Why have billions of dollars and thousands of anti-narcotics agents around the world failed to throttle the global traffic in cocaine, heroin and marijuana? Blame wrong-headed policies and what experts call the balloon effect. Squeezing a balloon in ...
WASHINGTON: To understand why the war in Afghanistan, now in its eighth year, is not going well for the United States and its NATO allies, take a look at two statistics. One is Afghanistan's ranking on an international index measuring corruption: 176 ...
WASHINGTON: What do Pakistan and Mexico have in common? They figure in the nightmares of U.S. military planners trying to peer into the future and identify the next big threats. The two countries are mentioned in the same breath in a just-published ...
WASHINGTON: As far as illicit businesses with low risk and high rewards go, it doesn't get much better than piracy on the high seas. The profit margins can easily surpass those of the cocaine trade. The risks? "There is no reason not to be a pirate," ...
WASHINGTON: Fifty years ago, a pair of American writers published a novel that trained a critical spotlight on U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. The book, by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, became a best seller, and its title, "The Ugly American," ...
WASHINGTON: Here's John McCain's model for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, enunciated in a television interview this week: "Teddy Roosevelt - speak softly and carry a big stick." "I am a Teddy Roosevelt Republican," he said. As the U.S. ...
WASHINGTON: 'Iran is not in a revolutionary or even prerevolutionary stage." That was the assessment of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in August 1978, at a time when Iran's ruler was America's closest ally in the Middle East. The Defense ...
Gasoline at $4 a gallon in the United States has a way of focusing the mind. (Charles Krupa/The Associated Press) WASHINGTON: If necessity really is the mother of invention, gasoline at $4 a gallon will force the United States, the world's most ...
Good news is a rare commodity in the Middle East but here's a slice of it: For the first time in their history, the rich countries of the Arab Gulf are setting aside more money for education than for arms. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia ...
ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - The Ministry of Tourism has 417 employees and big plans: "We need three or four times as many hotels as we have now," says Nimrud Youkhana, the minister, "and we need to get more airlines to fly here." Tourism in Iraq? More ...
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