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Belgrade, 2 July 06. (Tanjug) – The Coordination Center for Kosovo and Metohija announced that UNMIK Chief Soren Jesen-Petersen “leaving Kosovo in an armored vehicle”, showed that the international community did not fulfill its basic task for seven years, such as the creation of elementary security conditions of free living and freedom of movement. “Petersen’s earlier statement, stated that he is leaving Kosovo for private reasons. Before his departure he clearly stated slogans on behalf of Albanian lobbyists who use all means in the fight for independence of the Serbian southern province”, states the Center at the Sunday announcement. Coordination...

Moral Clarity in a Time of War George Weigel Copyright (c) 2002 First Things 128 (December 2002): xx-xx. In Book Three of Tolstoy’s epic, War and Peace, the hero, Pierre Bezukhov, arrives at the battlefield of Borodino to find that the fog of war has descended, obscuring everything he had expected to be clear. There is no order, there are no familiar patterns of action, all is contingency. He could not, Count Bezukhov admits, “even distinguish our troops from the enemy’s.” And the worst is yet to come, for once the real fighting begins, chaos takes over in full. From...

In one of last year’s most celebrated books, Warrior Politics, veteran foreign correspondent Robert Kaplan suggested that only a “pagan ethos” can provide us with the kind of leadership capable of safely traversing the global disorder of the twenty–first century. Kaplan’s “pagan ethos” has several interlocking parts. It is shaped by a tragic sense of life, one that recognizes the ubiquity, indeed inevitability, of conflict. It teaches a heroic concept of history: fate is not all, and wise statecraft can lead to better futures. It promotes a realistic appreciation of the boundaries of the possible. It celebrates patriotism as a...

The days of Iraq acting as an outlaw state are coming to an end. — President George W. Bush on October 10, 2002President Bush's repeated vows to eliminate Iraq's banned weapons of mass destruction (WMD) — by forcible "regime change" if necessary — raise three sets of related issues best considered under the headings of necessity, law, and justice. First, does Iraq in fact pose an intolerable threat — "a grave and gathering danger" to vital U.S. interests, regional security, and international order — that warrants possible U.S. military action? Second, is U.S. military action against Iraq permissible under...

The sword of Jesus Editor's note: From 1907 through 1925, Harold Bell Wright was the best-selling author of fiction in the world. He wrote eight books that sold over 1 million copies each. "The Eyes of the World," published in 1914, had a first printing of 650,000 copies – unheard of in that time. What follows is his very first magazine article, written for American Magazine in February 1918. It was his reflections on World War I and the threat posed by the kaiser. He could have been writing about Adolph Hitler, Idi Amin or even Saddam Hussein, offers his...

Reasonable people can disagree about the prudential options for addressing the threat of an outlaw state such as Iraq which has weapons of mass destruction, harbours terrorists and seeks a nuclear weapons capability. Still, strategic and political judgments couched in just war language - such as those advanced in recent months by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor [report, Nov 16] and Dr Rowan Williams [opinion, Nov 5] - are not just war reasoning in the classic sense of the term. So here, in desperately brief form, are my answers to four key questions of moral principle as such. Is pre-emption ever morally...

War Drums CRISIS Magazine - e-Letter October 10, 2002 ********************************************** Dear Friend, First things first: I want to thank all of you for your support over the past few days as news of the sniper in the Washington, D.C. area has been unfolding. Life here has mostly continued as usual, but there's still a feeling of helplessness in the face of this fear. How, after all, do you protect yourself from a killer who shoots from 300 yards away? I admit, it's really hard to hear my daughter, Hannah (who's in middle school herself) ask me if it's safe for...

Skip to Ron Paul's comments MOYERS: Welcome to NOW. The animals spirits are in a worldwide frenzy over the threat of war in Iraq that has sent stocks falling through the floor again. On Wall Street, there's talk that America's economy could remain stagnant for years. But the strange thing is that in Washington no one seems especially bothered by bad economic news. The talk in Washington is all "WAR WAR WAR." CHENEY (giving speech): We realize that wars are never won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy. We will take every step necessary...

On a break from lachrymose accounts of Palestinian women weeping for their children, The New York Times has been trying to induce hysteria over the shocking Bush policy of deploying American troops in order to protect American interests. Such self-interested behavior is considered boorish in Manhattan salons. The only just wars, liberals believe, are those in which the United States has no stake. Liberals warm to the idea of American mothers weeping for their sons, but only if their deaths will not make America any safer. Thus the Times and various McTimes across the nation have touted the idea that...

For Senator Clinton to flourish a copy of the New York Post--the paper that has called her pretty much everything from Satanic to Sapphist--merely because it had the pungent headline "Bush Knew" is not yet her height of opportunism. (The height so far was reached last fall, when she said she could understand the rage and hatred behind the attacks on the World Trade Center because, after all, she had been attacked herself in her time.) But the failure of her husband's regime to take Al Qaeda seriously is the clue to the same failure on the part of the...