Time on Bush's Missile Defense Push · 6 June 2007, 06:46 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Why U.S. President Bush is so actively advancing his missile defense agenda according to Time’s Massimo Calabresi.
bush,
george bush,
massimo calabresi,
missile defense,
missile defense system
'The Israel Lobby' Subtitled in English · 1 June 2007, 15:34 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Tegenlicht (Backlight) goes international! The makers of ‘The Israel Lobby. Portrait of a Great Taboo: the Power of the Israel Lobby in the United States’ have opened their own channel on YouTube, which contains episodes subtitled in English, that were originally produced for a Dutch speaking audience. ‘The Israel Lobby’ is also available.
backlight,
israel,
israel lobby,
tegenlicht,
youtube
Documentary on the American Israel Relationship · 3 April 2007, 23:10 CET by Charles Vermeulen
This weeks edition of Tegenlicht, a documentary program by the Dutch public broadcast organization VPRO, allows several interesting opinion makers to speak on the future of the American and Israel relationship and the reception of John Mearsheimer’s and Steve Walt’s controversial articel ‘The Israel Lobby and US foreign policy’. Among others John Mearsheimer, former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell Lawrence Wilkerson, cofounder of the ‘Christians United for Israel’ lobbying group John Hagee, neoconservative Richard Perle and historian Tony Judt express their views in Marije Meerman’s
and William de Bruijn’s documentary. Click here to watch ‘The Israel Lobby. Portrait of a Great Taboo: the Power of the Israel Lobby in the United States’ (‘De Israël Lobby. Portret van een groot taboe: de macht van de Israël lobby in de Verenigde Staten’). No knowledge of Dutch required.
aipac,
israel,
israel lobby,
john hagee,
john mearsheimer,
lawrence wilkerson,
marije meerman,
mearsheimer,
steve walt,
tony judt,
william de bruijn
The Self-Confidence of John Bolton · 11 March 2007, 08:03 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Yesterday’s edition of Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad included an interview with former ‘United States Ambassador to the United Nations’ John Bolton. In the interview Bolton’s self-confidence appears to be still completely intact, despite the neoconservative failures in Iraq, despite the fact that his recess appointment wasn’t prolonged last December. When interviewer Tom-Jan Meeus asked Bolton whether a military solution for Iran’s nuclear ambitions is still a serious option for the US, he answered affirmatively. For he’s ‘convinced that it’s possible to break through the nuclear fuel cycle in Iran, by destroying, for example, their uranium enrichment facility in Natanz. Or the Iranian conversion plant in Isfahan. It’s only necessary to destroy a part of the nuclear fuel cycle to prevent that they will be able to develop nuclear arms.’ Focussing on possible retaliatory actions by Iran Bolton clearly isn’t afraid of the consequences of US military action either: ‘What would Iran do? (...) Do you think that Iran will stop selling oil? They couldn’t. Their whole economy is based on oil selling.’ But what if Iran would increase its military activity in Iraq and kill as many American soldiers as possible? According to Bolton, that wouldn’t be a problem either, because ‘for that reason we’ve just sent extra troops to Iraq’. Nonetheless Bolton adds that he isn’t very fond of a military solution. He would prefer ‘regime change’ in Tehran. Clearly all lessons which could be learned from Iraq are still wasted on Bolton. To Bolton ‘regime change’ still is an almost purely juridical procedure, which ‘only’ requires the defeat of a regular army and in his eyes wars can be completely controlled and aren’t unpredictable at all.
John Bolton, Bolton, Iran, Tehran, Iraq, Nuclear Ambitions, Nuclear Arms
bolton,
iran,
iraq,
isfahan,
john bolton,
natanz,
nuclear ambitions,
nuclear arms,
regime change,
tehran,
uranium enrichment,
us military
'Rumsfeld Sanctioned Abuse at Abu Ghraib' · 26 November 2006, 01:54 CET by Charles Vermeulen
According to Janis Karpinski, the former U.S. Army Brigadier General who ran the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq until early 2004, Defence Minister Donald Rumsfeld sanctioned the abuse of detainees at the notorious prison. In an interview in today’s edition of Spanish newspaper El Pais Karpinski said she had seen a letter with the Minister’s name printed under it and a written signature above the name, apparently Rumsfeld’s signature, which authorised the use of harsh interrogation methods as sleep deprivation, playing music at maximum volume, making detainees stay for a long time and having them sit in stress positions. In the margin of the letter was written in the same handwriting as the signature’s: ’[m]ake sure this is accomplished’. (Source: Reuters)
abu ghraib,
donald rumsfeld,
iraq,
janis karpinski,
karpinski,
rumsfeld
Mark Foley and Iraq Carrying Over into Polls · 11 October 2006, 07:48 CET by Charles Vermeulen
According to a yesterday published Reuters report, based on ‘a flurry of polls’, the failure of Iraq and the Mark Foley scandal have brought the GOP under stress of weather and are ‘endangering [the Republican] control of Congress in the November 7 elections’. Click here to read ‘War, sex scandal sinking GOP in polls’.
'The American Museographic Delirium' · 6 October 2006, 23:10 CET by Charles Vermeulen
‘Anti-anti-Americanist’ Bernard-Henri Lévi interviewed by Menno de Galan in today’s edition of Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad (page 35).
Bernard-Henri Lévi, The American Museographic Delirium, Historical Identity
PNAC Closing Down · 30 September 2006, 10:54 CET by Charles Vermeulen
I completely missed it but thanks to Monkeyfister’s posting on Blah3.com, based on a translation into English of an article on Zeit online (Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, ‘Eine Ideologie packt ein’, 6 September 2006), I learned that William Kristol’s neoconservative bulwark the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is closing down. ‘Aus Geldmangel, wie es heißt’ and ‘die verbliebenen Mitarbeiter suchen Jobs’, Zeit online reports. For the non-German readers: Monkeyfister’s posting includes a link to the above mentioned translation into English of the Zeit report.
Project for the New American Century, PNAC, William Kristol
Clinton Did Lose His Temper · 29 September 2006, 23:08 CET by Charles Vermeulen
Unlike William Kristol Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. saw a genuinely infuriated Bill Clinton on Fox News last Sunday. In his op-ed ‘Why Bill Clinton Pushed Back’ he writes:
In Dionne Jr.’s above mentioned article especially radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is given a sound trashing, by the way. Dionne Jr. reproaches Limbaugh with the fact that the latter, only three weeks after 9/11, attacked Clinton in The Wall Street Journal by holding him ‘culpable for not doing enough when he was commander in chief to combat the terrorists who wound up attacking the World Trade Center and Pentagon’, while his fellow conservatives ‘were arguing simultaneously that it was treasonous finger-pointing to question what Bush did or failed to do to prevent the attacks, but patriotic to go after Clinton.’
Limbaugh, apparently being very elated about the attention he’s getting from Dionne Jr., enthusiastically throws some extra oil on the flames by offering a link on the frontpage of RushLimbaugh.com to the Wall Street Journal ‘column that E.J. Dionne Jr. is still angry about’, ‘Clinton’s Legacy. He didn’t do enough to stop terrorists’.
Bill Clinton, Fox News, E.J. Dionne Jr., Rush Limbaugh
Clinton Didn't Really Lose His Temper · 26 September 2006, 21:58 CET by Charles Vermeulen
According editor of The Weekly Standard and supreme neoconservative William Kristol Bill Clinton didn’t really lost his temper during the Fox News interview broadcasted last Sunday. On the contrary, ‘the former president knew what he was doing’. Even the early availability of a transcript of the interview, which I referred to in the previous posting, was probably part of preconceived strategy of "Clinton’s aides", Kristol suspects. But if so, ‘what could Clinton have been seeking to accomplish?’ In an editorial on The Daily Standard Kristol comes up with three possible motives.