The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) just turned five years old. It seems like it was born just yesterday.

The department’s growing pains have made it a slow learner and a downright ugly child. Born in an atmosphere of tension and fear, and cobbled together from pieces of other government departments and agencies, the prospects for this Frankenstein offspring were always dim....Full Story

Now that the deadline has passed without an international agreement on the future of Kosovo—the Serbian province that has enjoyed autonomy under the tutelage of the United Nations since the NATO-Serb war of 1999—a showdown in the U.N. Security Council looms....Full Story

In medicine, doctors weigh the success rate of a procedure before they undertake an operation. Unfortunately, foreign policy isn’t made in the same scientific spirit. Propelled by the excitement of the moment and lots of wishful thinking, policymakers order military deployments without consulting past experience....Full Story

When U.S. government officials and foreign policy pundits discuss terrorism, they usually focus on the characteristics, personnel, history, tactics, targets, objectives and effects of terrorist organizations. They rarely talk about motives.

To fully understand Islamic terrorism, one needs to understand what triggers this extraordinary rage....Full Story

We finally have tolerably good evidence that Fidel Castro is really alive and at least to some degree recuperating after ten months and several surgeries. The key event was a fifty-minute pre-recorded interview broadcast on Cuban National Television in early June, in which Castro, still clearly weak, aimlessly reminisced and at times appeared a bit incoherent....Full Story

Twenty-five years ago, in one of history’s biggest military blunders, the Argentine military invaded the Falkland Islands (which Argentines call the Islas Malvinas), a self-governing, overseas territory of the United Kingdom. It took British forces just over ten weeks to traverse a third of the globe and rout out the invaders....Full Story

The Iraq War has made refugees of millions of Iraqis. They have been ethnically cleansed or displaced to other locations both inside the country, to neighboring countries, and overseas. Yet the Bush administration, the creator of the chaos and mayhem in Iraq, has done little to help them....Full Story

America’s problems in Afghanistan and Iraq may have one positive effect: They will cause the U.S. public to withhold support for future military interventions that are not absolutely necessary for U.S. security. That’s exactly what has happened in the past and there’s no reason to believe the current failed adventures will be different....Full Story

Michael Chertoff, President Bush’s secretary of Homeland Security, desperately tried to refute Zbigniew Brzezinski’s cogent charge that the administration has hyped the “war on terror” to promote a “culture of fear,” in a recent Washington Post op-ed....Full Story

Ten years ago, in a brief commentary, I called attention to the close association between war and the U.S. presidents ranked as “great” or “near great” in polls of historians. My essay has gained a fair amount of attention over the years....Full Story

The Bush administration, desperate for justifications to buy a little more time with the American people for its failed adventure in Iraq, markets the idea that if the United States rapidly withdraws from Iraq, the “terrorists will follow us home....Full Story

In its newly released annual report on the status of human rights around the world, the U.S. State Department disparages a long list of nations about their violations of individual freedoms. The report notes that countries in which power is concentrated in the hands of unaccountable rulers, whether totalitarian or authoritarian, continue to be the world’s most systematic human rights violators....Full Story

The bulk of expert opinion predicts that the Bush administration’s escalation strategy in Iraq will fail. The void created by the administration’s lack of a back–up plan for that outcome has been filled with proposals from pundits, academics, and think–tank analysts, who recommend containing Iraq’s civil war....Full Story

While media attention has been focused on the U.S. quagmire in Iraq, an equally failed war in Afghanistan has received little coverage. As in countless militaristic U.S. nation–building fiascos, “mission creep” in Afghanistan is leading to another foreign policy disaster....Full Story

As President Bush continues his Nixonesque policy of “exiting” Iraq by escalation and intimidation, both Republican and Democratic politicians are also imitating the Vietnam-era rhetoric of blaming the citizens of the chaotic country and their neighbors for the mess....Full Story

President George W. Bush, contrary to the will of the American and Iraqi peoples and his own military commanders, seems ready to embark on a potentially disastrous escalation of the Iraq war, which was lost long ago. This mind-numbingly idiotic strategy is sure to needlessly cost more American and Iraqi lives and to lose the presidency for the Republicans in 2008....Full Story

Ever since the Iraq Study Group (ISG) issued its recommendations, the debate in Washington has swirled around what to do about the mess in Iraq. Unfortunately, both the recommendations of the study group and the contradictory inclinations of the Bush administration are “bridges to nowhere....Full Story

In the wake of the recent crushing Democratic election victory, most pundits in Washington have been expecting the Bush administration to change course in Iraq. For those people, last week’s testimony by General John Abizaid, the U.S. commander ultimately in charge of the Iraq war, was disappointing....Full Story

“Thou shalt not steal” is a rule as old as human society itself. It must have been, else no complex human society would have proved viable.

We are all taught very early to respect what belongs to others: “Don’t take your sister’s toy away from her,” your mother admonished, punishing you if you persisted in your toddler’s larceny....Full Story

In the run up to the November 7 elections, U.S. politicians from both parties are telling Iraqis that they are not doing enough to improve their own security. Democrats are disparaging Iraqi security efforts and criticizing the Bush administration for not pressuring Iraqis to do more....Full Story

Bringing our fellow Americans to a greater understanding of the evils of a government-dominated society and the virtues of a free society has always been difficult and frustrating work. It’s no wonder that Albert Jay Nock likened it to Isaiah’s job....Full Story

As the violence in Iraq mounts and the U.S. military experiences a spike in deaths and casualties, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shi’a, has refused to begin disarming Shi’ite militias, which have infiltrated the government security forces. Al-Maliki has also resisted allowing the U.S....Full Story

President Bush has so badly lied himself into a corner that he now needs the bipartisan “Iraq Study Group”—headed by the Bush family’s fix-it man, former Secretary of State James Baker—to tell the American public that things are rapidly going south in Iraq....Full Story

John D. Negroponte, President Bush’s Director of National Intelligence, is now busy undermining a National Intelligence Estimate which concluded that the U.S. invasion of Iraq has worsened radical Islamic terrorism around the world. He previously had approved the document....Full Story

In June, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China offered to provide goodies if Iran ended its nuclear program and threatened economic sanctions if it did not. Negotiations would not start until Iran suspended its enrichment of uranium....Full Story

Like JFK’s assassination in 1963 and the moon landing in 1969, people remember where they were and what they were doing on September 11, 2001. In my case, just a few hours before the attack, I was walking down one of the corridors of the Pentagon that was later obliterated by the hijacked aircraft....Full Story

The fifth anniversary of September 11, 2001, will certainly produce an outpouring of politically motivated media presentations ranging from conspiracy theories to justifications for pursuing the “War on Terror....Full Story

The outspoken President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has challenged President Bush to debate U.S.-Iran relations. Bush has dismissed the offer and declined. Debate is not good–faith negotiation between the opposing parties, but it is better than nothing. And it might not be as one–sided as most Americans think....Full Story

Ten years ago this month, UN member states overwhelmingly endorsed and later opened for signature the longest-sought, hardest-fought nuclear arms control treaty: the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Today, despite widespread support for the CTBT and a de facto global nuclear-test moratorium, the treaty still has not entered into force....Full Story

In Saddam Hussein’s war crimes trial for the 1988 Iraqi “Anfal” campaign that gassed Kurdish villages, his defense lawyers have argued that Iraqi forces were really attempting to strike Iranian forces and the Iraqi Kurdish pesh merga militias that were in and supported by the hamlets....Full Story

Although this weekend’s Israeli commando raid into Lebanon was billed by the Israeli government as an effort to prevent the rearming of Hezbollah, many suspect it was designed to grab a high-level Hezbollah leader to exchange for the Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah....Full Story

In the frenzy surrounding the exposed plot to simultaneously blow up ten airliners flying from Britain to the United States, one line of inquiry being pursued by investigators should make the Bush administration very nervous....Full Story

As both the Bush administration and its client government in Israel, with their invasions of Arab states in Iraq and Lebanon respectively, make the United States ever more hated in the Islamic world, a new book by the Chairmen of the 9/11 commission admits that the commission whitewashed the root cause of the 9/11 attacks—that same interventionist U....Full Story

Despite growing world outrage, the Bush administration’s continued backing of Israel’s over-the-top military action in Lebanon can only help Hezbollah and its patron Iran. The administration’s foreign policy could not be more pro-Iranian if the White House had become infested with Iranian agents....Full Story

By declaring that “Israel has right to defend itself,” the Bush administration is tacitly approving Israel’s pounding Lebanon into rubble and reinvading Gaza. Since 9/11, the administration has tried to cast its “war on terror” as broadly as possible, including an invasion of Iraq and the labeling of groups that focus their attacks only on Israel—Hamas and Hezbollah—as terrorists....Full Story

Although George W. Bush is probably not the worst president in U.S. history (Woodrow Wilson may have that dubious honor), the President may be in contention for that title in the post-World War II era. Although he still has two and a half years to go in his term and could conceivably orchestrate a late inning rally, the way he has run his administration to date makes that doubtful....Full Story

Although on the surface, things have been going well lately for President Bush on Iraq—the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the installing at long last of a permanent government in Iraq, and a vote of support in the U.S. House of Representatives for the President’s Iraq policy—it is easy to forget that even if the United States wins the war in Iraq, it loses....Full Story

On Memorial Day, we should honor those who are buried after dying in the country’s wars, but be a little more skeptical of the U.S. government actions that put them there. It is often said that they died for “freedom” or their “country,” but more often they were needlessly put at risk by their government....Full Story

The nomination of Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) former director, to replace the disastrously incompetent Porter Goss as Director of the CIA, should be rejected on the grounds that Hayden subverted the U.S. Constitution....Full Story

Pro-administration pundits are trying to stifle a group of retired generals who are calling for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign. These pundits argue that such criticism undermines the principle of civilian control over the military. In fact, the republic benefits from such outspoken behavior....Full Story

Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to the nation’s capital last week was an especially noteworthy disaster. A summit that should have dealt with the vital issue of how the United States can peacefully acknowledge China’s rise as a great power focused instead on narrow trade and proliferation issues and became a farce of administrative snafus....Full Story

Since the Vietnam War, in which returning draftees were shunned by much of American society, critics of U.S. foreign policy, including the Iraq war, have bent over backwards not to criticize U.S. military forces and sometimes have even praised soldiers’ willingness to fight for their country....Full Story

Because the Bush administration, almost from the start, has eschewed any comparison of Iraq with Vietnam, officials apparently never read the history of the nation’s heretofore worst war and have made the same 10 major mistakes:

1. Underestimating the enemy....Full Story

As the Iraq War enters its fourth year and the media reads the tea leaves to see if a “civil war” has officially begun, top officials of the Bush administration continue to try to spin their way to victory by using “happy talk....Full Story

President Bush is now warning against a retreat into “isolationism” and has begun recommending international engagement. This from a man who morphed a campaign pledge of adopting a “more humble foreign policy” into virtually unilateral invasion of Iraq—another sovereign nation posing little threat to the United States....Full Story

The Bush administration has signed a new nuclear pact with India that effectively lifts a moratorium on India’s purchase of Western nuclear fuel, technology, and parts. The agreement also allows India to expand its nuclear weapons program in exchange for international inspections of only its civilian nuclear activities....Full Story

Some pundits have used Iran’s apparent quest for an atomic weapon as an excuse to push, with a straight face, the silly idea of inducting Israel into NATO. The idea is not just absurd because NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and Israel is nowhere near the North Atlantic, but because Israeli security has never been better and doesn’t need NATO protection....Full Story

Some members of Congress, exhibiting post-9/11 jingoism and paranoia, are pressuring the Bush administration to reconsider its decision to allow Dubai Ports World, an Arab company, to take over operations at six U.S. ports. The approval should stand.

Congressman Peter T....Full Story

It took only minor concessions by the Bush administration to convince enough Democrats to support the renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act and end a Senate filibuster blocking the bill’s passage. In fact on both the renewal of the PATRIOT Act and warrantless domestic spying by the National Security Agency (NSA), the Democrats have recently caved in or are signaling that they soon will....Full Story

The stunning victory of the militant group Hamas over the Fatah party in the Palestinian election has caused much handwringing in the United States and Israel. But U.S. and Israeli policies indirectly helped bring about that result. Yet despite the Bush administration’s bungling, perhaps something can still be done to salvage U....Full Story

The CIA’s recent botched attempt to kill al Qaeda’s number two man, Ayman Zawahiri, in Pakistan illustrates why the Bush administration’s overly aggressive “war on terror” actually motivates terrorists to attack the United States. Certainly, capturing or killing the brains behind al Qaeda is an important goal....Full Story

After revelations about President Bush ordering surveillance of Americans without obtaining warrants, the boundaries of executive power will undoubtedly be one of the principal issues raised at the confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito....Full Story

The much-ballyhooed elections in Iraq later this week are likely to dig the Iraqi hole a little deeper for the Bush administration. The Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shi’ite Muslim cleric in Iraq, has indirectly ordered fellow Shi’a to cast their ballots for representatives of the Shi’ite religious parties that now control the interim Iraqi government....Full Story

The incompetence of the U.S. government’s policy in Iraq was demonstrated by this weekend’s referendum on the Iraqi Constitution. The Constitution, written by the Shi’a and Kurds, has passed, over the objections of many Sunnis. Yet it symbolizes one of the U.S. government’s biggest errors in Iraq: confusing democracy with liberty....Full Story

In a recent speech before the usual friendly audience, hawkish Vice President Dick Cheney opined that U.S. failure to resolutely avenge anti-U.S. terrorist attacks during the 1980s and 1990s led to the attacks of September 11, 2001....Full Story

With the coerced testimony of New York Times reporter Judith Miller in his pocket, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is now free to complete his probe of the Bush administration’s “outing” of CIA covert officer Valerie Plame....Full Story

North Korea’s agreement to end its nuclear weapons program came out of the wild blue yonder and appears to have dissipated just as quickly. The always-quirky North Korean regime agreed to give up its nuclear weapons and program, return at an early date to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and submit to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections....Full Story

Dear Mr. Bush:
When you ran for the presidency in 2000, you espoused a philosophy called "compassionate conservatism." You came across as a folksy kind of guy who could share a beer with the average Joe. There was nothing professorial or profound about you. That was your appeal....Full Story

Insular and secretive presidential administrations often deny reality to the point of absurdity when they blunder into foreign misadventures. The classic example is the Johnson administration during the Vietnam War. The Bush administration’s current quagmires in Iraq and even Afghanistan are taking on that air....Full Story

The latest ruling of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in the Jose Padilla case is a threat to the freedom of all Americans.

On September 9, 2005, the Court upheld the federal government’s authority to detain an American citizen arrested within the United States indefinitely without charging him with a crime....Full Story

U.S. and Iraqi forces stormed into the Sarai neighborhood of Tall Afar this weekend, a northern Iraqi city believed to be a logistics center for insurgents in northern Iraq, only to find a ghost town. U.S. commanders claimed the rebels had fled and were defeated. The former may be true, but let’s hope U....Full Story

Inadequate government planning and the sluggishness of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina raise important questions about the quality of the government’s response to any future cataclysmic terrorist attack.

New Orleans now faces severe unnecessary casualties, stranded refugees in desperate conditions, looting, lawlessness, and general chaos....Full Story

Three years ago, in what passed for a “debate” about invading Iraq, I wrote a piece entitled, “Top 10 Reasons Not to ‘Do’ Iraq.” Now, after three years of war and many unnecessary deaths (both U.S....Full Story

Suppose you picked up your Wall Street Journal one morning and saw an article on the front page with the following set of headlines: “Ford Reports Its Current Models Have Been Bigger Busts than the Edsel; Ford Stock Soars 500 Percent; Investors Dancing in Wall Street....Full Story

To the Bush administration’s relief, world media attention has focused intensely on whether the fractious Iraqis will meet the now extended deadline to create a constitution that can be put to a national referendum on October 15. As in U.S....Full Story

In the dreary march of no-news stories about the war in Iraq, little changes from day to day, or even from month to month or from year to year....Full Story

The federal government is thinking about revising excessive airport security measures in response to the air-traveling public’s growing resentment of security checks. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the federal agency with jurisdiction over those oppressive and annoying airport inspections, hopes to improve its public image and survive politically....Full Story

U.S. government officials, both politicians and career bureaucrats, always imply that a tradeoff exists between security and liberty and that we cannot have both. This view, however, depends on buying into key erroneous assumptions made by those same officials....Full Story

In Iraq, like everywhere else, if things don’t add up, it is safe to assume that politics is involved. Although the insurgency in recent months has worsened, Gen. George W. Casey, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, astonishingly claims that security in Iraq has improved and that substantial U.S....Full Story

President George W. Bush, undeterred by the abysmal failure of his risky gamble in Iraq, is rolling the dice for even higher stakes by agreeing to share sensitive nuclear technology and advanced conventional weapons with India to aid its ascent as a world power. Such a policy could prove to be disastrous....Full Story

Much of Washington is abuzz about whether Karl Rove, the president’s deputy chief of staff and chief political operative, or perhaps other Bush administration officials, broke a law that prohibits government officials from disclosing the identity of CIA covert operatives....Full Story

Now that it has been established that the London bombers were British citizens carrying out suicide attacks on their own territory perhaps the reality of the present political situation will begin to sink in. That is, we cannot escape terrorism, particularly religious terrorism, by denying what it really is and we cannot beat it through force....Full Story

Watching the major U.S. television networks after the London terror bombings provided little illumination about why that city was chosen for attack. The commentators on those networks first mimicked Tony Blair’s self-serving “we’re all in this together” assertion that the bombings were designed to disrupt the G-8 summit of industrialized nations....Full Story

The FDA have announced that they are going to strengthen the warnings attached to Ritalin and similarly acting drugs used to treat ADHD. This is a measure which many feel is long overdue and perhaps does not go far enough considering the dangers associated with these substances....Full Story

U.S. national security bureaucracies, some members of Congress, and their special interest supporters are eagerly demonizing the next “insidious” enemy: China.

Hawks and protectionists have seized on a bid by the primarily state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) to take over California-based Unocal Oil....Full Story

In light of the recent proposal to allow companies to advertise their products in public schools in Hawaii it is perhaps pertinent to remind ourselves of the dangers we face from the greed of the commercial world....Full Story

Although Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld denied that the United States is losing the war in Iraq, he admitted that the United States is negotiating with important groups in the insurgency. Pursuing such talks is a good start but not enough....Full Story

Although the American people slept through the facile national debate about whether the Bush administration should invade Iraq and the post-invasion unraveling of justifications for doing so, the public is finally waking up to the nightmare of U.S. policy in Iraq....Full Story

After defeating al Qaeda, at least in their own minds, top officials of the Bush administration are now contemplating a war against “violent extremism.” (I call it the WAVE.) Apparently, the already grandiose “Global War on Terrorism”—in bureaucratic jargon, the GWOT—just wasn’t extravagant enough for an administration that thinks really big....Full Story

Yesterday, President Bush, in an appearance with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, addressed the Downing Street Memo -- minutes from a July 23, 2002, meeting of British foreign policy leadership -- for the first time. The memo is evidence that Bush lied about his reasons for invading Iraq and the timing of his decision....Full Story

At a recent hearing on Capitol Hill, senators of both parties berated the Bush administration’s failure to ratchet up the pressure on China to reduce the value of its currency, the yuan, by branding that nation as a “currency manipulator.” The lawmakers also complained that the value of Japan’s yen is too high....Full Story

Delayed for two weeks after first reported and buried in the back pages of most major U.S. newspapers is the blockbuster story that key players in the British government believed the case for the invasion of Iraq was “thin” and that the Bush administration was manipulating intelligence to provide a rationale for an aggressive U....Full Story

In trying to find a rhetorical justification for invading the sovereign nation of Iraq, President George W. Bush stumbled via the back door into the “spreading democracy” rationale. Yet this rhetoric—which is at the same time both idealistic and opportunistic—is leading to policies that are far reaching and have counterproductive consequences worldwide....Full Story

In the rich of tradition of “inside the beltway” political gimmicks, the all-too-giddy congressional Republicans at President Bush’s recent State of the Union address dipped their fingers in purple ink to show solidarity with Iraqis who voted in the U.S.-initiated Iraqi election....Full Story

When private companies cook the books, the perpetrators are indicted for fraud and thrown in jail. When politicians in Washington falsify accounts, it’s not fraud, just good clean fun on the banks of the Potomac. The Bush administration is claiming cuts in defense spending in an attempt to pretend to reduce the yawning budget deficit while pouring ever more funds into the Pentagon....Full Story

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
—Matthew 6:21

On the campaign trail last October, Vice President Dick Cheney created a small stir when, speaking of the Iraq war, he declared: “I think it has been a remarkable success story to date when you look at what has been accomplished overall....Full Story

The most recent among many testing glitches of the Bush administration missile defense program should remind us that this exorbitant and heavily politicized effort should be scrapped. Until September 11, in the eyes of conservatives, the litmus test for patriotism was support for missile defense....Full Story

Triumphant after his “mandate” from the people, President Bush, to date, has announced the retirement of eight cabinet members. Although many of these government officials were lackluster at best, the cabinet’s worst performer is still in his seat....Full Story

The U.S. military “victory” in Falluja is unlikely to change the dismal course of the guerilla war in Iraq. Military history has repeatedly shown why the cliché “winning the battle and losing the war” has crept into popular culture. Moreover, winning back Falluja the way the U.S....Full Story

President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have finally gotten their wish: Yasir Arafat, their long-time nemesis, has passed from the scene. In their minds, Arafat’s death brings exciting new possibilities for U.S. and Israeli policy gains in the Middle East peace process....Full Story

It has now become apparent why Porter Goss, a politician, was named to head the CIA in an administration that already has been accused of politicizing intelligence during the Iraq war: to settle old scores. Many intelligence personnel have leaked embarrassing—and accurate—information to the media about the Bush administration’s missteps in Iraq....Full Story

A majority of the American people who voted has just given four more years to a man who failed to neutralize Osama bin Laden, the diabolical perpetrator of the most heinous foreign attack on our soil in U.S. history. Instead, President Bush diverted precious resources from that quest to settle old scores with the dictator Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with that attack....Full Story

Although John Kerry has a commanding lead in worldwide polling with 72 percent, George W. Bush’s prospects may have been boosted in the more important election here at home by a single foreigner-Osama bin Laden.

Some expected bin Laden to be a factor in the U.S. election - either through an anti-U....Full Story

Many Americans, like the citizens of dominant nations of the past, believe that their way of life is superior and should be shared with other peoples—often at gunpoint.Lately, this American exceptionalism has assumed even more pernicious forms....Full Story