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EVER WONDER what it's like to be a pariah? Publish something sharply critical of Israeli government policies and you'll find out. .. This, at least, is what happened to Ken Roth. Roth — whose father fled Nazi Germany — is executive director of Human Rights Watch, America's largest and most respected human rights organization. ...In July, after the Israeli offensive in Lebanon began, Human Rights Watch did the same thing it has done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Congo, Uganda and countless other conflict zones around the globe: It sent researchers to monitor the conflict and...

Unapologetically conservative and unfailingly provocative, Pat Buchanan has been firing from the right for most of the past four decades. In his new book, State of Emergency--out this week--the politician and omnipresent pundit confronts what he calls the immigrant "invasion and conquest of America." Buchanan, 67, talked with TIME's Jeff Chu about American identity, why conservatives will lose the culture wars and the rewards of being a cat lover. The U.S. is in a state of emergency? If we do not get control of our borders and stop this greatest invasion in history, I see the dissolution of the U.S....

“President [George W.] Bush has presided over the largest overall increase in federal spending since Lyndon B. Johnson. Even after excluding spending on defense and homeland security, Bush is still the biggest-spending president in 30 years.” ---Stephen Slivinski, “The Grand Old Spending Party: How Republicans Became Big Spenders,” Cato Institute Policy Analysis, No. 543 (May 3, 2005), p. 1. -------------------------Liberal politicians — Howard Dean and John Kerry come immediately to mind — profess disdain for President Bush and his cohorts. * But is this ideologically based contempt justified? Have the actions of the president and his party gone against the...

RISING oil prices sent the gold price to a two-week high yesterday, with spot gold quoted at about $654/oz as investors increasingly sought the metal as a hedge against rising inflation. ...Another attack on Iraq’s crude export pipeline to Turkey on Monday, continued fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, and Iran’s nuclear stand-off with the west all supported prices.

SOME of the most senior American and British officials responsible for policy in Iraq yesterday gave warning that the country was sliding into civil war, an admission Washington and London have been at pains to avoid for months. In what could be a turning point in the intervention in Iraq, two of the most senior Pentagon officers and the outgoing British Ambassador to Baghdad painted a bleak picture of a country falling into sectarian strife between rival Shia and Sunni Muslim militias. The most frank disclosure was contained in a valedictory letter written by William Patey, the British envoy to...

Within 48 hours, it was apparent Israel was exploiting Hezbollah's attack to execute a preconceived military plan to destroy Lebanon – i.e, the collective punishment of a people and nation for the crimes of a renegade militia they could not control. It was the moral equivalent of a municipal police going berserk, shooting, killing and ravaging an African-American community because Black Panthers had ambushed and killed cops. If Israel is not in violation of the principle of proportionality, by which Christians are to judge the conduct of a just war, what can that term mean? There are 600 civilian dead...

Addressing foreign ambassadors, including U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, Prime Minister Fuad Saniora gave the first official death toll in the conflict, saying also that 1,000 have been wounded and a half-million displaced. The World Health Organization told NBC News that hundreds of thousands of people are reportedly internally displaced, with more than 30,000 finding refuge in schools and public gardens in and outside Beirut. Saniora made an urgent appeal for an end to the fighting, saying Lebanon “has been torn to shreds.” In a swipe particularly at the United States, Saniora asked: “Is this what the international community calls self-defense?...

Conservative intellectuals and commentators who once lauded Bush for what they saw as a willingness to aggressively confront threats and advance U.S. interests said in interviews that they perceive timidity and confusion about long-standing problems including Iran and North Korea, as well as urgent new ones such as the latest crisis between Israel and Hezbollah. "It is Topic A of every single conversation," said Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank that has had strong influence in staffing the administration and shaping its ideas. "I don't have a friend...

Iraq will ask the United Nations to end immunity from local law for U.S. troops, the human rights minister said on Monday, as the military named five soldiers charged in a rape-murder case that has outraged Iraqis. In an interview a week after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanded a review of foreign troops' immunity, Wigdan Michael said work on it was now under way and a request could be ready by next month to go to the U.N. Security Council, under whose mandate U.S.-led forces are in control of Iraq. "We're very serious about this," she said, blaming a lack...

World oil prices could double or triple over the current painful $70-per-barrel level if diplomacy failed and military conflict broke out over Iran's nuclear ambitions, Saudi Ambassador Prince Turki al-Faisal warned this morning. "We don't know" what will happen if the United States chooses a military option in Iran, al-Faisal said, but "if there is military conflict, if bombs are dropped, ships are blown up, oil facilities on our side of the gulf are targeted . . . just the idea of somebody firing a missile at an installation somewhere would shoot up the price of oil astronomically." In such...

The Pope has told the prime minister to pursue diplomatic solutions to problems in the Middle East, including Iran. Tony Blair had a private audience with pontiff Benedict XVI at the Vatican on Saturday at the end of a week-long trip to Italy. The two leaders discussed how "moderate voices" from the world's main religions need to work together to tackle extremism and reduce the risk of terrorism, according to Number 10. As well as the Middle East, Iran and Iraq, they also covered the fight against poverty in Africa in their first meeting since the Pope succeeded John Paul...

...Physical separation is therefore the only way to limit the carnage. That process has begun, to some extent, because the violence is driving out the members of one sect or the other from the many mixed villages, towns and city districts. This is a painful and very costly way of interrupting the cycle of attacks and reprisals, but that is how civil war achieves its purpose of eventually bringing peace. ......the U.S. and its allies ...should disengage their troops from populated areas as much as possible, give up the intrusive checkpoints and patrols that are failing to contain the violence...

Critics of Britain's involvement in Iraq urged Prime Minister Tony Blair to step down Saturday after a helicopter crash killed four British soldiers, bringing jubilant Iraqis to the area to celebrate. The ugly confrontation that followed between British troops and Shiite gunmen left five Iraqi civilians dead and was the latest bad news for Blair, whose government has lurched from crisis to crisis in recent weeks. On Thursday, Blair's Labour Party won 26 percent of the vote to the Tories' 40 percent in local council elections. ...[snip] In the latest poll on the war for the Daily Telegraph newspaper, 57...

CIA Director Porter Goss abruptly resigned yesterday amid allegations that he and a top aide may have attended Watergate poker parties where bribes and prostitutes were provided to a corrupt congressman.

Is the national ID card the next step toward the imposition of the biblical "mark of the beast" Christians believe will be required to buy and sell during the Last Days? That's the contention of a growing group of believers who are working to turn back the approval of the Real ID Act by Congress last year. Public Law 109-13 requires the national ID portion of the plan go into effect by May 2008. "There is a prophecy in the Bible that foretells a time when every person will be required to have a mark or a number, without which...

[Caspar] Weinberger [said] that the United States would make no more half-hearted interventions, such as in Vietnam, or the U.S. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, which occurred on Weinberger's own watch. ...[snip] [But] today we have Americans watching over civil war in Iraq, not Lebanon. ... Weinberger preached that a war plan had to be "wholehearted": Preparation often precludes the need to fight. So in Iraq, where was the overwhelming force needed to subdue a country of 25 million? Where was the training for counterinsurgency? The adequate armor? The effective anti-improvised explosive device technology? In fact, there was a disgraceful lack...

In just two weeks, six retired U.S. Marine and Army generals have denounced the Pentagon planning for the war in Iraq and called for the resignation or firing of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who travels often to Iraq and supports the war, says that the generals mirror the views of 75 percent of the officers in the field, and probably more. This is not a Cindy Sheehan moment. This is a vote of no confidence in the leadership of the U.S. armed forces by senior officers once responsible for carrying out the orders of...

Oil prices in international markets closely approached level of $68 per barrel. As RSN informs, price of oil to be supplied in May rose by $0.26 and totaled $67.65 per barrel at internet auction in New York. The price growth was caused by bidders' fears concerning Middle-Eastern oil supply after American media had reported George Bush should organize military action against Iran in connection with Tehran's refusal to stop nuclear fuel enrichment.

One thing is certain about the Iraq war: It has cost a lot more than advertised. In fact, the tab grows by at least $200 million each and every day. ...In any event, most estimates put forward by White House officials in 2002 and 2003 were relatively low compared with the nation's gross domestic product, the size of the federal budget or the cost of past wars. ....Even if the U.S. exits Iraq within another three years, total direct and indirect costs to U.S. taxpayers will likely by more than $400 billion, and one estimate puts the total economic impact...

Francis Fukuyama's America at the Crossroads argues that the United States made the mistake of going into Iraq without preparing for a hostile occupation because of the flawed foreign-policy thinking of a small group of people called neoconservatives. ...[snip] While he remains sympathetic to the democracy-spreading mission, Fukuyama castigates the unilateral and militaristic turns that gave us such concepts as "preventive war," "benevolent hegemony," and "regime change." Neoconservatives, he contends, have abandoned their fundamental political insight, namely that ambitious schemes to remake societies are doomed to disappointment, failure, and unintended consequences. "Opposition to utopian social engineering," Fukuyama writes "… is...

Some big bills are about to come due for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and rebuilding along the Gulf Coast. A Senate G-O-P aide says President Bush is set to request 70 (B) billion dollars in special funding for the two wars. And the official says Bush will seek another 18 (B) billion dollars for rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. That number's in addition to the 85 (B) billion already committed to the Gulf Coast reconstruction.

Here's an oldie but goodie, from February '01 - 5 years ago this month. It's more relevant than ever - because it reminds us of Libby's ties to MNEW YORK -- It is "utterly false" to suggest fugitive financier Marc Rich was pardoned in return for donations to the Clinton library, former President Clinton wrote in an Op-Ed piece in Sunday editions of The New York Times. Clinton said he pardoned Rich, who allegedly evaded $48 million in U.S. taxes, for a number of reasons, and only after concluding that the case should have been handled in a civil rather...

On Friday, Feb. 3, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the nonfarm payroll jobs report for January. New York Times reporter Vikas Bajaj wrote an upbeat news story, obviously based on a Labor Department press release rather than any study of the BLS report. If the rosy view of Ethan Harris, chief economist for Lehman Brothers, is typical, Wall Street has no more idea than Bajaj of what the jobs report really says. The export and import-competitive sectors of the U.S. economy have been tanking for a long time. To keep the story manageable, let's just go back to January...

God forbid critics of the war on Iraq should compare it with the war in Vietnam. But perhaps it is worth mentioning that the liberation of Iraq is now costing more each month than the preservation of the Republic of South Vietnam did more than 30 years ago. As the admitted direct cost of the war reached $250 billion last week -- and the White House asked for $120 billion more on Thursday -- new analyses estimate that the invasion of Iraq could end up costing $2 trillion before it is over. If you remember, the White House's own economic...

This week, a full and unconditional endorsement of Murtha’s notion has come from a completely unexpected source: the notably conservative Tribune-Review, which is based in Greensburg, Pa., but considers itself a full-fledged Pittsburgh newspaper. It’s controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife, one of the chief funders of conservative think-thanks and activist causes around the country. Less than two months ago, the newspaper (daily circulation about 102,000), attacked Murtha’s plan. Printed below is the text of the latest editorial, which was published on Tuesday. Perhaps a few other papers would now like to re-visit this subject, with the third anniversary of the...

The role of Vice President Dick Cheney as the administration's point man in security policy appears over, according to administration sources. Over the last two months Mr. Cheney has been granted decreasing access to the Oval Office, the sources said on the condition of anonymity. The two men still meet, but the close staff work between the president and vice president has ended. "Cheney's influence has waned not only because of bad chemistry, but because the White House no longer formulates policy," another source said. "There's nothing to input into. Cheney is smart and knowledgeable, but he as well as...

Don't know how many of you caught Rep. John Murtha's very angry, very moving speech just now in which he called on the White House to institute an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. CNN didn't air the entire thing, but as I listened to it, I could feel the ground shift. Murtha, as you know, is not a Pelosi-style Chardonnay Democrat; he's a crusty retired career Marine who reminds me of the kinds of beer-slugging Democrats we used to have before the cultural left took over the party. Murtha, a conservative Dem who voted for the war, talked...

Military experts and strategic thinkers differ over whether the insurgency in Iraq can be quelled and a legitimate government stabilized on a timeline and a budget that the American people will support. Rumsfeld's own advisory think tank, the Defense Science Board, took a long look at this issue last year and concluded that the architects of the Iraq war — led by Rumsfeld — lacked necessary knowledge of Iraq and its people, and that they failed to factor in well-known lessons of history. ... The crux of the complaint against the secretary is this: Whenever Rumsfeld has faced a choice...

Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald also dispatched FBI agents this week to comb the CIA officer's residential neighborhood in Washington, asking neighbors again whether they were aware -- before her name appeared in a syndicated column -- that the agent, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA....Critics of the leak investigation have argued that it was an open secret that Plame worked for the CIA; if many people knew that she worked for the agency, it would make prosecution under the 1982 law protecting covert agents impossible. But neighbors contacted by the Los Angeles Times said they told the FBI agents...

It'll hurt like cutting off his right arm, but Dick Cheney has a duty to the presidency to fire his own trusted chief of staff. Here's what's happened that brought about this sad state: Late last Thursday, March 1 (2001), there appeared yet another witness before the House of Representatives Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind. He came on after the press had tired of listening to former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, former Bill Clinton close confidant Bruce Lindsey and former presidential counsel Beth Nolan tell how they tried to argue Clinton out of...

Spinning definitions of criminal actions are fairly common in politics, but even so, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's televised remarks about perjury Sunday were simply jolting. Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" about possible indictments of Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice presidential chief of staff, Hutchison, R-Texas, said, "An indictment of any kind is not a guilty verdict . . . I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that it says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some...

As the White House and Republicans brace for possible indictments in the CIA leak probe, defenders have launched a not-so-subtle campaign against the prosecutor handling the case. "He's a vile, detestable, moralistic person with no heart and no conscience who believes he's been tapped by God to do very important things," one White House ally said, referring to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was tapped nearly two years ago to find out whether anyone in the White House broke a federal law by blowing the cover of CIA operative Valerie Plame after her husband, Joseph Wilson, debunked administration claims about...

The CIA leak inquiry that threatens senior White House aides has now widened to include the forgery of documents on African uranium that started the investigation, according to NAT0 intelligence sources. This suggests the inquiry by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald into the leaking of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame has now widened to embrace part of the broader question about the way the Iraq war was justified by the Bush administration. Fitzgerald's inquiry is expected to conclude this week and despite feverish speculation in Washington, there have been no leaks about his decision whether to issue indictments...

Although the results of Iraq’s constitutional referendum were almost immediately cast into doubt by fraud allegations, Reza Aslan, whose bestselling book No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam predicted a bright future for democracy in the Islamic world, remained optimistic: “Even before Iraq’s constitution was ratified, dire predictions were being made that it would pave the way for the creation of an Islamic theocracy. But whatever problems the new constitution poses for the future of Iraq, the role of Islam in the state is not likely to be one of them.” Aslan maintained this even while...

The Okie from Muskogee speaks out. Merle Haggard Takes Another Musical Stand: Outspoken Musical Icon Urges, "Rebuild America First." No audio yet, but Haggard's new Chicago Wind CD, out next Tuesday (Oct. 25), includes the tune in the headline. Chet Flippo (yes, the early Rolling Stone senior editor, now at Country Music Television as CMT/CMT.com Editorial Director) quotes some of it: "Yea, men in position but backing away/Freedom is stuck in reverse/Let's get out of Iraq and get back on the track/And let's rebuild America first." Haggard also comments on the current political and social scene in the song, "Where's...

At the end of his long opinion on the jailing of Miller, which I have linked, Judge Tatel said that the reporters' privilege yields, in this case, to “THE GRAVITY OF THE REPORTED CRIME.”(My caps)I don't like Laurence O'Donnell, but he's stating a fact when he reports the following: "Judge Tatel’s opinion has eight blank pages in the middle of it where he discusses the secret information the prosecutor has supplied only to the judges to convince them that the testimony he is demanding is worth sending reporters to jail to get. The gravity of the suspected crime is presumably...

Chicago, IL, April 26, 2004 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) lauded today's conviction of Matthew Hale, leader of the former World Church of the Creator (now known as the Creativity Movement), on charges he solicited the murder of a federal judge and for obstruction of justice. "We applaud United States Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and F.B.I. Special Agent in Charge Thomas Kneir for having the diligence and courage to aggressively pursue the prosecution of this unrepentant racist, who has shown nothing but scorn for our nation's system of justice," said Richard S. Hirschhaut, ADL Chicago Regional Director. "We also congratulate Assistant...

The evidence prosecutors have assembled in the CIA leak case suggests Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff sought out reporters in the weeks before an undercover operative's identity was compromised in the news media, casting doubt on one of the White House's main lines of defense. For months, the White House and its supporters have argued top presidential aides did not knowingly expose Valerie Plame, the wife of administration critic Joseph Wilson, as a CIA operative. At most, the aides passed on information about her that entered the White House from reporters, the supporters argued. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald...

A former doorman from Brooklyn now holds in his hands the fate of two of the most powerful men in America and possibly the future of the George W. Bush presidency. This might be the heaviest door Patrick Fitzgerald Jr. from Flatbush ever held. The son of two immigrants from County Clare, Ireland, Fitzgerald, 44, the special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame CIA leak case, has come a long way since the days when he attended Our Lady Help of Christians grammar school on E. 29th St. (now defunct) and played accordion with his brother as his two sisters did...

Since the Iraq draft constitution was finalized on Sunday Sept. 18, Christian leaders have expressed deep concern about the threat to religious tolerance that could emerge upon the adoption of the constitution in October. Prior to the passage of the draft constitution by the Iraqi parliament last Sunday, the patriarch of Baghdad for the Chaldeans had a meeting with the president and prime minister of Iraq on behalf of the Iraqi Bishops’ Conference to make a last-minute call on the change of the draft constitution, according to a report by the Catholic News Service (CNS). "The bishops' conference expressed a...

WHEN Bill Clinton left office, many Americans felt relief. The era of personal scandal and endless campaigning was over. The adults were back in charge. Five years after his election, only Republican apparatchiks now praise George W. Bush. He is more partisan, less competent and far less mature than his predecessor. Compared with the BushII administration, the 1990s epitomise good government. It quickly became clear that Bush was not a fiscal conservative. He combined support for tax relief with a willingness to subsidise the usual Republican camp followers, especially farmers and businessmen. He pushed through the largest expansion of the...

It’s dawning on wall street that George W. Bush may be the first president since Lyndon B. Johnson who believes that we can have a guns-and-butter federal spending policy without creating a serious inflation spiral, if not outright government bankruptcy. At least LBJ, to his credit, believed that there were limits to profligacy and that taxes had to be raised. Not President Bush. He’s making Johnson look like a fiscal conservative, what with his insistence on waging a war in Iraq that’s costing $177 million a day and rebuilding New Orleans by taking on a monstrous load of federal debt....

The U.S. generals running the war in Iraq presented a new assessment of the military situation in public comments and sworn testimony this week: The 149,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq are increasingly part of the problem. During a trip to Washington, the generals said the presence of U.S. forces was fueling the insurgency, fostering an undesirable dependency on American troops among the nascent Iraqi armed forces and energizing terrorists across the Middle East. For all these reasons, they said, a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops was imperative.

There is no denying Christopher Hitchens’s skill as a public figure: he is seldom at a loss for words, sometimes entertaining, and occasionally even right. But he keeps getting important things wrong because, throughout his political wanderings, there persists a strange loyalty to an obscure bloodthirsty revolutionary and to the ideals of the Bolshevik Revolution. For Hitchens—now honored throughout the neoconservative Right—remains what he has been throughout his public life, a disciple of Leon Trotsky and a talented writer and polemicist—perhaps the most talented polemicist the Bolshevik tradition has produced in the West. Given Hitchens’s current role as a neocon...

Yesterday on his radio show, conservative talk host David Gold said the proposed massive federal spending for Katrina "relief" is a TIME OF TESTING FOR CONSERVATIVES. Do they really believe in small and efficient government - - or will they accept socialist-scale big spending as long as it's proposed by a Republican president?Gold said he was surprised and disheartened to find many posters on FreeRepublic.com making excuses for the huge proposed spending. Bet they'd be sounding a different tune if Clinton were president and he had proposed it!

The issue: Four years since the terrorist attacks Our view: Part of the 9/11 healing process is bringing bin Laden to justice. Four years ago, our nation was changed forever on this day. This year, for the first time since those horrific terrorist attacks, we feel as if the nation is finally starting to heal - events and activities are scheduled for this day without nearly the anxiety felt in 2002, 2003 and even 2004. But even though it's important to heal - and to focus on a more recent human tragedy in the Gulf - we can't ever forget...

Former President George H. W. Bush announced Monday that he and former President Bill Clinton hope to raise millions of dollars for Hurricane Katrina relief. Former President Clinton said nothing they do would be an adequate response to the misery the hurricane dealt to southeastern Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. They announced that private corporations have promised support such as a $23 million pledge from Wal-Mart Stores. They also said their presidential library funds will donate to the cause and that other presidential library funds have also promised support. Former first ladies Barbara Bush and Hillary Rodham-Clinton attended the news conference...

" Neocons do not feel that kind of alarm or anxiety about the growth of the state in the past century, seeing it as natural, indeed inevitable ... People have always preferred strong government to weak government, although they certainly have no liking for anything that smacks of overly intrusive government. " – Irving Kristol, "The Neoconservative Persuasion" It is said that in every cloud, there is a silver lining. And if there is one to be found in the recent debacle in New Orleans following the hurricane, it is that the president and his neoconservative advisers have received a...

BLAMING THE LOCALS: That's the Bush strategy. And the local authorities did indeed fail badly with respect to mobilizing resources to evacuate the poorer parts of the threatened city while they still could. No criticism I've made of the federal response should be inferred to say I think the locals performed well. They didn't. But a disaster of this magnitude is obviously beyond the scope of a single mayor or governor. And it became clear very quickly to anyone with a modem or a TV that a disaster was happening. The federal officials are on record denying the calamity even...

Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the Gulf Coast, but it is New Orleans that grabbed the nation's attention. The flooded city has descended into chaos. Well-armed bands of looters are shooting at rescue workers. There are reports women are being raped inside the Superdome, a shelter-turned-nightmare for thousands of hurricane refugees. Food and water is in short supply. So is leadership. The mayor of New Orleans issued an SOS on Thursday night. These are desperate times. In the coming months, Congress undoubtedly will investigate why levees were not strengthened to withstand a Category Four or Five hurricane. But that does...