American Prospect

"The correct moral to draw from al-Qaeda's involvement in Afghanistan is not the danger of rogue states but the danger of failed ones where the collapse of the central government allowed a lightly armed but highly motivated group of fanatics to seize control. Rather than resolve the problem of Afghanistan's lack of effective authority, however, Bush simply treated a symptom and left the disease in place. Now, not only are Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders still at large, the possibility that they and their allies will gain control over a substantial portion of Afghan territory remains quite real." [more]

"Part of a secret $3 billion in new funds ... will go toward the creation of a paramilitary unit manned by militiamen associated with former Iraqi exile groups. Experts say it could lead to a wave of extrajudicial killings, not only of armed rebels but of nationalists, other opponents of the U.S. occupation and thousands of civilian Baathists." [more]

"Only one thing ever said by the White House is true, which is that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator. That he was. And so now, eight lies later, the administration falls back on this rhetoric, which is obviously the Republican National Committee's No. 1 talking point: Would you rather ... that Saddam Hussein still be in power butchering his people? This is the question of a demagogue, a shill or an idiot." [more]

"On July 1, the White House unexpectedly announced that it would be immediately cutting off all military aid to certain countries unless their leaders signed bilateral agreements guaranteeing the total immunity of all Americans (military and civilian) before the International Criminal Court." [more]

"Governments that abuse their own citizens, or allow corporations to abuse their citizens, promote environments conducive to terrorism. Far from undermining our security, then, the U.S. legal system's ability to enforce basic human rights standards has the potential to ward off terrorism by bringing to justice the malicious despots that create the illiberal conditions in which terrorism thrives." [more]

"Many of those fleeing the registration program by heading north are being rejected by Canadian authorities, only to get arrested by American officials when they are forced back across the border. But while much attention has been focused on the registration program, it is only the tip of the Bush administration's creeping nativism." [more]

"It is a policy in local and state police departments across the country not to enforce civil-immigration law because they want immigrants to be forthcoming about crimes — such as homicide. It is even the official legal opinion of the U.S. Department of Justice that local and state police do not have the inherent authority to enforce civil-immigration law. Or at least it was until Attorney General John Ashcroft started changing the law." [more]

"No UN resolution or other international authority exists to legitimize the NFZs, which are currently the scene of an intensifying air-to-ground firefight between an armada of U.S. and British warplanes and an ineffectual Iraqi defense system. The British-American presence over Iraq is a case of might-makes-right, and Iraq's feeble attempts to defend its skies are justified under international law. Yet the NFZs are immeasurably more explosive now because a unilateral U.S. interpretation of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 ... provides a pretext for launching the war that President George W. Bush wants." [more]

"Kissinger is the perfect chair for the 9-11 commission — if what you want is damage control rather than the truth." [more]

"The American plan to invade Iraq approach[es] international politics with strategies that are unilateralist; rooted in a new and radical doctrine of preventive war which breaks free from just war doctrine, doctrines of self defense, even doctrines of judicial preemption; that are narrowly militaristic and that are unaccompanied by economic and civic strategies; that are focused on nation states rather than on the new non-governmental criminal agencies and groups that represent terrorism." [more]

"By defining the fight as one against global terrorism — including the supposed axis of evil — President George W. Bush was able to endow his controversial and highly partisan agenda with a heroic dimension." [more]

"The Bush administration's goal of regime change is the equivalent of our World War II aim of unconditional surrender, and it would have similar postwar consequences. We would assume total responsibility for Iraq's territorial integrity, for the security and basic needs of its population, and for the reconstruction of its system of governance and political culture. This would require an occupation measured in years or even decades." [more]

"In calling for a "war against terrorism" of indefinite duration and uncertain scope, he made a dangerously unlimited bid for the extraordinary authority and heightened deference that presidents enjoy only in wartime. Although "war" was the right term for the conflict that unfolded in Afghanistan, it doesn't describe most of what's required to stop terrorism in the future, and the risk of using the term is that it provides a rationale for restricting civil liberties and treating disagreement as disloyalty." [more]

"Before considering the problems it would face in a post-Saddam Iraq, the Bush administration must first surmount the problem of finding some governments in the region that would back its move to oust Saddam. As things currently stand, this is a tall order." [more]

"If the Bush administration had wanted to change the specifics of the court, it could have held out for new negotiations. The Rome treaty, like the Kyoto treaty on global climate change, was based on the valid perception that there are certain concerns — such as genocide and global warming — that cannot be dealt with by individual governments acting alone. Both treaties represent flawed but remediable attempts to devise a plan to do that." [more]

"For all British and U.S. leaders' grand pronouncements of solidarity in the face of terrorism, the 'true friendship' between Bush and Blair seems to be in short supply — at least between U.S. forces and Royal Marines in the hills of east Afghanistan. Indeed, while politicians at home talk about standing 'shoulder to shoulder,' their forces on the ground can barely see eye to eye." [more]