Roundup: Media's Take

Ellen Goodman: What Option for Afghan Women

[Ellen Goodman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning commentary appears in more than 300 newspapers. Since 1976, she has written about social change and its impact on American life. She was one of the first women to open up the oped pages to women’s voices and is today, according to Media Watch, the most widely syndicated progessive columnist in the country.] Boston - It's been 11 years since I looked through a photo album smuggled out of Afghanistan by a brave young woman. "This is a docto

Matthew Kaminski: From Solidarity to Democracy (on Adam Michnik and the end of the Cold War)

[Mr. Kaminski is a member of the Journal's editorial board.] 'Fantastyczne!" That's the word Adam Michnik, the man who played one of the starring roles in bringing the Cold War to an end, exclaims in Polish as he thinks back over the two decades since the Berlin Wall fell that Nov. 9 evening. He repeats it in rapid fire, each time flawlessly, with no hint of his trademark stutter. "Fantastic! Fantastic! Poland has not had such 20 years in its last

Fred Barnes: Major Congressional Reforms Demand Bipartisan Support

[Mr. Barnes is executive editor of the Weekly Standard and a commentator on Fox News Channel.] For decades, a rule of thumb in Washington has said that there should be popular support and a bipartisan majority before approving an initiative that significantly affects tens of millions of Americans. Health-care reform—ObamaCare—has neither, yet Democrats want to impose it anyway. If they succeed, the consequences could be devastating for the country and probably for the president and

Con Coughlin: Barack Obama must stop dithering – or Afghanistan will be his Vietnam

[Con Coughlin is an expert on international terrorism and the Middle East; with the benefit of 25 years in foreign journalism, he deftly scrutinises world affairs.] In my experience, you generally know the game is up when the United Nations orders its employees to start packing their bags and head for the nearest functioning airport. In any conflict, it falls to the UN to occupy the moral high ground and concentrate its efforts on alleviating the suffering of the victims of war, rat

John J. Pitney: Presidential Leadership, Then and Now

[John J. Pitney, Jr. is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College. He writes and teaches about elections, political parties, Congress, and the presidency, and has taught a course about President Nixon.] This past week saw the 40th anniversary of the “Silent Majority” speech — a reminder that RN had a couple of advantages that President Obama lacks. The first, as a commenter on an earlier post shrewdly suggested, is that RN had a captive aud

Rick Rozoff: Kosovo: Marking Ten Years Of Worldwide Wars

[Rick Rozoff has been involved in anti-war and anti-interventionist work in various capacities for forty years. He lives in Chicago, Illinois. Is the manager of the Stop NATO international email list.] It has been said that proverbs are the wisdom of nations and one of the most common is that a criminal always returns to the scene of the crime. Former U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton is to arrive in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, on Sunday, November 1 accordin

Dr. Wilmer J. Leon: A Social Agenda for all Americans

[Dr. Wilmer Leon is the producer/host of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program "On With Leon," and a lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Howard University in Washington, DC. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: wjl3us@yahoo.com.] Early on the campaign trail, presidential candidate Barack Obama said, "This country is ready for a transformative politics of the sort

David R. Stokes: The November Chronicles

[David R. Stokes (www.davidrstokes.com) is a minister, broadcaster, and free-lance writer. He currently serves as Senior Pastor of FAIR OAKS CHURCH in Fairfax, Virginia (www.fairoakschurch.org )] Mark Twain often suggested that history doesn’t always repeat itself, “but it does rhyme.” This chronological cadence is particularly true when you note some of the key events in the past century that hap

Bitta Mostofi: Death to No One, 30th Year Since the 444-day Iran Hostage Crisis

[Bitta Mostofi is cofounder of Where Is My Vote, New York. She is an immigrant and civil rights attorney who can be reached at bittamostofi@gmail.com. Kathy Kelly, a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, contributed to this article.] Wednesday, November 4, marked the 30th year since the 444-day Iran hostage crisis began in 1979. On this day, the media traditionally offer us images of Iranians burning American flags and effigi

Adrian A. Basora: US-Spain Relations From the Perspective of 2009

[Ambassador Basora is currently a Senior Fellow and Director of the Project on Democratic Transitions at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. During his prior diplomatic career he had several postings in Europe and Latin America, including an assignment in Madrid in 1986- 1989 as Deputy Chief of Mission and Deputy U.S. Base Negotiator, and subsequently as Charge‚ d'Affaires. He then served as Director for European Affairs at the

Charles Gasparino: Three Decades of Subsidized Risk

[Mr. Gasparino is a CNBC on-air editor and the author, most recently, of "The Sellout: How Three Decades of Wall Street Greed and Government Mismanagement Destroyed the Global Financial System," just published by HarperBusiness.] I recently sat down with legendary investor Ted Forstmann to discuss why, on the one-year anniversary of the financial meltdown, the press has largely ignored the role of government in creating the meltdown—and possibly setting the stage for anoth

Peter Foster: From Berlin to Copenhagen

[Peter Foster's association with the Financial Post goes back 25 years. He is the author of eight books, and winner of the National Business Book award and numerous magazine awards.] T his week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the U.S. Congress that inaction on climate change amounted to a new “Berlin Wall” of “short- sighted self-interest.” Ms. Merkel’s claim was upside down. There is indeed a new threat to freedom in the offing, but it is the Green W

Interview with Gordon Goldstein conducted by Gregor Peter Schmitz: 'Obama Is Absolutely Right to Re-evaluate Afghanistan Strategy'

[Gregor Peter Schmitz is a writer for Der Spiegel]Gordon Goldstein's book on the lessons of the Vietnam War is required reading in the Obama White House. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, Goldstein talks about why Obama should think long and hard about sending more troops to Afghanistan and not rush into the kinds of decisions that Vietnam-era politicians now regret.SPIEGEL ONLINE: President Barack Obama asked his national security team to read yo

Robert L. Borosage: Obama's First Year: It Ain't No Crystal Staircase

[Robert Borosage is co-director of the Campaign For America's Future, and he has written on political, economic, and national security issues for publications including The New York Times and The Nation.] Barack Obama is a leader of great capacities and great contradictions. Perhaps the measure of his capacities is the magnitude of his contractions. He is a man of exceptional grace. But the grace misleads; this is a politician of intense ambition, discipline and grit. He understands

Joshua Keating: Today's Berlin Walls

[Joshua Keating is deputy Web editor at Foreign Policy.] The Israel/Palestine “Separation Barrier” What: The Israeli government first proposed a physical barrier between Israel and the West Bank in 2002, saying it was necessary to prevent terrorists from entering Israeli territory. It is now more than half complete. Although often referred to as "the wall," in most places the barrier consists of an electronic fence surrounded by trenches and barbed-wire fences

NYT Editorial: Tribal Chiefs and the President

White House receptions of American Indian leaders have too often been patronizing historical footnotes. President Obama opened what we hope will be a more promising chapter on Thursday when he met with the leaders from all 564 federally recognized tribes. He vowed that there would be no more “going through the motions” and that his administration would finally face the severe economic and social problems that are the result of centuries of federal abuse and neglect... ... The tribes

Zainab Mohammed: Is Iraq right to reclaim the Ishtar Gate from Germany?

[Zainab Mohammed, Iraqi Archaeologist, NY, Former Employee- State Board of Antiquities and Heritage/Excavations and Archaeological Protection Department-Baghdad; M.A. Anthropology and Museum Studies] Having read Michael Kimmelman’s article, “When Ancient Artifacts Become Political Pawns” in the October 23, 2009 edition of the New York Times, I would like to discuss some important issues regarding ownership of Middle Eastern archaeological artifacts. Although Iraq

Melvin A. Goodman: President Obama's Timid Use of the "Reset Button"

[Melvin A. Goodman is national security and intelligence columnist for Truthout. He is senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and adjunct professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. His 42-year government career included service at the CIA, State Department, Defense Department and the US Army. His latest book is "Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA." ] President Barack Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, will go down in history

David Rogers: Democrats want to seize historic moment

[David Rogers is Senior Congressional Reporter for Politico] Health care is big for House Democrats: big like Social Security in the ’30s and civil rights in the ’60s, big like the war stories retold now in party caucuses as lawmakers grapple with the floor vote that is just days away. All politicians live in the present — or risk perishing, as seen Tuesday night. But history also sits on the shoulders of Democrats these days, and having failed to act on health care in

Nick Turse: The Pentagon's Building Boom in Afghanistan Indicates a Long War Ahead

[Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com and the winner of a 2009 Ridenhour Prize for Reportorial Distinction as well as a James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, In These Times, and regularly at TomDispatch. Turse is currently a fellow at New York University's Center for the United States and the Cold War. A paperback edition of his book The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives (Metropolitan Boo