The media seem to be taking pretty seriously the claim by alleged al Qaeda franchisee Abu-Hafs al-Masri /al-Qaeda Brigades that they're calling off attacks on Spain for the time being and are targeting Japan, Italy, Britain or Australia -- The Australian's headline:...
Another View of the Saudi Power Struggle
In my last post I mentioned Michael Scott Doran's article "The Saudi Paradox." For a more complex, though not necessarily contradictory view of the Saudi power struggle there's Robert Baer's Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude. Baer,...
U.S.-Shi’ite Conspiracy Theory
"The Saudi Paradox," by Michael Scott Doran, published in the Jan/Feb Foreign Affairs is a good source of background information on the likely motivation for this week’s anti-Shi’ite terrorist attacks (though I don't agree with all of his conclusions): "To better...
The Blessings of Destruction
One of the most famous thought-experiments in economics is Bastiat's story of the broken window, which the French economist used to argue against the common belief that destruction stimulates economic activity. In Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt uses the broken...
They Marched into the Fog of War
They Marched into Sunlight is worth reading, especially for people like me who are interested in the Vietnam War but too young to remember it. Maraniss tells two main stories, based on interviews: an ambush of US soldiers in Vietnam and an antiwar demonstration gone...
Sold Short
Back in 2000, Justin Raimondo wrote an article called "An Electronic Pearl Harbor?" about curious Kosovo war-related hacker attacks and the role of Network Solutions, the then-monopolist of Internet domain names. Interested readers can revisit this story in Sold...
No Left Left (P2) Replies
Got a number of emails re "Why There's No Left Left (Part II)." Eugene Koontz pointed out that 2 of the links in the post were broken. Here they are again: "Why There's No Left Left [Part I]" and "Cash or Charge?" Thanks Mr. Koontz! --- Thant Tessman writes: "Minor...
Why There’s No Left Left, Part II
And why the wishy-washy Kerry isn't likely to win. Read an excerpt of Myths of Rich and Poor." Or buy the book (and help out Antiwar.com)! Read "Why There's No Left Left" Part I. To which a reader replies suggesting that the rise in the US standard of living is due to...
Revealed: the Axis of Allies
As weird as it seems in the current everybody-hates-us environment, back in the ‘90s political pundits argued that the US’s popularity demonstrated an American exception to balance of power theory. See, according to standard geopolitical theory nations should ally...
Mars Tax
The "Defense" Dept. actually endangers the United States -- for example, its empire of bases brought a foreign power struggle to New York and DC a couple of years ago. (So now we have a Homeland Defense department. What were the other guys supposed to be defending?)...
