Welcome! i had planned to kick this off with breath-taking revelations and incisive commentary, but the account creation process put a serious crimp in my immediate schedule. i apologize profusely. be assured: daily screed production commences tomorrow!

a news item that appeared on the al jazeera english language website entitled "israeli lessons for the us in iraq" (datelined 4/7/04) speculated the us had adopted or been taught israeli techniques for interrogating detainees. according to the article's author, "tens of thousands of Palestinians" who've been detained and interrogated in israeli prisons and detention centers perceive a "striking similarity" between their experiences and abuses being reported at abu ghurayb. abd al-razzaq-...

an article in saturday's la times (4/7/04) headlined fallouja's fighters trade weapons, not allegiances , staff writer alissa j. rubin focused on the us-sanctioned fallouja brigade which was forming up as insurgents donned uniforms they worn as soldiers in the pre-invasion iraqi and prepared to serve once again under orders from several of saddams former commanders. near the end of the article, some of the men who, for three weeks previous, had managed to successfully resist marines ...

last nite (4/9/04), the cbs news magazine '60 minutes' broacast two segments that qualify (in my opinion) as 'must viewing' for americans (id also recommend them to the rest of the world, of course). one of them was a profile of hugh thompson, the heroic helicopter pilot who--with the support of his 2 crew members--put himself in harm's way to stop a 1968 massacre of unarmed non-combatants by us troops at my lai in vietnam. (the 'scoop' part of this post's title alludes to a brief recoun...

as awareness of abuses at abu ghurayb prison spreads, the public chorus calling for defense secretary donald rumsfeld to resign has grown louder and more emphatic to the point where its difficult to tell the content of a news broadcast from those 'gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now' bladder medication commercials. i can certainly understand the outrage--i've been very critical of rumsfeld since he was first appointed--but this is a moment in history when it behooves us to forego r...

maybe im terminally naive. or maybe im just too gullible. if so, that would explain why, as a young boy, i so easily believed everything i read, heard and was told about america and the american way even though the way things happened around me was frequently, disturbingly, even disappointingly different. i remember very clearly watching early morning news broadcasts while getting ready for school (i had just begun second grade), and seeing crowds of furiously angry adults trying t...

as the nation readies itself for the pomp of former president reagan's state funeral, you'll see lots of pictures of president bush paying his respects. regardless of his sincerity (and i don't for a minute question his grief or sympathy for the reagan family), bush will, of course, benefit by association with the event--especially through poignant images that show bush in close proximity to the casket. the image that's not visible above the text is bush paying the same respect to t...

"Let me further make it plain to the assassins in Beirut and their accomplices, wherever they may be, that America will never make concessions to terrorists -- to do so would only invite more terrorism -- nor will we ask nor pressure any other government to do so. Once we head down that path there would be no end to it, no end to the suffering of innocent people, no end to the bloody ransom all civilized nations must pay."-- ronald reagan, june 18, 1985 while listening to and reading trib...

"It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." --abraham lincoln nearly 141 years later, ev...

sunday night, the cbs newsmagazine '60 minutes' featured a steve kroft interview with retired general anthony zinni usmc, former commander-in-chief of us central command (in charge of all american forces in the middle east) and former special envoy to the middle east under george w bush. zinni and tom clancy recently co-authored "Battle Ready": a book about his 40+ years of service as a warrior/diplomat. in the book, he blames senior civilian pentagon officials for having failed the pre...

cheaper than maps to the star's homes too (wanna make one with your own message? go here )

an opportunity to make a real difference in the way iraqis perceive the us was lost tuesday. while theres always hope of recovery--and id love nothing more than for that to happen--id guess at least some of the potential will never be realized when spc jeremy sivits apologized for his relatively minor role in the abuse of iraqi detainees at abu ghurayb prior to pronouncement of sentence, he not only said he was sorry--he sounded sincerely contrite. "I'd like to apologize to the Iraqi ...

when citizens of the united states of america express dismay, concern or outright disagreement with administration policies, philosophy, point of view or implemenation thereof, they are almost certain to find themselves and their observation dismissed out of hand as anti-american, unamerican or both. it happens regardless of the validity, incisiveness or evidence provided in support. yet nothing is more essentially american than citizens contributing to the free exchange of ideas. the re...

whether one supports kerry, has no opinion about him or would prefer he be run thru a woodchipper, it is important the decison be made on the basis of accurate information. i just finished reading a post in which kerry's testimony before the senate was reported as follows: he told the senate that he or other soldiers “personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly...