The recent attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, using a nerve gas developed by the Soviet Union, is ghastly and horrifying and deserving of the severest condemnation. But I am reminded of another murder attempt—a successful one, this time—that occurred in Washington, DC on September 21, 1976, of Orlando Letelier, a prominent Chilean…
Tag: war crimes
Peace? Sure! Peace with frequent random murders and the occasional contrived crisis
Yesterday’s post, which implied, to quote Henry Kissinger, that peace is at hand, perhaps suggested that I’ve grown optimistic about our future. Well, not so much. Americans, and the American establishment, may be growing tired of our Afghanistan adventure, but we have yet to abandon the joys of remote-controlled murder. The Bureau of Investigatory Journalism…
The Washington Post: Not entirely without honor, on occasion
I’ve pretty much lost count of the mean things I’ve said about the Washington Post,* but, by publishing “10 Reasons The U.S. Is No Longer The Land Of The Free” by George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, the Post has demonstrated that it still feels some obligation to present opposing views. Turley’s eponymous blog…
2011—Freedom rising abroad, declining at home
2011! What a terrible year! In the U.S., at least. I can’t judge the long-term results of the “Arab Spring”—but then neither can anyone else. An end to autocracy, or another version of 1848, with hope first breaking out everywhere and then disappearing just as fast? Who knows? But if the forecast for the Muslim…
Another blemish
I’m still working my way through David* MacCullough’s quasi-magisterial Christianity, the First Three Thousand Years, and I’ve gotten to the Black Death, not a good time to be alive in Europe. Christians responded to the horrors of the bubonic plague first by beating themselves (which McCullough calls the “flagellant movement,” generally more appropriate for paramecia…
The Obama Murders—Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Thanks be to God that we have a liberal Democrat in the White House! Now gays are allowed to serve freely in the military without shame! Without shame, that is, if they don’t mind being complicit in the Obama Administration’s “Mystery Murder” campaign in Pakistan, which has resulted in the deaths of, well, Janbaz Zadran,…
If you’re dead, you’re not a non-combatant
Over at Wired’s “Danger Room,” Spencer Ackerman takes a look at the results of President Obama’s drone war, causing Greg Scoblete and Andrew Sullivan to express skepticism regarding the accuracy of the Administration’s body count. Last August, the New York Times also questioned the drone program’s “perfect record.” This photo, of Syed Wali Shah Khan,…
The Carl Levin John McCain “We Don’t Want To Be Free” Act of 2011
When does it stop getting worse? The U.S. Senate—that’s the Democratically controlled U.S. Senate—has just passed a singularly gruesome package of lies and abuses to protect us from non-existent terrorists by methodically stripping us of all our freedoms. Glenn Greenwald, whose fingers must be awfully tired from typing the never-ending flow of moral and constitutional…
Why, Oh, Why Can’t We Have A Better Press Corps? Mark Halperin just wants to be liked
I really shouldn’t read Time magazine, and I especially shouldn’t read Mark Halperin, aka Captain Kiss-Ass, but I did, and I have to pay the price—I have to suffer as Mark rates Newt Gingrich an A- for saying, among other things, that he would use sabotage and assassinations, plus “absolute strategic pressure” (which is kind…
Newt Gingrich, not really a friend of Israel, it seems
Not enough to satisfy the admittedly exacting standards of Jennifer Rubin, at least, who plants one of her many long knives between the former Speaker’s shoulder blades here. While other conservatives politely averted their eyes from Newt’s whopper, delivered in last night’s debate, claiming that he charged Freddie Mac $300,000 in 2006 to tell them…