POLITICS

When the Bush administration agreed to subcontract its Iraq policy to a Swedish civil servant--chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix--many feared that Blix would be an accommodating diplomatic type, eager to smooth relations with his Iraqi handlers and play to the...

Gore Vidal, famous historian and author, has a new book out. Its title explains not only everything that is wrong with Gore Vidal, but also everything that is wrong with the field of history today. The title is, Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta.I...

TORONTO - How fares freedom of speech at Canadian universities? It looked pretty grim back in September 2002, when a mini-intifada prevented Benjamin Netanyahu, former prime minister of Israel, from speaking at Concordia. Then last month, Ali Hassan and his Middle...

One of the mantras that the protesters against war with Iraq are currently using, sadly with some success, is that such a war would be "preemptive", rather than retaliatory and in defense of the United States, and therefore unjustified morally. Iraq, a cruel...

This week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reconsider its ruling striking down the Pledge of Allegiance. They were right to do so; the court's decision is consistent with the nation's founding principles, which are casually discarded by religious...

Former South African President Nelson Mandela claims the United States wants a holocaust and that President Bush covets Iraqi oil. But what does Mandela want, and has he used any evidence to justify his claims? The standard line is that he was in jail for 20+ years...

Those who oppose war with Iraq--from foreign heads of state to homegrown antiwar protesters--employ a common expression of contempt for the American war effort. America, they sneer, is acting like a "cowboy." A mock interview with Saddam Hussein conducted by a...

President George Bush has been thrown the gambit by Saddam Hussein. In his interview with CBS News anchorman Dan Rather, Saddam proposed that Bush debate him before the world on live television. Establishing a dialogue in the midst of a crisis sounds on its face like...

The leaders of the Venezuelan opposition have demanded immediate new elections to replace would-be dictator Hugo Chavez, arguing that the referendum scheduled for this August will give Chavez time to establish a dictatorship and render elections meaningless. These...

"Let's Roll" became a rallying cry in the wake of the worst attack on America. The phrase, uttered by Todd Beamer, one of the passengers aboard flight 93, before he and other passengers charged the cockpit, was the perfect calling for an angry, wounded nation. "Let's...

Reader Ben Rathbone pointed me to this letter that he wrote, and I applaud the position taken. Here's the background: [On February 22, 2003, the] 24-hour Arabic cable news network, Al-Jazeera, will be broadcasting a two hour "open dialogue" from the Harris Theater at...

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear the case of Three O Realty v. Empire State Development Corporation, an appeal of a New York state court's decision to allow that state to seize a number of privately owned buildings (via eminent domain) for the...

President Bush makes no bones about his Christianity-- or his seriousness regarding war with Iraq (though Saddam's head should have long ago been stuffed and mounted in the Oval Office). That, however, disturbs Christians of the more tiptoe-through-the-tulips variety....