I make it a rule not to write reviews of books I haven’t read. I also do my best to avoid pontificating about them. But I’m also a Quaker, who follows this rule about rules by the Elders of Balby, which they appended to a long list of rules for Quakers in 1656: Dearly beloved … Continue reading Bush & His Book: Some Truths In Review
Chuck Fager So. Former President Bush said “Damn right,” he’d approved the torture by waterboarding of Khaled Sheikh Muhammad, and other terror suspects. (Dick Cheney merely said he was “a big fan” of such tactics.)
Philip Gourevitch is a writer for the New Yorker, and a student of foreign affairs, including wars. In the Oct.11 issue of the magazine, he published a stunning piece, “Alms Dealers,” which demands the attention of every one who ever wanted to give money or time to help someone in distress far away, or even … Continue reading The Inhuman Side of Humanitarianism
November 4, 2010: Below I’ve pasted in an Op Ed piece of mine that was just published on our local paper about the recent Wiklieaks disclosure of several hundred thousand documents from the Iraq occupation, and the resulting uproar in media around the world (but not so much in the US, where we think we have … Continue reading Wikileaks & Torture: Tom Ricks Holds The Mayo
Over at the Quaker House Blog, I’ve got a new post which considers how the ending of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is confidently predicted to portend the end of the US military as we know it. Gotta check it out.