Wikileaks and the Pentagon Papers
Floyd Abrams, one of the lawyers who defended the NY Times in the Pentagon Papers lawsuit, differentiates between Daniel Ellsberg’s actions in releasing those documents and Julian Assange’s in...
View ArticleHollywood boomers and their inflated sense of political importance
Peter Fonda has been generating a little buzz today because of a murky and unclear statement he made at Cannes that seems to be about his training his grandsons to shoot Obama if some sort of class war...
View ArticleSorley: Vietnam and Westmoreland, the first act
A reader has called my attention to the fact that Lewis Sorley has written a new book, a biography of General William Westmoreland, the general who directed what might be called the first act of the...
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Forty years later: Kim Phuc, the girl in the photo
It’s been forty years since this photo shocked Americans: Do you know the story behind the photo? I tell it in this article at PJ. Some of what you read may surprise you. [NOTE: I've written about the...
View ArticleThe Pentagon Papers and the press
Yesterday was the 41st anniversary of the Pentagon Papers’ publication. A year ago on the 40th anniversary, Daniel Ellsberg took a moment to air a few regrets that he didn’t release the Papers sooner,...
View ArticleThe Times repeats the old lies about the napalm photo
Remember back in June when it was the 40th anniversary of the “napalm” girl photo that so shockingly depicted some of the civilian casualties in the Vietnam War? I wrote this piece in PJ for the...
View ArticleJohn Kerry, Secretary of Defense?
Rumor has it that John Kerry is being considered for the post of Secretary of Defense. If true, this would be another example of what a keen sense of humor Obama has. For what better way to enrage the...
View ArticleAnd in no surprise at all, Obama…
…nominates Massachusetts Democratic Senator John Kerry for the post of Secretary of State. I’ve written about this choice before (including earlier, when Kerry was being considered for Secretary of...
View ArticleThe fight over the history of Vietnam
I haven’t yet read the book Triumph Forsaken, but it sounds like a fascinating so-called “revisionist” history of the Vietnam War. And this comment at the Amazon link treads familiar ground, does it...
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The MSM won the Iraq War
The propaganda war, that is. I’m actually somewhat stunned by the results of this recent Gallup poll about the war (taken in honor of the tenth anniversary of its start), but not necessarily in the way...
View Article“We faced the dragon. And we came out of it.”
[BUMPED UP] I saw a moving piece about the 40th reunion of the Vietnam prisoners of war, who were reunited last Thursday at the Nixon Library on the anniversary of their welcome home celebration at the...
View ArticleDaniel Ellsberg on Edward Snowden: leaks then and now
Not surprisingly, Daniel Ellsberg thinks Edward Snowden’s a great hero. I’ve written at length about Ellsberg before: a historical look here, and especially this one about his more recent activities...
View ArticlePutin: Kerry is lying
Well, of course he is. He’s moving his lips. I know, it’s a cheap shot. But anyone who has followed the career of John Kerry can’t help noticing he’s a frequent liar. I knew it back in the early 70s,...
View ArticleHillary Clinton’s biggest accomplishment…
…is having been born with two X chromosomes. I didn’t say it—they did: Note that the video was made at George Washington University. Although GW isn’t exactly Harvard, it’s a very respectable...
View ArticleFurther thoughts on the fall of Iraq
I started this blog right before the 2004 election, and for the first few years a large percentage of my posts were about Iraq. That remained true through all the ups and downs of the surge and the...
View ArticleIraq War veterans watch the news in anguish
As one would expect, some of the hardest hit Americans are those who spent time fighting in Iraq: “Going out across the desert I remember the feelings that you have, wondering if you’re going to make...
View ArticleThe bitter end: Vietnam
Anyone watching recent events in Iraq who wants a refresher course on the end of the Vietnam War and our withdrawal from that area would do well to take a look at this article. Here’s one of the most...
View ArticleAnd for those who think we should just shrug because after all it’s only...
…I offer this. Do the Iraqi people deserve this, just because they failed to get along together and turn into a well-functioning democratic state in a decade (less than that, actually, before we pulled...
View ArticleKerry and the “peace plan”
There’s a long, long article in TNR that purports to be “The Explosive, Inside Story of How John Kerry Built an Israel-Palestine Peace Plan—and Watched It Crumble.” It’s worth reading, but maybe not...
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