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By Joshua Kurlantzick
$11.56
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By Annia Ciezadlo
26.00
$19
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By Zachary Karabell — With religious passions inflaming and complicating politics worldwide, the very project of a secular future is threatened. In “The Stillborn God,” Mark Lilla reveals the roots of the age-old quest to bring political life under God’s authority. He also explores how modern Western thinkers found a way to free politics from theological power and build barriers against destructive religious fanaticism.
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By Amy Goodman — The kidnap and torture program of the Bush administration, with its secret CIA “black site” prisons and “torture taxi” flights on private jets, saw a little light of day this week.
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AP photo / Francois Mori
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By Barry Lando — For former “60 Minutes” producer Barry Lando, Moammar Gadhafi’s recent visit to France raised some important questions about the West’s attitudes toward tyrants. Just whom should we embrace and whom should we flatten with a bit of shock and awe?
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Olle Johansson, Sweden —
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Patrick Chappatte, Le Temps, Switzerland —
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masternewmedia.org
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James Harris and Josh Scheer —
“Spying Blind” author Amy Zegart gives Truthdig a status report on America’s intelligence agencies and explains why our intelligence system is so broken and why our democracy may be to blame.
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AP photos / Manuel Balce Ceneta / Adam Rountree / Lefteris Pitarakis
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By Robert Scheer — Everybody seems to have a pick for president, or even a couple of picks. Problem is, neither Musharraf nor Bhutto nor Sharif stands up very well when the historical record is scrutinized.
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AP photo / Murad Sezer
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By Scott Ritter — The former weapons inspector and military intelligence officer argues that Turkey, once dismissed as the “sick man of Europe,” will be ignored by the West at its own peril.
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White House photo by Eric Draper
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Just weeks after publicly fretting about Pervez Musharraf’s dictatorial power grab, George W. Bush has decided that the Pakistani president “hasn’t crossed the line” and “truly is somebody who believes in democracy.” It’s an assessment that would be comical if it didn’t have to do with the freedom of millions of people and the security of dozens of nuclear weapons.
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By Nicholas von Hoffman — Why is it that so many voters continue to elect reactionaries who do their best to disenfranchise them? The answer, says Paul Krugman in his new book, is racism.
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AP photo / Gerald Herbert
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By Robert Scheer — “The war on terror” made me do it. That’s the excuse that works for George W. Bush to rationalize his assaults on the rule of law, from arbitrary arrest to torture. So why not try some war-on-terror obfuscation to bail out his president-dictator buddy over in Pakistan?
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As the democratic crisis in Pakistan continues, opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has broken with Musharraf and called for the president’s resignation, while Musharraf argues that “so-called democracy” would threaten the nation’s survival.
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robertamsterdam.com
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Although term limits require Russian President Vladimir Putin to step down in May, many, including chess wizard and opposition leader Garry Kasparov, have speculated that he will find some way to maintain his influence. Putin, it seems, agrees, saying that if his party wins the next election, he will have the “moral right to hold those in the Duma and the Cabinet responsible for the implementation” of his policies.
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By Amy Goodman — U.S. attorney general nominee Judge Michael Mukasey admits waterboarding is repugnant, but refuses to say whether it amounts to torture. Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein voted for his confirmation anyway.
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Pakistan’s ousted chief justice has called on the masses to “rise up and restore the constitution,” adding, “This is a time for sacrifices.” Iftikhar Chaudhry, who was fired and placed under house arrest when he refused to sign off on President Pervez Musharraf’s declaration of emergency, made the address by telephone. Mysteriously (or not), mobile phone service in Islamabad suffered a breakdown as Chaudhry was making his remarks.
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AP photo / Khalid Tanveer
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The government of President Pervez Musharraf has expanded its crackdown on democratic institutions in Pakistan, detaining political rivals as well as journalists and rights advocates. Condoleezza Rice, meanwhile, has hinted that the U.S. will likely continue to send billions of dollars in aid to the increasingly dictatorial regime. Updated
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Despite a military crackdown that led to the death and capture of countless civilians, Buddhist monks are once again protesting in Burma, though in much smaller numbers than before. Still, human rights and democracy advocates consider it a promising development.
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By Elliot D. Cohen — The “Last Days of Democracy” author warns that Congress is about to aid the Bush administration with its Orwellian plans by granting retroactive immunity to the telecommunications giants for helping the government spy on Americans.
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Original from archives.gov
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By Chris Hedges — A Dallas jury, a week ago, caused a mistrial in the government case against this country’s largest Islamic charity. The action raises a defiant fist on the sinking ship of American democracy.
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Jimmy Carter told the new Web site Guardian America that, compared to the Bush presidency at least, George W. Bush will make a “very good” ex-president. Carter also said of Hillary Clinton’s seemingly insurmountable lead in the polls: “One thing I know is that, this far ahead of time in the past, it’s been impossible to predict the outcome of the election.”
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AP photo / Jose Goitia, file
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Joining in the exciting game of apocalyptic Mad Libs that President Bush kicked off with his recent pronouncement that a nuclear-equipped Iran could start World War III, Cuban leader Fidel Castro has swapped out “Iran” for “Bush” and turned Bush’s accusation back at him in this latest round of doomsday fun.
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masternewmedia.org
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“Spying Blind” author Amy Zegart gives Truthdig a status report on America’s intelligence agencies and explains why our intelligence system is so broken and why our democracy may be to blame.
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By Amy Goodman — John Lennon would have turned 67 years old last week had he not been murdered in 1980 by a mentally disturbed fan. On his birthday, Oct. 9, his widow, peace activist and artist Yoko Ono, realized a dream they shared.
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iiichan.net
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China plans to stick with the economic and political reforms that have brought prestige, wealth and environmental catastrophe to the country, but don’t expect Beijing to turn its back on the Communist Party completely. As the official spokesman of the 17th party congress put it: “We will never copy the Western model of political system.”
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AP Photo / Victor R. Caivano
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By Marc Cooper — A former translator for Chile’s Salvador Allende reviews three books evaluating the remarkable rise of Venezuela’s irrepressible Hugo Chavez.
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The Mosaic Intelligence Report examines the political turmoil in Pakistan and wonders whether Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s hold on power is as tenuous as it looks.
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israellobbybook.com
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The editor of the provocative new bestseller by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt asks the authors (pictured above) whether their book is good for the Jews and good for America.
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wonkette.com
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The Supreme Court, arguably the most powerful institution in our democracy, manages to fly a bit under the radar. Take, for example, the $1.5-million advance Rupert Murdoch paid Clarence Thomas to write a book. Conflict of interest, perhaps? The Nation’s Jon Wiener thinks so.
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By Will Durst — After all the brouhaha in New York this week, this seems like a good time to have us a little chat about free speech. Not restricted free speech. Not partial free speech. Not pseudo-, semi-, counterfeit, limited free speech. Not free speech on Wednesdays between 2 and 3 p.m. EDT.
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AP photo
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After a long and tense buildup over recent weeks, the standoff between Buddhist monks and security forces in Burma became violent on Wednesday, with differing reports bringing news of gunfire, deaths and mass arrests in the city of Yangon.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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President Bush has weighed in on the massive protests in Burma (Myanmar), saying he will boost sanctions against the country’s abusive military government. Meanwhile, thousands of Buddhist monks have defied government warnings and continue to demonstrate.
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The former president tells Jon Stewart about his new book, his wife’s quest to get back to “the best public housing in America,” why he might slit his throat if she’s successful, and how naps can save our democracy.
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AP Photo / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
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By Chris Hedges — Bill Clinton has written a new book about charity, a fitting subject for a president who betrayed the poor and led his party into the arms of corporate America.
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By Amy Goodman — I sat down with former President Jimmy Carter last week at the Carter Center in Atlanta. The Center was hosting a conference of human rights defenders, people at the front lines confronting repressive regimes around the globe. After a quarter-century of humanitarian work through the Carter Center, monitoring elections, working to eradicate neglected tropical diseases and focusing on the poor, Jimmy Carter now finds himself at the center of the storm in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
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By Ellen Goodman — After 9/11, my husband started each morning reaching for the remote and saying, “Let’s see if they caught Osama.” This greeting began as an expectation, evolved into a lingering hope, and finally deteriorated into irony.
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So far the Democratic primary race has been something of a competition over who most disapproves of our unpopular president, so it was a surprise when Barack Obama on Wednesday let this fly: “Part of the problem here is not just George Bush and the White House.” (Gasp!) He went on to promise a more open government under his care, arguing that our democracy is not democratic enough.
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By Robert Fisk — True, the U.S. may be able to “spread democracy” to other nations throughout the world, but, as The Independent’s Robert Fisk points out, that doesn’t mean that the U.S. can control how those nations exercise their democratic rights. Take Lebanon, for example, where, Fisk wryly notes, “The Arabs have, once more, followed democracy and voted for the wrong man.”
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Illustration courtesy of Adbusters
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Truthdig speaks with Elliot Cohen, author of “The Last Days of Democracy,” who argues that the United States is in political and cultural decline, with media and telecommunications giants engaged in “a well-organized effort to hijack America.”
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wikipedia.org
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Back in the 1930s a general by the name of Smedley Butler exposed a plot to overthrow the government of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and install a fascist oligarchy backed by some of America’s most powerful business leaders and conservatives. Prescott Bush, grandfather of George W., was among those linked to the plan. BBC Radio investigates.
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Courtesy of the Tillman Family
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In honor of Memorial Day, Truthdig presents two of the most powerful pieces we’ve featured by two invaluable veteran voices—Kevin Tillman (pictured) and Ron Kovic—who remind us of the brutal human costs of war. (Click here to read Kovic’s article.)
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AP Photo/Serkan Senturk
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Crowds numbering in the hundreds of thousands gathered Sunday for a pro-secularism rally in Istanbul, calling for a secularist democracy in Turkey amid concerns that presidential candidate Abdullah Gul, whose Justice and Development Party has Islamist ties, will let his beliefs influence his actions if he wins the election.
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AP Photo / David Guttenfelder
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By Scott Ritter — With his security barrier in Baghdad, a wall along the Mexican border and the provocative missile defense shield plan in Europe, President Bush’s interest in barrier-building is a betrayal of his conservative forebears that does not bode well for the spread of freedom and democracy.
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Vladimir Putin’s regime, with the aid of 9,000 police officers, attempted to prevent a rally in Moscow by arresting opposition leader Garry Kasparov along with dozens of other protesters and even some journalists. The chess phenom has accused Putin of trampling on democracy.
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