June 16th, 2004
To understand the magnitude of what may have gone on in America’s secret prisons, you don’t need special security clearance or inside information. Anyone who wants to connect the dots can do it. To see what I mean, review the content of a few items now easily found on the Internet. Read on »
June 9th, 2004
His obituaries described him as an “ardent anti-communist,” as an “indefatigable” Cold Warrior, as an “anti-Stalinist combatant before it was fashionable.” All spoke of his charm and witty repartee — except, of course, the left-wing British Guardian, whose obituarist sneeringly accused him of “brainwashing” his countrymen. Read on »
June 2nd, 2004
The veterans have left town. The flags have been packed away for the Fourth of July. The memory of the Second World War, our Second World War, has been honored — so now perhaps it’s worth taking a moment to honor someone else’s. Read on »
May 19th, 2004
Over the past few days, the language used to describe the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down segregated public education has been inspiring. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that Brown v. Board of Education “helped us to understand that the Constitution is ‘ours,’ whoever we may be.” Read on »
May 12th, 2004
Turn the clock back six months. Imagine yourself on the other side of the world, in the soldiers’ quarters at Abu Ghraib prison. Conditions are primitive: There is no mess hall, everyone sleeps in former cellblocks, it’s impossible to escape the heat. Read on »
May 5th, 2004
A few years ago, a scholarly book with the provocative title “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” climbed to the top of U.S. bestseller lists. In part the book attracted attention because its author located the origins of the Nazi death camps in the German national character, in German history and in the specific nature of German anti-Semitism. What happened in Germany, he implied, could never happen anywhere else. Certainly it could never happen here. Read on »
April 28th, 2004
Two weeks ago, a small Anglo-American biotech company announced that it had stopped recruiting volunteers for a set of clinical trials. On the face of it, that doesn’t sound like a homeland security issue for the U.S. government. Indeed, it doesn’t sound like any kind of issue for the U.S. government. Read on »
April 21st, 2004
About five months ago, Colin Powell received an award named in honor of George C. Marshall, another American general who became secretary of state. In advance of that event, Powell indicated that he would like to give an interview to The Post — and told a Post reporter to read up on two incidents in Marshall’s career beforehand. Read on »
April 7th, 2004
Feeling dazed after an eventful day this week, I stumbled home and switched on my television. I’d just won an extremely grand book prize, and wanted — pathetically — to see whether one of those electronic tickers might be running the news. Read on »
March 31st, 2004
“Good evening, I’m Alistair Cooke, and this is ‘Masterpiece Theater.’ ”
It was a Sunday evening in the mid-1970s. In Britain there were miners’ strikes, blackouts, and weeks without garbage collection. Sterling had collapsed, or was about to. Punk rock was in its early adolescence. The nation was gripped by post-imperial depression, and obsessed with its own decline. Read on »