Dispatches

Administration Caught Dead to Rights Again
09.21.2005 08:37 | RUSS WELLEN
Optimism surged during the six-party talks in Beijing when North Korea vowed to give up its nuclear weapon program and rejoin the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in return for energy assistance from the other five nations and a promise not to attack. It...

Oh, the Humiliation!
09.16.2005 08:10 | RUSS WELLEN
From an article on Alternet: London-based writer Joseph Hanlon, writing for the Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Mozambique) in Maputo, says that in responding to flood crises, the United States has much to learn from Mozambique, one of the poorest...

Michael (why didn't you?) Row the Boat Ashore
09.14.2005 11:23 | RUSS WELLEN
From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot. As by now everyone knows, thanks to Knight-Ridder, Michael Chertoff, "not Brown was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the National Response Plan. . . a power which h...

Where There's Smoke, There's. . . Water?
09.14.2005 10:21 | RUSS WELLEN
From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot. In response to a request for confirmation from Representative John Conyers that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco had followed procedure, lawyers of the American Law Division of the Congressional Service did some res...

White House Death Cult
09.10.2005 08:08 | RUSS WELLEN
From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot. Jonah Goldberg, the, er, provocative National Review Online editor-at-large, took a lot of heat for his letter to those taking refuge in the Superdome. It said, in part, "Hoard weapons, grow gills and learn to communicat...

Have the Democrats Finally Discovered the Killer Within?
09.09.2005 11:26 | RUSS WELLEN
From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot. "Knock him out!" progressives scream as Iraq and the price of gasoline have given President Bush a heavy battering at the polls. But when it comes to legislative and vocal opposition, most Democratic congressmen have...

Future Assessments of Administration Cold Comfort
09.05.2005 12:49 | RUSS WELLEN
From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot. Regarding President Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina, William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and chairman of the Project for a New American Century, said, "Almost every Republican I have spoken with is dis...

Poker Loco
09.04.2005 08:12 | RUSS WELLEN
From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot. Taking a brief break from Katrina... The upside of the current TV and Internet craze for Texas Hold'em Poker: It's made math and mnemonics cool. The downside: It's siphoned off some of our best minds...

Katrina Just a Test Run?
09.02.2005 04:43 | RUSS WELLEN
From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot. Bet the administration was as ill-prepared for the media backlash from Hurricane Katrina as it was for the hurricane itself. My colleague Mike Manville has provided a comprehensive overview of the media's reaction...

Heal the Body Politic, Harm the Body
08.19.2005 05:54 | RUSS WELLEN
From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot. In "The Experiment" (The New Yorker, July 4), Jane Meyer chronicles how medical and scientific personnel have not only developed Guantanamo Bay interrogation techniques, but tailored them to individual detainees. In a...

Withdrawal -- or Retreat?
08.15.2005 05:17 | RUSS WELLEN
From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot. After sending conflicting signals in recent days over reducing the US deployment to Iraq, President Bush set the record straight by falling back on the old we can't withdraw before the mission is complete line. "If...

Is Iraq a Sin?
08.12.2005 06:49 | RUSS WELLEN
From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot. "I am merely saying that there is objective sin in the Iraq war, and our country as a country is guilty of sin.... Americans... should live in fear and trembling about punishment." -- Father Andrew Greeley The Chicago...

Rubber-Stamped by the Home Office
08.04.2005 09:21 | RUSS WELLEN
From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot. Over and over again, as in this Salon article reprinted from Der Spiegel, "The Spirit of Osama," we hear that bin Laden is the "overlord of Islamist terrorists. . . But these groups operate autonomously." That Al Qaeda...

Signs of (these troubled) Times
08.01.2005 04:35 | RUSS WELLEN
Bumperstickers seen on the same car -- On the top of the front dashboard beneath the windshield: "America Needs a Buddhist President." On the back bumper, in a black oval like those indicating the driver is from a European country (UK, GDR): "RGR." Th...

They Were Expendable
07.26.2005 05:02 | RUSS WELLEN
From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot. The New York Times is a major lobbyist seeking further deregulation of media ownership from the Federal Communications Commission. But when one of its own was impounded, it's as if it realized, never mind the mergers...

Shi'ism Schism* a Thing of the Past
07.22.2005 04:59 | RUSS WELLEN
From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot. In "The Iraq war is over, and the winner is... Iran" on Salon yesterday, Juan Cole wrote of Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's visit to Tehran. It resulted in "wheeling and dealing of a sort not seen since Texa...

The Iraqnid Cometh
07.19.2005 08:32 | RUSS WELLEN
From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot. When last we left Autumn of the Superpower, Russia and China were planning to hold joint war games. According to Russian President – and enthusiastic (overly perhaps) NFL memorabilia collector – Vladimir Putin, th...

Who Really Is Karl Rove?
07.15.2005 05:45 | RUSS WELLEN
From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot. Karl Rove was born in 1950 on Christmas day. We'll leave the question of whether it was God's idea of a holiday gag gift to the earth for another day. Bet you didn't know, though, that he didn't find out the man who rai...

Bush's Legacy: Making Richard Nixon Look Like a Candidate for Mount Rushmore in Comparison
07.14.2005 09:51 | RUSS WELLEN
When the State Department's Office of the Historian declassified its most recent Foreign Relations records on June 28, the press had a field day. The tone of Nixon and Kissinger's conversations ranged from backroom to basement to gutter. In fact,...

Save the Brain!
07.14.2005 05:38 | RUSS WELLEN
From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot. The sight of reporters like NBC’s David “This is ridiculous, Scott” Gregory shaking off the voodoo spell Karl Rove had cast on them has been eliciting be-still-my-beating-heart reactions from political observers....