News Abroad

The Lesson the Palestinians Learned from Israelis (To the Israelis' Everlasting Regret)

by Caleb Carr

This is an excerpt from Mr. Carr's recent book. Following the Second World War, the campaign of Jewish terror reached its peak on July 22, 1946, when the Irgun--commanded by future Israeli prime minister Menahem Begin--blew up an entire wing of the famously beautiful King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Ninety people died: and once again, the vic- tims were Arabs, Britons, and Jews alike. Given such behavior, and given that they had long planned to leave anyway, the British in

With Us or Against Us: Why We Now Have to Put the Matter So Starkly

by Judith Apter Klinghoffer

With Us or Against Us in Word and Deed The United States is drawing lines in the sand, and its European and Middle Eastern allies do not like it. Analysts have pointed out the benefits France accrued from Arab anti-Americanism especially in the aftermath of its 1966 exit from the military command of NATO. Since 9/11, analysts have finally been drawing attention to the manner in which American Middle Eastern allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia have used anti-American propaganda

Why Those Election Results in Pakistan Are Frightening

by Juan Cole

The results of the elections held in Pakistan on October 10 have cast a shadow over the Bush administration's foreign policy. That policy has been driven by contradictory impulses -- curbing Islamic extremism, promoting democracy, beating the drums of war, and supporting dictatorial regimes friendly to the United States. The Pakistani electorate has pointed out the inconsistencies. When we hear that Iraqis will "dance in the streets" on being liberated

Korean Delusions

by Daniel Pipes

What is it about democracies that at critical moments they delude themselves into thinking that they can contain their totalitarian enemies through a policy of niceness? In the 1930s, the British and French leaderships believed that appeasement - accepting Adolf Hitler's annexation of Czechoslovakia - would satiate the German dictator's aggressiveness. In the 1970s, three American presidents thought that détente with Leonid Brezhnev would make it possible to build a U.S.-So

Oil and 9-11: The Connection

by William F. Shughart II

Victory over the evil empire assured as a bloodied Soviet army withdrew in 1989, American policymakers lost interest in Central Asia. What they left behind in Afghanistan was a country Ahmed Rashid describes as "divided into warlord fiefdoms" over which tribal factions "fought, switched sides and fought again in a bewildering array of alliances, betrayals and bloodshed." Into this power vacuum stepped the Taliban. A series of military successes over riv

I Do Not Want My Son To Die In An Unjust Quagmire

by Glenn Melancon

Every school child can recite the value of history: those that ignore the past are doomed to repeat it. What lessons can we learn about the present Iraqi crisis from the Vietnam experience?One of the most frequently heard "lessons" is that politicians should not tie the hands of the military. US forces got bogged down in a quagmire because politicians placed senseless restrictions on how to fight the enemy. If the politicians had stepped aside, the US mili

How Israel's Occupation Affects Palestinian Children

by Juan Cole

Over one in five Palestinian children in the West Bank and Gaza (22.5 percent) now suffers from chronic or acute malnutrition. About one in five is anemic. This mass of hungry humanity amounts to a population the size of Minneapolis, about 380,000 kids. Malnutrition in children makes them more likely to contract life-threatening diseases. It permanently reduces intelligence and vastly increases the rate of attention deficit disorder. Women who were malnourished in their youths h

Would the United States Really Like a Democratic Iraq? (It Should)

by Juan Cole

One of the justifications U.S. hawks give for going to war with Iraq is that an American victory would allow it to set up a democratic post-Saddam regime. Those on the Right who have made this argument seldom know that constitutional monarchies were common in the Middle East in the first half of the twentieth century and that they failed. Why were the liberal regimes so fragile in the end? What can their failure tell us about how best to pursue democratization today? Thre

Yom Kippur: The Holiday on the Road to Peace

by Ira Chernus

Jews have been observing Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, every year at this season for two and a half millennia. In each historical era, the day has taken on new meanings. All of those meanings are now reflected in the Jewish community's ambivalent view of the Middle East conflict. This year, if Jews confess that they, as well as Palestinians, have done wrong and must atone, it could mark a major step toward Middle East peace. Yom Kippur was first celebrated in biblical times b

Privateering, the American Revolution, and the Rules of War: The United States Was Born in "Terrorism" and Piracy

by Jesse Lemisch

The rules of war are laid down by militarily strong nations. These nations define their modes of making war as legal (although they do not always abide by their own rules), while criminalizing alternate modes of warfare rising from the limited strength of the militarily weak. During the American Revolution, the U.S. was militarily weak. It compensated for that weakness at sea by engaging in a very effective form of legalized piracy called privateering. Privateers were denounced by the British in

Preventive War?

by Andrew Kydd

In the 2002 State of the Union address and at the West Point graduation ceremony, President Bush articulated a new strategy for the United States in dealing with the threat of terrorism with weapons of mass destruction: preventive war. The president argued pessimistically that "time is not on our side" and that we could not afford to "wait on events, while dangers gather." Americans must be ready for "pre-emptive action" to defend our lives.

Is Privateering the Answer to Terrorism?

by Nikolas K. Gvosdev and Anthony A. Cipriano

Several credible reports indicate that Al-Qaeda (and other terrorist organizations) have begun to liquidate their bank accounts and other easily traceable assets in favor of gold and precious gemstones. The terrorists hope to disperse their wealth to prevent governments from seizing it, which would prevent them from financing further attacks against Western interests. Given the limits on the time and resources of U.S. intelligence agencies, Congress should revisit the power granted to it

Conservatives Debate ... Is the Threat of Islamic Terrorism More Dangerous to America than Communism Was?

by Vladimir Bukovsky, Daniel Pipes, Paul Hollander, and Michael Ledeen

In his post 9/11 Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, President Bush described the new threat of Islamic terror:"They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions -- by abandoning every value except the will to power -- they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded

It's Time for Sharon to Go

by Juan Cole

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has reoccupied the West Bank in response to terrorist attacks from Palestinian radicals, putting the entire population under a grueling curfew. In April, Human Rights Watch accused the Israeli army of extensive violations of international law during its campaigns in Jenin and Ramallah. Sharon is no stranger to such controversies. He was first accused of being a war criminal after his 1982 invasion o

What Are We Celebrating on the Fourth of July?

by Robert Jensen and Rahul Mahajan

In 1776 American colonists fought for freedom against a mighty empire, an act of self-determination we still celebrate on the Fourth of July. But we also use the Fourth to maintain a mythology about our role in the world that, while mostly true in 1776, is wholly false 226 years later. In 2002, we are the empire. If the Fourth of July is to continue to have any meaning, we must transform it into a celebration of values that are truly universal, by making it a celebration of the

Is the Problem with Arafat that He's a Dictator?

by Judith Apter Klinghoffer

"I am not saying Arafat is the best man, no," Mr. Mubarak said."But we have to use Arafat in this present situation. Arafat would be much more flexible than before after this period of the past year. I think we have to support him for the time being," he said, adding"then, after that, maybe after one year he may appoint some other" Palestinian leader"to take over" while assuming a more ceremonial position (NYT June 4, 2002)". The next day the lead editorial of the New York Times prais

The Downside to the Bush Doctrine (On View in South Asia Now)

by Juan Cole

Does the current conflict between India and Pakistan show that President George W. Bush made an error in issuing his Bush Doctrine in the wake of September 11? The U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan was, in fact, authorized by NATO and by the Security Council of the United Nations. Instead of stressing the resulting legitimacy of his military campaign, however, Bush preferred unilateral pronouncements. He wanted the terrorists “Dead or Alive,” invoking the cowboy ethos of the o

Is the Treaty of Moscow a Good Deal?

by William Lambers

Less is more. While this adage has not always been U.S. policy when it comes to nuclear weapons, it is the theme of the nuclear arms reductions agreement signed between the United States and Russia.This new agreement will shrink the strategic nuclear arsenals of both nations to between 1,700 and 2,200 weapons apiece. According to President Bush,"The treaty will liquidate the legacy of the Cold War."The premise of the agreement is simple: fewer armaments make more peaceful and p

Are Palestinian Leaders Preaching Nazi-like Hatred of Jews?

by Itamar Marcus

Although there have been national leaders who have orchestrated mass murder since the defeat of Nazi Germany, no government has openly preached genocide as a systematic ideology of public policy. This taboo has been broken now by the Palestinian Authority. Prior to World War II, the Nazis prepared the German people to commit the horrors of the Holocaust through a systematic indoctrination, demonizing

The Left Should Look in the Mirror

by David Horowitz

It figures. The guilty ones are the first to point the finger. Now the same Democrats who for eight years slashed the military, crippled the CIA, blamed America for the enemies it made, opposed the projection of American power (missiles excepted) into terrorist regions like Afghanistan and Iraq, dismissed acts of war as individual misdeeds, rejected airport security on"racial profiling" grounds, defended a commander-in-chief who put his own libido above the security of his fellow citizens, and s