I observed that the U.S. has, in fact, supported terrorism in Central America (the death squads of the 1980s). Denial is a tempting emotion. But it is also exceedingly dangerous, and lays the ground work for the reiteration of mass atrocity worldwide.
What emerges from watching the endless YouTubing of Jeremiah Wright is not the picture of a religious or political fanatic but a world-class attention-seeker. In those operatic video clips, there is a dashiki-dressed performer playing to the crowd, a soulmate, not of Louis Farrakhan, but of Bill Maher, whose imprudent comments on 9/11 cost him his network gig.
Now Obama’s pastor is back on stage, coming out of his recent retirement, with Bill Moyers on PBS tonight and at the National Press Club in Washington next Monday, flamboyantly defending himself to the possible political detriment of his former congregant:
“I think they wanted to communicate that I am unpatriotic, that I am un-American, that I am filled with hate speech, that I have a cult at Trinity United Church of Christ. And by the way, guess who goes to his church, hint, hint, hint?”
If Hillary Clinton’s campaign were paying him, the Rev. Wright couldn’t being doing more for them than to keep Obama’s embarrassment front and center in the days leading up to the final critical primaries.
But we may be underestimating him. By continuing to call attention to himself, Wright may be deviously trying to show that Obama is not under the Svengali-like influence of a dangerous man, just bedeviled by the antics of a showoff.
If so, that would be too subtle for most voters. All that may register with them is Obama’s unfortunate choice in a spiritual adviser.
Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly. — JOHN ASHCROFT
With the drip drip of revelations that the decision to torture enemy combatants and other detainees in the so-called War on Terror began not with commanders and interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq but at the highest levels of the Bush administration, arguments that these insiders should and could be tried as war criminals have become more credible.
Just not tried in the U.S., of course.
As if we needed to be reminded that the White House has worked as hard to prevent these insiders from facing the consequences of their dirty deeds as they worked to rationalize the use of Nazi-like torture techniques, there is a provision in the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that would immunize them against prosecution.
But only in the U.S., of course.
Overseas is another matter, and any Geneva Conventions signatory nation has the right — indeed, the responsibility — to detain someone suspected or accused of violating Article 3 of the conventions.
Indeed, courts in Italy and Germany have issued warrants demanding the arrest of CIA operatives for kidnapping and torturing citizens and residents of their nations, although the warrants have not been executed for diplomatic reasons.
And an effort to prosecute former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld in France for the torture of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, the flagship accommodation in the Rumsfeld Gulag, has foundered because no court was willing to take on this hot potato.
But with every new revelation comes a flurry of articles suggesting that Bush administration big shots, present and former, might want to think twice before jetting off to Europe this summer for some sightseeing.
Please click here to read more at Kiko’s House, and here for an index of torture-related stories and links.
April 25th, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
I think of one thing over and over.
The caskets. Those very few photos and brief film clips of the caskets.
That Rumsfeld and others said no one could see, look at, photograph, no, no. no. The caskets coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be viewed. Some horrible something will happen… we cannot say what
I wonder, since a cell phone user photo-filmed the hanging of Saddam after the entire event was declared off-limits to the press.
I wonder, since paparazzi with lenses longer than their arms, take thousands of unflattering photos of film stars half naked behind the sheer curtains of their own homes.
I wondered, since Michael Moore convened with a student at Columbine to secretly film everywhere inside the high school after Frank deAngelis, principal of the school, had absolutely forbidden any press, cameras, or media of any kind from entering the building for any reason. The “nobody gets to film in this school” footage of every nook and cranny of Columbine was carried in long sequences in Moore’s film, Bowling For Columbine.
Thus, I have wondered how it has been that the press in the USA was told ‘no film’ of the returning heroic dead. Are we to really believe that our courageous in-close press, just like obedient children, caved and said, “Ok, as you wish”…? And that was that?
Why have we no renegade film of all aspects of our dead? Why have we so little play of film from vet hospitals in the States, and near none except a phony ‘rescue’ of a female soldier from hospitals in Afghanistan and Iraq? Why do we have so very few stories of the Iraqi families, the Iraqi refugees, the people who have literally tried to walk with their children and a few days food, out of the fire zones?
Why do we see no long and episodic stories about the children of fallen soldiers? Why do we not have interviews with any of the old people from Afghanistan, from the USA, the ones who say exactly what they think, and without muffling their true thoughts?
Why have we no nightly paraplegia report? WHY are commentators still calling human beings, sons and daughters, “troops?”, as in “Tonight, two troops died.” How did language about the loves of someone’s life come to be named as units instead of souls?
Why have we war, without SEEING it? Why do we have war without HEARING IT? Why do we have war without FEELING it, and daily?
Asleep. Not by self will. Put to. Put to sleep. By others… by their removing all stimulus to our senses… our senses being the only ways we have of perceiving the world and its condition… and what we ought, or not do, next.
Images and sounds and smells and voices and memory are what keep us awake; hunger and thirst for meaningful story keeps the mind alive with new ideas and promotes action.
Without the close-in, hidden stories, the opposite occurs.
Removing images, sounds, smells, voices, words, cries, and memories is precisely what puts a people to sleep, causes them to fall unconscious. And remain that way. And meanwhile, whomever suppresses the vital ‘inside stories,’ runs the show. The entire show.
A show without critics, without onstage voices. A show with an audience spellbound only because they’re tied into their seats while blindfolded and rendered deaf. In this show, there are endless numbers of actors shuffling across the stage and out the back door into the ‘theater’ of war. All the action takes place there, out of sight and hearing of the audience.
And, I still think of the caskets. I ask myself, Have we time-warped to living back in old Soviet Russia? where no person is allowed to take a picture of a titmouse or a telephone pole for fear of being arrested because, “It is forbidden. And, we cannot, will never tell you why.”
And I am still asking what happened to the close-in tellers, the journalists who have power and contacts and resource… and guts… enough to peer in, pry into… and pour the ‘real deal’ stories back out to us.
Saying all the mainstream media moguls have pulled back on financing their investigative reporters is not good enough. There are mavericks everywhere. Something else is wrong. Something else.
I only know this: Coming from a country that was constantly over-run by one marauding tribal group after another during its several thousand year old history… my old country father, Jozsef Pinkola used to say…
“To blind the people, you only have to do one thing:
Kill all the storytellers.”
Michael Crowley of the New Republic, has a good article about Senator Obama and his Iraq policy. You will want to read the whole thing, but in short he says that while Obama is talking about getting out of Iraq, it might be more likely to see a reduced presence in Iraq.
I think that no matter who gets into the Oval Office in 2009, Iraq is not going to be easy to deal with and will probably go against what the bases of the political parties want.
There has been a lot of talk that either Hillary Clinton or Obama will not get the troops out yesterday, but I there has not been talk about what McCain would do other than the errorneous “100 years” remark. This is only my guess, but I tend to think that even though McCain has talked a lot about staying in Iraq and fighting, I have to think that he will also be thinking about how to best get America out of Iraq. Why? Because if he wins, he will have to face the responsibility of leading a nation that is in an unpopular war, where the body count is rising and rising with no end in sight. McCain might be a Vietnam Veteran and a hawk, but I think in his heart of hearts, he knows when a losing proposition is a losing proposition. My guess is that he might bring in the United Nations through some kind of peace keeping force, or do a whole bunch of shuttle diplomacy to European captials to get them involved (and privately offering a bunch of mea culpas). There might be some spin to make it look like we are chaning the focus (remember “peace with honor,”) and the mission might change to one of containment- trying to keep the instability in Iraq from spreading or threatening nearby nations.
Of course, this is all speculation and I could be totally wrong. But like the Dems, who have to face that they can’t get out as easy nor as fast as they want to, McCain will have to realize that we can’t stay there forever, either.
The sticking point on both sides are the bases of both parties. Will antiwar Democrats give a President Clinton or Obama some wiggle room in how best to end the conflict? Will pro-war Republicans concede that there is a time when we have to drawn down troops and end the war and allow a President McCain to oversee a withdrawl of forces? Will any of the candidates be strong of enough to face down their bases?
Beyond all the soundbites of “out of Iraq” or “Victory in Iraq,” is the realities of governing. Iraq is not as easy as both sides want it to be. It was politics that got us into the mess of Iraq. Let’s hope politics will not be what drives us getting out.
“Bush sees the world in terms of good and evil, and he considers that only a united front encompassing all 2.2 billion Judeo-Christians will be able to resist Islam. Recent decades have seen increasing religious tension and the spread of theocracies, which now encompass almost all Arab countries.” Read the rest of this entry »
April 22nd, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
It is said that American youth voters would play a crucial role in this US presidential election. But have we ever wondered that most of the wisdom pouring out in the media/blogs on Iraq and Afghanistan “wars”, and other issues, is the monopoly of people who have possibly left their youth far behind? And these “wise” people may have basically lost what is called a zest for life.
I remember in the 1960s when I was in school how emotional/angry we felt at issues/events/developments taking place in different parts of the world at what we perceived as “unjust” and “unfair”. American youth then was at the forefront of youth protest. Or was our generation just silly/sentimental?
Today, I was pleasently surprised to read an 18-year-old junior’s views who studies at St. Andrew’s School in Middletown, Del.
Excerpts:
“I have begun to understand that we deal with this war in abstractions. We see Iraq as a distant problem, and it’s difficult to summon outrage because we have not been asked to sacrifice anything. Is it possible to summon deep-rooted anger for a war for which we were never asked to sacrifice anything? I continue to hope that it is.
“It occurred to me last month, on my 18th birthday, that the soldiers dying in Iraq are my age. They are college-aged, anxiety-filled kids. Kids — members of my generation — are dying in Iraq…. I finally realize. War is a children’s crusade.”
Now it’s Condoleezza Rice’s turn to take a hand in putting up the false front the Bush Administration is trying to construct and pass off as “victory.” She follows President Bush last September, Vice President Cheney and the war’s heir apparent, John McCain, last month in projecting a perception of peace with smoke and mirrors.
In a surprise trip last weekend, the Secretary of State was cheerleading “a coalescing of a center in Iraqi politics in which the Sunni leadership, the Kurdish leadership, and elements of the Shiite leadership that are not associated with these special groups have been working together better than at any time before.”
The “special groups” are militias of the Mahdi Army. If the central government continues to attack them, as it did ineptly in Basra this month only to be bailed out by US forces, al-Sadr is threatening “all-out war.”
While Rice hailed the coalescing, there were three rocket attacks–the first as she was meeting with Maliki at his office, another while returning to the Green Zone from a meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talibani, a third that delayed a ceremony at which she unveiled a plaque commemorating civilian deaths in the Green Zone.
For years Democrats have SOUNDLY condemned any attempts by the White House or GOP to use bin Laden images to suggest that Democrats are soft on terrorism. But now a Democrat does just that — and there is silence from many Democrats.
So in 2008 if some Republicans use the same “Vote for us or die” suggestion and Democrats condemn them, people need to keep in mind that the use of these tactics — coming on the eve of a vote so the other campaign really can’t mount a quick response — has now been validated by many Democrats who applaud or look the other way when anything is used to help their side win.
Are the pro-Obama forces seriously trying to get their troops outraged over this latest ad from Hillary Clinton? Just because it contains a ten-second sequence of presidential crises (Depression, Pearl Harbor, gas crisis, Katrina, etc.) and flashes a half-second clip of Osama bin Laden as part of it? Spare me. Are Democratic political ads no longer even allowed to mention the fact that the next president is going to have to deal with the war on terror?
I politely disagree:
1. If you go back and look at the blog, progressive talk show, etc. outrage during the Bush administration there has been one constant. Democrats of all types soundly condemned any use of bin Laden footage or a suggestion that if you didn’t vote for the Republicans your life might be in danger. Now it appears in an ad for a Democrat — and it’s no longer something to condemn.
2. It isn’t only Obama forces that could react this way. The last time I belong to a political party, I registered as a Republican in California to vote for John McCain in the 2000 Republican presidential primary. A new book on Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes me and describes me as a typical California independent voter. If it’s wrong when one side does it, it’s wrong when the other side does it. Not all independent voters react this way (independent voters are not monolithic) — but this one does.
April 19th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
History will provide many interpretations of George W. Bush, his life & times. Here comes the cinematic version. Oliver Stone, a three-time Academy Award winning film director and screenwriter, is making a film on President George W. Bush (simply called W) and would be shot in Louisiana. Bush experts have already begun to dissect the screenplay.
W would come as a farewell gift to Mr Bush who could view it from the comfort of the White House before he leaves office next January. This is Stone’s third film about a US president, following Nixon and JFK.
“The director has been an outspoken critic of President Bush’s policy in Iraq. Mr Bush will be played by Josh Brolin (see photo above), who starred in the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men. Laura Bush is being played by Elizabeth Banks, who starred in The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” reports The Independent.
“The new film, W, portrays George Bush as a foul-mouthed, dried-out drunk with a baseball obsession and a difficult relationship with his father. The film will cover Mr Bush’s obsession with invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein – which Stone suggests is to avenge the Iraqi leader’s much ballyhooed assassination attempt on Bush Snr.
“It will also look at Mr Bush’s desperate hunt for WMDs in Iraq and his well known mangling of the English language. The script gives the impression that the White House is Mr Bush’s very own fraternity house where discussions about going to war sound like the staff are betting on a football game.”
William Oliver Stone was born in New York City. He grew up wealthy and lived in townhouses in Manhattan and Stamford, Connecticut. His father was a Jewish stockbroker and his mother a Roman Catholic of upper class French birth. He was raised an Episcopalian as a compromise but has since converted to Buddhism.
Stone’s famous quote: “I make my films like you’re going to die if you miss the next minute. You better not go get popcorn.”
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