In The News

Iraq War “Sideshow” in North Korea

March 23, 2003
Globalization is often associated with the flow of ideas, goods, people, and information, but in North Korea information doesn't flow so readily. Updates about the current war unfolding in Iraq have been deflected from the country’s media, only appearing as brief diatribes about US aggression. Instead, in the days since the war began, North Korean news bulletins have reported on...

Shock and Awe and a Clash of Cultures

Harlan Ullman March 23, 2003
Harlan Ullman, co-author of "Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance", explains here that the philosophy behind the 'shock and awe' doctrine currently being employed by the US in Iraq is "to win decisively, rapidly and inexpensively in terms of human life and the ravages of war." "The method," he says, "is the same and akin to karate: the application...

Al Qaeda Near Biological, Chemical Arms Production

Barton Gellman March 23, 2003
The global terrorist network al Qaeda has much more detailed plans to develop chemical and biological weapons than US investigators knew, says this report in the Washington Post. Interrogations of recently-arrested Khalid Sheik Mohammed, known as "the Brain" within al Qaeda, have yielded plans to produce anthrax and cyanide, among other agents. Although it has not yet been confirmed...

Iraq War: Big Tasks and Narrow Window

March 20, 2003
The coming war in Iraq will be complicated by the absence of a UN mandate, forcing the US military to take over administering the country. The pressure of the American electoral calendar may also prevent the Iraq war from opening a door to a Middle East peace settlement. In an interview in London with YaleGlobal Online editor Nayan Chanda, the Director of the International Institute for...

Hussein Was Target of Bombing

Walter Pincus March 20, 2003
Worldwide anti-war protests could soon become moot, if Saddam Hussein was indeed taken out on the first strikes on Baghdad. According to the Washington Post, US intelligence officials believe that Saddam Hussein was still inside a compound struck by bombs yesterday. Whether he was injured or killed, no one is certain, but intercepted communications indicated that medical personnel were called to...

Americans and Europeans Widened the Gulf before the Iraq War

François Godement March 19, 2003
The build-up to the Iraq war has been marked by an unprecedented bitter falling out between the US and its European allies. In this opinion piece, a French scholar finds fault on both sides. The United States snubbed its European allies and did not try to reach out to global public opinion by explaining its reasons for going to war against Iraq. Europeans, on the other hand, tried to avoid...

War in the Ruins of Diplomacy

March 18, 2003
The morning after US President George W. Bush issued an ultimatum for Saddam Hussein and his family to leave Iraq or face war, this editorial in The New York Times argues that the Bush administration has brought the US to the brink of war with Iraq by its own failings. It says that the US "now stands at a decisive turning point, not just in regard to the Iraq crisis, but in how it means to...