War in Context

Bush’s bullshit
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, May 15, 2008
In his eighth year as president, George Bush still lacks the courage to address anyone but an overly sympathetic audience. Indicative of his plummeting approval rating, he now has to travel six thousand miles to find such company. Should we be surprised that in front of […]

Mr Bush and his “legacy”
By John Robertson, War in Context, April 6, 2008
According to Britain’s Daily Telegraph our war-hero “Decider” president has decided that he will pull no more troops out of Iraq. According to the report, which cites Pentagon sources, he feels that showing such “resolve” will cement his legacy - which, he obviously […]

The green light
By Philippe Sands, Vanity Fair, May, 2008

The abuse, rising to the level of torture, of those captured and detained in the war on terror is a defining feature of the presidency of George W. Bush. Its military beginnings, however, lie not in Abu Ghraib, as is commonly thought, or in the “rendition” of […]

Soft shoe in hard times
By Maureen Dowd, New York Times, March 16, 2008
Everyone here is flummoxed about why the president is in such a fine mood.
The dollar’s crumpling, the recession’s thundering, the Dow’s bungee-jumping and the world’s disapproving, yet George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly, tap dancing and singing in a one-man review called […]

Normalizing air war from Guernica to Arab Jabour
By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch, January 29, 2008
For those who know something about the history of air power, which, since World War II, has been lodged at the heart of the American Way of War, that 100,000 figure [– the quantity of explosives dropped on Arab Jabour south of […]

The fine print
Editorial, New York Times, January 30, 2008
With President Bush, you always have to read the footnotes.
Just before Monday night’s State of the Union speech, in which Mr. Bush extolled bipartisanship, railed against government excesses and promised to bring the troops home as soon as it’s safe to withdraw, the White House undermined all […]

Gaza City plunged into darkness
BBC News, January 20, 2008
The only power plant in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip has shut down because of a lack of fuel, Palestinian officials say, blaming Israeli restrictions.
Gaza City was plunged into darkness after the plant’s turbines stopped.
Israel’s closure of border crossings amid continued rocket fire from Gaza has brought the […]

Bush lauds Egypt leader, avoiding record on dissent
By Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, January 17, 2008
President Bush lavished praise on President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt on Wednesday, emphasizing the country’s role in regional security and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process while publicly avoiding mention of the government’s actions in jailing or exiling opposition leaders and […]

Artificial intelligence
By Fred Kaplan, Slate, January 14, 2008
President George W. Bush hasn’t accomplished much on his voyage to the Middle East, but he did take the time to inflict another wound on the entire U.S. intelligence community—and on the credibility of anything he might ever again say about the world.
In the latest Newsweek, Michael Hirsh […]

Beirut bomb hits U.S. embassy car
By Tom Perry, Reuters, January 15, 2008
A car bomb damaged a U.S. diplomatic car in Beirut on Tuesday, killing at least three people and wounding 16, and the U.S. State Department said no Americans died in the blast.
The bomb sent a column of smoke into the sky, tore masonry from […]

Bush prods Saudi Arabia on high oil prices
By Stephen Lee Myers, New York Times, January 16, 2008
President Bush urged the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on Tuesday to take into account the toll that high oil prices are having on the American economy, gingerly touching on an issue that has begun to color the […]

It’s too late, baby
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, January 14, 2008
Yesterday, in an address to government and business leaders in Abu Dhabi, President Bush said, “Iran’s actions threaten the security of nations everywhere. So the United States is strengthening our longstanding security commitments with our friends in the Gulf — and rallying friends around […]

It’s not about Iran
By Shibley Telhami, Washington Post, January 14, 2008
As President Bush travels through the Middle East, the prevailing assumption is that Arab states are primarily focused on the rising Iranian threat and that their attendance at the Annapolis conference with Israel in November was motivated by this threat. This assumption, reflected in the […]

“Nobody believes anymore what Mr. Bush is saying”
By Michael Abramowitz, Washington Post, January 14, 2008
Shortly before President Bush showed up in the region last week, human rights activist Abduljalil Alsingace tried to deliver a petition to the U.S. Embassy complaining about the lack of democracy in his native Bahrain. He thought he might have some […]

Bush shakes up ‘08 Iraq debate
By Michael Hirsh, Newsweek, January 12, 2008
Camp Arifjan in the desert kingdom of Kuwait, America’s depot to the Iraq war, feels about as far away as you can get from South Carolina, Super Tuesday and the election-year squabbles back home. And George W. Bush, who is currently midway through his […]