Nations built on lies
DURING WORLD WAR II, some people in Poland cheered the Nazis and helped them kill Jews. Saying so is now a crime in Poland. A new law imposes prison terms of up the three years for anyone who asserts “that the Polish nation or the Republic of Poland is responsible or co-responsible for Nazi crimes.” The purpose […]
Democracy, when it suits us
DEMOCRACY IS DISINTEGRATING in Venezuela, and American leaders are outraged. Our vociferous ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, denounced a recent constitutional referendum in Venezuela as a “sham” and “another step toward dictatorship.” Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez asserted that the leftist Venezuelan government has created a “lawless environment,” and demanded that the […]
Tillerson’s open-ended Syria war proves US is stuck in Mideast quicksand
When Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced last week that American troops would remain in Syria indefinitely, he sounded much like the legendary nation-grabber Theodore Roosevelt. “We have hoisted our flag, and it is not fashioned of the stuff which can be quickly hauled down,” Roosevelt declared during debate over the Philippine War more than a century ago. “There must […]
Not all atrocities are genocide
PERSECUTION OF THE Rohingya, the Muslim minority in Myanmar, has reached horrific levels. The government wants to push all of them out of their homeland. To encourage them to leave, it sends soldiers to burn their villages. Hundreds of thousands have reportedly been displaced. Hundreds have been killed. It is one of the great tragedies now […]
