Roundup: Media's Take

Max Boot: Somalia's Lesson -- don't always trust the locals

ITTLE MORE THAN a month ago, the situation in Somalia seemed hopeless. The Islamic Courts Union was consolidating its Taliban-style hold on the country, foreign jihadists were pouring in and a new terrorist haven appeared to be emerging. The CIA's attempts to finance a coalition of secular warlords had failed, and the moderate transitional government was under siege in the provisional capital of Baidoa. Then, on the day before Christmas, the armed forces of Ethiopia — a Christian st

Daniela Yanai: Simon Wiesenthal Center may be going too far say some by trying to build a museum on a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem

[DANIELA YANAI is a staff attorney for Ir Amim, an Israeli nonprofit organization that advocates for the rights of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.] LAST WEEK, Israel's High Court of Justice ordered Los Angeles' Simon Wiesenthal Center and the municipality of Jerusalem to explain why they should be allowed to construct a new Museum of Tolerance on the site of an ancient Muslim cemetery. On the surface, it's a straightforward enough question. But it's really about mo

Sidney Blumenthal: State of Indifference

When the hopelessly prodigal son mounts the podium to deliver his sixth State of the Union address, seated behind him will be the parents he never had: the good mother, caring yet demanding responsibility, and the bad father, granting license for misadventure. As he evades and rebuffs Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, President Bush clings to Vice President Dick Cheney as his permissive authority figure. On Monday, the day before his speech, Bush descended to "the weakest point o

Nicholas Kristof: Why Bush has made the classics newly relevant

... Forget the Vietnam analogy that critics of the Iraq war usually toss out. A more trenchant analysis of Iraq-style adventures appears in the histories of Thucydides, written 2,400 years ago. Great Athenian diplomats of the day, like Nicias, warned against military involvement in Sicily, calling it “a war that does not concern us,” according to Thucydides. But smooth-talking neocons of the day, like the brilliant Alcibiades, said in effect that the Sicilians would welcome the Athe

Jay Janson: Early CIA Involvement in Darfur Has Gone Unreported

[Musician and writer, who has lived and worked on all the continents and whose articles on media have been published in China, Italy, England and the US, and now resides in New York City.] There has been a glaring omission in the U.S. media presentation of the Darfur tragedy. The compassion demonstrated, mostly in words, until recently, has not been accompanied by a recognition of U.S. complicity, or at least involvement, in the war which has led to the enormous suffering and loss o

Jan Crawford Greenburg: The Truth About Clarence Thomas

[Ms. Crawford Greenburg, legal correspondent for ABC News, is the author of "Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story for Control of the United States Supreme Court," published tomorrow by Penguin Press.] Clarence Thomas has borne some of the most vitriolic personal attacks in Supreme Court history. But the persistent stereotypes about his views on the law and subordinate role on the court are equally offensive -- and demonstrably false. An extensive documentary record shows tha

Nat Hentoff: Journalists under fire today have been the enemy before

"I can say, as a matter of first principle, that unauthorized disclosure of classified information [by the press] has actually led to the death of individuals [who would not have been killed] had this information not been inappropriately put into the public domain."-- Michael Hayden, Director of the CIA, New York Daily News, December 1, 2006 "What we're really looking at is the criminalization of investigative reporting in this country, and we're on a very slippery sl

Roger Pulvers: Ah, those good old bad old '80s days (About Japan)

[Roger Pulvers is an Australian author, playwright and theater director, and a professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology. His latest book is a collection of 12 secular bible stories, "The Honey and the Fires," from ABC Books (Australia). Click here for his website.] When did Japan begin to change and enter its present phase of burgeoning nationalism? (I hesitate to call it "new" nationalism, beca

DeWayne Wickham: Question of race pervades presidential history

[DeWayne Wickham is a columnist for Gannett News Service. His e-mail address is DeWayneWickham@aol.com.] If Barack Obama manages to win the presidency in 2008, the conventional wisdom goes, he’ll become this nation’s first black president. Most recently, that distinction was bestowed on a white man — Bill Clinton — by novelist and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison in a 1998 article she wrote for The New Yorker. Clinto

Nicholas Lemann: What Is the South?

... The South is a big, complicated region, but the simplest available explanation of its politics is that they are primarily racial. From the end of Reconstruction through World War II, Southern voters were overwhelmingly white, and were unified by their dislike of the Republican Party. Pro-civil rights sentiment was detectable in the national Democratic Party from the New Deal onward, but Franklin Roosevelt's economic policies were so popular in the South, and his embrace of civil rights so fa

William Grimes: Why the Strongest Armies May Lose the Newest Wars

Right now in Iraq the mightiest army on earth is being fought to a standstill by insurgents using rocket-propelled grenades, rifles and improvised roadside bombs. This should not come as a surprise. In nearly every respect the war in Iraq fits a new paradigm of conflict that has been operative since the end of World War II, although military and political leaders have been slow to recognize it. Until they do, conventional armies, applying conventional wisdom, will continue to misapply their powe

William Odom: What Can Be Done in Iraq?

[Lt. Gen. William E. Odom (Ret.).] ... Training the Iraqi military and police force has been proposed repeatedly as a way to bring stability to Iraq and allow US forces to withdraw. Recently, new variants, such as embedding US troops within Iraqi units, have been offered. The Iraq Study Group made much of this technique. I know of no historical precedent to suggest that any of them will succeed. The problem is not the competency of Iraqi forces. It is political consolid

John B. Judis: Is the US a rogue nation?

[John B. Judis is a senior editor at The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.] What exactly are we doing in the Horn of Africa, where we have encouraged the Christian government of Ethiopia to invade Somalia and replace its Islamic government? As far as I can tell, we have violated international law, committed war crimes, helped Al Qaeda recruit new members, and involved ourselves in a guerrilla war that could last decades. It's Iraq writ

Dick Morris: Barack's first blunder

Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-IL, made his first misstep a few days ago when he joined only a handful of Democrats in opposing a Senate reform banning the increasingly widespread practice of legislators hiring their family members on their campaign or PAC payrolls. Obama has not heard the last of this vote. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, who opposes wives cashing in on their husbands’ positions, voted righteously in favor of the reform and will probably use the Illinois senator’

Max Boot: Both sides' strategies in Iraq are big ifs with big risks. The president's is worth a try.

PRESIDENT BUSH'S plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq has not, to put it kindly, been well received. But does anyone have a better idea? Should we just declare defeat and go home? Not even most leading Democrats are willing to go that far. At least not yet. Most instead talk of gradually drawing down forces and possibly redeploying them either to Iraq's borders or to other bases in the region. There is something to be said for this strategy. But it also entails huge risks.

Jay Janson: King's Anguish When He Condemned U.S. War Crimes and Foreign Policy Worthy of Emulation

[Musician and writer, who has lived and worked on all the continents and whose articles on media have been published in China, Italy, England and the US, and now resides in New York City.] "For the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent."-- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Riverside Church, New York City, April 4th, 1967 We should make constant use of King's 1967 speeches condemning the war and foreign policy of his count

George F. Will: MacArthur's Two Words

... It is difficult to imagine how Iraq can end as a success—as an enterprise in which the benefits exceed the costs. And if it is judged a disaster, that will be because the responsible officials were too late in remembering what Gen. Douglas MacArthur said. He said that in war, all disasters can be explained by two words: "too late." Because the administration was too late to recognize that there were too few U.S. forces in Iraq, the looting after the fall of Baghdad—whi

Michael T. Klare: Is Energo-fascism in Your Future?

[Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum (Owl Books).] It has once again become fashionable for the dwindling supporters of President Bush's futile war in Iraq to stress the danger of"Islamo-fascism" and the supposed drive by followers of Osama bin La

Leslie H. Gelb and Richard K. Betts: We're Fighting Not to Lose

[Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, directed the Pentagon Papers Project. Richard K. Betts is director of Columbia University's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies.] Iraq is not Vietnam, yet history seems intent on harnessing them together. Three years ago this seemed an unlikely pairing; surely President Bush would not take the United States down the same trail as Lyndon B. Johnson. Yet even though Iraq's story is far from complete, each

Roger Pulvers: Perish the Thought that Japan May Have God on Its Side

[Roger Pulvers is an Australian author, playwright and theater director, and a professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology. His latest book is a collection of 12 secular bible stories, "The Honey and the Fires," from ABC Books (Australia). Click here for his website.] 'The Japanese are, it is true, commonly said to be an irreligious people. They say so themselves. . . . The average, even educated European strikes the