The battle for Baghdad, and thus the war in Iraq, is drawing to a close. Already the hawks in the Pentagon are rattling their sabers toward Syria. The war on terror, it is to be assumed, continues unabated even if we still can’t find Osama bin Laden. Shortly after 9-11, President Bush, referring to terrorists, […]

Early in the Clinton administration, UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright sat in a meeting with General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussing Bosnia. Ms. Albright suggested sending in American troops. “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” she asked. General Powell, […]

Ten years ago, I was one of a group of activists fighting the world’s largest hazardous waste incinerator. We were in the middle of an eye-gouging street brawl with the new Clinton administration, which had broken its promise to shut the burn box down. The incinerator was in a poor neighborhood, next to a school, […]

A woman with whom I went to high school is an astronaut in the space shuttle program. When the Columbia broke apart over Texas a few weeks ago, I – and I suppose a number of people in our graduating class – passed moments of heightened anxiety until we learned she was not on board. […]