Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

Months before General David Petraeus resigned as Director of the CIA, an anonymous reader wrote a letter to the New York Times’ Ethicist column complaining about an affair his wife, presumably Paula Broadwell, was having with a “government executive”. In response to the letter, Chuck Klosterman of The Ethicist wrote:
The fact that you’re willing to [...]

If you ever doubt who controls American foreign policy, consider the case of Chas Freeman. Freeman was, until today, Barack Obama’s appointee to chair the National Intelligence Council. No more. Today Freeman was forced to withdraw from the position.
Why you ask? Because, as Josh Marshall puts it, Freeman has been “far more critical of Israeli [...]

If the President of the United States calls you and congratulates you on being offered an ambassadorship, it is reasonable for you to start packing your bags for a long trip overseas. Or so you would think. Unless you are General Anthony Zinni.
This is not a good sign:

“Jones had called me before the inauguration and [...]

[The two videos above are of poor quality, but they are the only ones I could find of the interview. I will update when there is a better version on YouTube.]
President Barack Obama gave his first formal television interview to Al Arabiya Television. It was a remarkable interview, both in tone and in content. With [...]

 
A few nights ago I was watching Al Jazeera television’s live interview of John Ging, director of operations in Gaza for the UN Refugee and Works Agency (UNRWA). Mr. Ging was on the phone from the main UN compound in Gaza city. While he was being interviewed, Israelis shelled the UN compound injuring three UN workers and lighting on [...]

Isreali Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is bragging about how he ordered United States President George W. Bush to abstain from the UN Security Council resolution calling for a cease fire in Gaza. He is also bragging about how he shamed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was left shame-faced after President [...]

Shihab Rattansi of Al Jazeera tries to make some sense of the nonsense coming out of the mouth of Democratic Congressman from New York, Eliot Engel.
This week, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution supporting Israel’s actions in Gaza. Not to be outdone, the US Senate passed by unanimous consent a resolution offering [...]

The International Committee of the Red Cross has issued a written release demanding immediate access to Gaza after the discovery of weak children laying next to their dead mothers.
In the release, the ICRC states:

The ICRC/PRCS team found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to [...]

Up to sixty members of one family in Gaza were rounded up into one house and then bombed to death by the IDF:

In what the United Nations fears could be the bloodiest single attack of the Israeli assault, as many as 60 members of the extended Samouni family were killed near their homes in the Gazan [...]

Ehud Olmert has done it again. Two years after the fiasco in Lebanon, he has once again committed Israeli forces on a fool’s errand. The target is different this time, but the one constant is the body count.
Unlike the humiliating outcome against Hezbollah, this time the opposition is much weaker. Hamas lacks the sophisticated weaponry [...]