Special to WorldTribune.com By John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Despite some recent military successes against the Islamic State (ISIL) forces, both the security and the humanitarian situation in Iraq remain fragile and precarious. That’s the assessment from Jan Kubis, the UN special representative in a sobering report to the Security Council on the road […]
Special to WorldTribune.com Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently pointed to an avalanche of mistakes the U.S., UN and the international community made that has contributed to the devastation of the Middle East and opened the way for Russian expansionism. Rumsfeld, in an interview with The Times of London, said George W. Bush mistakenly […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com Looks like Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize is safe for now. He won’t have to return the bauble he received in 2009 for doing his utmost to curb “nuclear proliferation” and talk nice to Muslims. He can keep the money too. Not too trivial a sum — about […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The tenth anniversary this week of the opening salvos in the American “shock-and-awe” campaign against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq reminds us of the “axis-of-evil” speech delivered by George W. Bush in his state-of-the-union address on Jan. 20, 2002, a year after he was inaugurated. No one would dispute Bush’s […]
Special to WorldTribune.com Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld spoke at the 30th anniversary celebration of The Washington Times at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 2. Following is a transcript of his remarks. With the presidential election only a few weeks away, it’s appropriate to discuss where our country is […]
Sol W. Sanders Jack Garner, a Texan whom Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose as his first vice president for “balance,” put it succinctly: The vice presidency was “not worth a bucket of warm p–” (later cleaned up to “spit”). But Garner, ironically enough, helped block FDR’s power grab when that most charismatic of presidents tried […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com WASHINGTON — The big brother of North Korea’s fledgling “supreme leader” Kim Jong-Un is in hiding, on the run and fearful of losing his life as a result of his persistently critical view of what’s happening in his native land. That’s the assessment of South Korean intelligence analysts […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com WASHINGTON — Call it a matter of conflicting — or colliding — messages. South Korean conservatives have forced a free-trade agreement with the United States through a fractious National Assembly. A U.S. Congress “supercommittee” has demonstrated the weakness of the American system of governance by abject, humiliating failure […]