Kenneth N. Luongo: on the need to control the world's increasing supply of loose nuclear material Nigel Chamberlain: on nuclear weapons discussions in Geneva Ian Urbina: on NYU professor Noah Feldman's struggle to promote Islamic democracy in Baghdad Ralph A. Cossa: on closing the gap with South Korea over the Pyongyang crisis Sean Howard: on giving the Pentagon a holiday so we can solve the world's real problems Jing-dong Yuan: on SARS as a politcal catalyst in China Anouar Boukhars: on the terrorist threat to democracy in Morocco

New York University

U.S. State Department's
Report on Patterns of Global Terrorism for 2002

The US State Department's Report on Patterns of Global Terrorism for 2001

OFF TO A ROCKY START ON THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE ROADMAP
Hamas' leading spokesman Abdel Aziz Rantisi was wounded in the leg when an Israeli helicopter fired six missiles at his car. Not everyone was as lucky. The attack in the middle of Gaza City killed two unintended victims and wounded another 25, including Rantisi's young son. After the Palestinian Authority's prime minister Mahmoud Abbas denounced the Israeli strike as a "terrorist attack" and Rantisi earned an opportunity to further inflame an already edgy public via Arab TV: "We will continue with our holy war and resistance," he insisted,"until every last criminal Zionist is evicted from this land."(Ha'aretz, June 10, 2003)
VIDEO: Rantisi interviewed in the hospital after the attack(APTN via The New York Times, June 10, 2003)
The Economist: Both sides overplayed their hand
The slant in Al Jazeera
Analysis on the BBC (with background and links)

PBS' Jim Lehrer News Hour interviews foremr diplomats, Martin Indyk and Edward Abingdon on the longterm implications.

WHY THE INTELLIGENCE FIASCO OVER IRAQ HAS BECOME A HOT ISSUE DESPITE PUBLIC APATHY
Tick off a special interest community on Washington's Beltway, and you risk triggering a political firestorm. That is exactly what the Pentagon did when it pressured intelligence agencies to massage information about Iraq in orderto further a neoconservative agenda. (Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com, June 2003)
And some further attempts to shift the blame to the CIA
(Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com, June 2003)

A FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT INTELLIGENCE OFFICER COMMENTS ON THE DISTORTION
Greg Thielman was an intelligence officer in the U.S. State Department and had access to nearly all the information concerning Iraq. In an interview with the BBC, Thielman states bluntly that the administration not only distorted information, but also relied on evidence that nearly the intelligence community knew was patently wrong. Says Thielman: "Evidence has been distorted and the public has really been misled on issues that helped inform decisions that affect war and peace... ."BBC's audio Interview with Greg Thielman (Real One streaming audio-JUNE 5, 2003)

BBC Reports that Tony Blair's office sent some intelligence information on Iraq back six times for rewriting.

DOES PRESIDENTIAL PREVARICATION WARRANT IMPEACHMENT?
John W. Dean, who won notoriety and a brief jail term as President Richard Nixon's attorney, knows a thing or two about presidential lying. It is intriguing that Dean now considers the White House's distortion of intelligence information to be the biggest White House scandal since Watergate. George W. Bush has reasons to be worried, warns Dean. In fact, when Richard Nixon resigned, one of the impeachment charges being prepared against him was for the misuse of the FBI and the CIA. (John Dean, Findlaw.com. June 6,2003)

GEORGE SOROS QUESTIONS THE UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES OF AMERICA'S CURRENT POLICY
In an article taken from a speech to the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Affairs, Soros admits to having favored the end of Sadam, butwhen it comes to dealing with the rest of the world, he feels that the Bush administration misses the point. "Applying the concept of power to human affairs is altogether questionable,"notes Soros, "In physics, power or force governs the behavior of objects. That is a misleading analogy for human affairs. People have a will of their own. They may be cowed by military power or other forms of repression, but that is not a sound principle of social organization. Might is not right.
Yet that is the belief that guides the Bush administration... The objective of disarming Saddam Hussein was a valid one, but the way the U.S. government has gone about it is not. That is why there was so much opposition to the war throughout the world and at home. That is why I shall remain opposed to the Bush administration's conduct of foreign policy..."(George Soros, TomPaine.com and the American Prospect, June, 2003)

LEO STRAUSS' DAUGHTER DEFENDS HER FATHER'S REPUTATION FROM THE ONSLAUGHT OF THE NEOCONS
Far from seeking to inspire a generation of neoconservative ideologues, Jenny Strauss Clay insists that her father, Leo Strauss, believed in liberal democracy and considered himself an enemy of regimes aspiring to global domination. He despised Nazism and Communism, and his heros were Churchill and Lincoln. Writes Jenny Strauss Clay:"If only the truth had the power to make the misrepresentations of his achievement vanish like smoke and dust. "(Jenny Strauss Clay in the New York Times, June 7, 2003)

TROTSKY'S GHOST STALKS THE WHITEHOUSE
Jeet Heer, writing in Canada's National Post, notes that the other political theorist to believe strongly in preemption was Leon Trotsky. A number of pundits and neocon strategists informally advising the administration on the Middle East were influenced early on by Trotsky's political insights. Neocons and Trotskyites share a recognition of the need to take a proactive and occasionally unpopular positions, the ability to anticipate rather than react and the moral courage to stand apart from liberal left opinion when liberal left opinion acts like a mob.(Jeet Heer in the national post, June 7, 2003)

AMERICA'S EXPANDING MILITARY FOOTPRINT
David Isenberg, writing in the Asia Times, notes that far from withdrawing its military forces, the U.S. is rapidly expanding the number of bases and prepositioned equipment it has around the world. The difference from past deployments is that the bulk of the troops will be kept in the United States until a need comes to deploy them.(David Isenberg, Asia Times, June 10, 2003)

RECYCLING WARS
30 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq and troop strengths have been steadily increasing rather than diminishing since President Bush announced that the last Gulf War was over. Colonel Dan Smith (Ret.), writing in Foreign Policy in Focus, notes that wars have a way of lingering on longer than policy planners expect.
Dan smith, Foreign Policy in Focus, June 6, 2003)

IF DATHAR KHASHAB COULD GET ALONG WITH SADDAM, WHY NOT THE U.S.?
The 58-year old manager of the Daura oil refinery outside Baghdad doesn't really care who he works for, and the U.S. needs Iraq's oil badly enough to overlook the past. (Peter Maas in the New York Times magazine, June 8, 2003)

THE INTIFADA'S IMPACT ON ISRAEL'S COMMITMENT TO DEMOCRACY
In the wake of suicide bombings and terrorist attacks, the Israel Democracy Institute reports what it sees as a disturbing decline in the importance attributed to democracy by Israel's embattled citizenry. of 31 countries polled, Israel was one of four (along with Poland, India and Rumania) who felt that "strong leaders can be more useful to the state than all the deliberation and laws." only 77% felt that democracy was the best form of government, 53% are now against full equality for Arabs, and 77% think there should be a Jewish majority on crucial political decisions.
(Israel Democracy Institute, May 22, 2003)

REMEMBER THE 1953 U.S. REGIME CHANGE IN IRAN?
In 1953, the U.S. CIA organized a coup to overthrow Iran's democratically elected prime minister, Muhhamad Mossadeq. Washington installed Shah Reza Pahlavi in his place. What seemed like a success at first, ultimately turned into one of the most traumatic crises to challenge U.S. diplomacy. Barry Rubin points out in the current issue of the Washington Quarterly that the example of Iran can provide a number of insights for the U.S. occupation of Iraq. One of the most important lessons: don't stay too long. (Barry Rubin, Washington Quarterly, Summer 2003)

THE THREAT OF THE JIHADISTS IN PAKISTAN
Until now, Islamic extremists have been surprisingly ineffective in Pakistan, and the threat seems somewhat exaggerated. Unless something is done to correct Pakistan's disasterous economic situation, the current sitatuion could change dramatically over the next few years, with serious consequences for the rest of the world. (Stephen Cohen, Washington Quarterly, Summer 2003)

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL'S REPORT 2003
Anyone feeling nostalgia for the tension and conflict of the cold War should take heart. According to Amnesty International's latest report, the world is fast sinking back into an atmosphere of strife and uncertainty from the Middle East to Burma and the Congo. The report gives a concise rundown on humanitarian violations in every country--including the U.S. (Amnesty International, May 2003)

SALAM PAX REVEALED
Throughout the War with Iraq, the news reports that made the biggest impact over the internet came from a young Iraqi, who called himself Salam Pax and drily observed the war over an internet blog called "Dear Raed." At one point, the flood of internet surfers checking into Salam's blog actually melted down the internet servers carrying him (a kind of Tony Awards for the net). Not surprisingly, many people doubted his authenticity and even his existence. In fact, Salam Pax turned out to be a young Iraqi interpreter hired by Peter Maass, a journalist writing for the New York Times Magazine. Maass says he knew that he'd found the right man to hire when he saw Salam reading science fiction writer, Philip K.Dick's "Man in the high Castle."(Peter Maas in On the Media, June 7, 2003)
Maass interviewed in NPR's On the Media
Maass' original story on Salam Pax in Slate
Salam Pax's blogspot: "Where's Raed?"
Salam Pax on watching Americans try to disarm the Iraqis...

SENATOR ROBERT BYRD SPEAKS OUT
Some of the most forceful and eloquent speeches in the Senate these days come from one of its oldest members, Robert Byrd (Democrat from West Virginia). Byrd addressed the issue of presidential veracity on the floor of the Senate on June 5: "...With each passing day, the questions surrounding Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction take on added urgency. Where are the massive stockpiles of VX, mustard, and other nerve agents that we were told Iraq was hoarding? Where are the thousands of liters of botulinim toxin? Wasn't it the looming threat to America posed by these weapons that propelled the United States into war with Iraq? Isn't this the reason American military personnel were called upon to risk their lives in combat? ...Saddam Hussein is missing. Osama bin Laden is missing. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are missing. And the President's mild claims that we are "on the look" do not comfort me. There ought to be an army of UN inspectors combing the countryside in Iraq or searching for evidence of disbursement of these weapons right now. Why are we waiting? Is there fear of the unknown? Or fear of the truth? ..."

(Senator Robert Byrd, on the floor of the Senate, June 5, 2003)

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