Vaclav Havel writes about Burma
On a daily basis, at a great many international and scholarly conferences all over the world, we can hear learned debates about human rights and emotional proclamations in their defense. So how is it possible that the international community remains incapable of responding effectively to dissuade Burma’s military rulers from escalating [...]
Peggy Noonan starts off with Ahmadinijad at Columbia, but then goes on to relate the same ‘fear of opposing voices’ to our domestic politics, a point that I think is even more interesting.
Domestically, the Democratic presidential candidates appear only before supportive groups. They don’t speak to antitax groups and talk about their own assumptions regarding [...]
Reuters
Fourteen “high-value” terrorism suspects who were transferred last year to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo, Cuba, from secret CIA prisons have been given legal forms to request lawyers, The Washington Post reported on Friday.The move could allow the prisoners, including the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, to join other [...]
BBC NEWS
Nine people have been killed amid a crackdown on anti-government protesters in Burmas main city of Rangoon, state television has reported.The dead included eight protesters and a Japanese man identified by Japans APF News as a video journalist.
Eleven demonstrators and 31 soldiers were injured, state media said.
The clashes came on the 10th day of [...]
FT.com
Democracy and good governance are on the retreat in a number of countries around the world, a wide-ranging report says on Tuesday.The report, compiled by Freedom House, a US government-supported campaigning organisation, concludes that human rights and governance have worsened in Russia and Iran, arguing that corruption in Iran has intensified in spite of the [...]
USNews.com
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s appearance Monday at Columbia University led all three network newscasts last night and received front-page coverage in newspapers across the nation this morning. Most media reports pan Ahmadinejad’s performance at Columbia, where the Iranian leader again seemed to cast doubt on the Holocaust and al Qaeda’s responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. [...]
Michael J. Totten interviews 3rd Infantry Division Lieutenant Colonel Mike Silverman:
“What’s the most important thing Americans need to know about Iraq that they don’t currently know?” I said.
“That we’re fighting Al Qaeda,” he said without hesitation. “[Abu Musab al] Zarqawi invented Al Qaeda in Iraq. The top leadership outside Iraq squawked and thought it was [...]
Times Online
Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem.The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the [...]
TigerHawk offers some strategic analysis of the Iraq war.
The best answer, or at least the answer that will best withstand the scrutiny of history, is that the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, wittingly or not, put al Qaeda in an almost impossible position. We invaded and occupied a country in the heart of the Arab Middle [...]
