“This isn’t a life. It’s inhuman. Please tell people what you have seen here.” Jean-Yvon stares directly into my eyes with the self-assurance and dignity of a man who once earned a living to support his family. Today, he, his wife and their two children are sheltered in a twelve foot square makeshift tarp tent […]

Posted in International Reframes 2 Comments »

The recent announcement by the National Intelligence Estimate re: the Iranian’s plans (or lack thereof) to build nuclear weapons became, well, predictably partisan and laughable. The left called Bush a liar (or at best incompetent) and demanded his impeachment — again. The right backed Bush’s insistence that Iran might someday build a nuclear bomb, since […]

Posted in International Reframes, Reframe Reflections Comments Off on The ONLY Absolutely Correct Piece of Intelligence on Iran

This Dick Cheney video has had a ton of press of late. If you haven’t viewed it, you need to. It’s astounding: Cheney’s analysis is simple, accurate, thoughtful. And it is exactly what happened, except that it has turned out even worse thanks to the dramatic incompetence of the Bush Administration. (Even Cheney couldn’t predict […]

Posted in International Reframes, Reframe Reflections Comments Off on Dick Cheney 1994-2003: A curious and incomprehensible tale

It has been disheartening to watch the Congressional attempts to rein in the Bush Administration on the Iraq war. As promised, Bush vetoed the Democrats’ bill calling for an imposed troop withdrawl, and he did well to do so. The only thing worse than American troops fighting indefinitely in Iraq (Bush’s current strategy) would be […]

Posted in International Reframes, Reframe Reflections Comments Off on Would Someone Please Think When They Propose an Iraq Strategy?

I was forwarded a post about another out of the box idea regarding our current Iraq Quagmire. It involved drafting all the 18-35 year olds in Iraq to occupy them with reconstruction instead of leaving them to their own (destructive) devices. I’m not sure the idea will work, but I like the mindset of searching […]

Posted in Blog Comments, International Reframes, Reframe Reflections 1 Comment »

Of course, no can predict for sure what future is like and how the past will be remembered and analyze. That’s probably why it’s fun to do it. I believe Bush Jr’s election and choices in his governance will mark a turn in American’s history. That could be true in a lot of ways and […]

Posted in International Reframes, Reframe Reflections Comments Off on The End of ‘Parent’ Status for America

In perusing “Iran: An Inconvenient Truth” I was reminded again of my concerns that our current thinking on Iran will lead us nowhere useful. Let’s start with an exercise in empathy: You live in America. During your parents’ generation, a more powerful country (let’s call it the USSR simply to facilitate identifying emotionally w/ the […]

Posted in Critic's choice, International Reframes, Reframe Reflections Comments Off on Starting over with Iran & the Bush Doctrine

We have found ourselves in a conundrum with regards to Iraq. To summarize in simple terms: 1. Continue to fight as we have until now, gaining a little ground at great human and financial cost only to lose it right away to the insurgents; with every additional week of occupation and errant bomb, see the […]

Posted in Critic's choice, International Reframes, Reframe Reflections 19 Comments »