Iraq

Former Bush Administration official Elliott Abrams has taken to the pages of Foreign Policy to offer a defense of the Neoconservative policies that were a hallmark of the Bush-era world view, and to link them with the ongoing Arab Spring movement (note: author/pundit Niall Ferguson was also pushing this argument on Sunday's episode of “Fareed Zakaria GPS”).  It is an odd defense on the part of Abrams, since he basically boils neoconservativism down to a couple of pro-de

This posts builds on "Iraq's Starving Artists," an essay and review I wrote for The Mantle that highlights and reviews the work of 27 Iraqi artists living as refugees in Syria. In this post, I take a more intimate approach to the subject at hand. Below you will find a slideshow of some of the work on display in the exhibition Artists in Exile: Forgotten Iraqi Refugees in Syria as well as a short video of some of the art work.

If you need proof of how truly confusing the situation is in Libya, look no further than last Saturday's coverage of the conflict on CNN where one of their reporters, Reza Sayah presented the story of a Benghazi man identified as Al Mehdi Zeu who died fighting against the troops of Moammar Gadhafi. Al Mehdi's story was framed in a heroic manner, with the 49-year old oil company worker described as a man who sacrificed himself so that Libya's rebels might score a key victory.

What could have been a great panel focused on the Iraq war and the ongoing “war on terror” was sadly overshadowed by a gross misunderstanding of the situation in Libya, and an attempt by panelists to liken it to the US invasion of Iraq.

I left the international stage at Brooklyn Book Festival 2010 twice, the second time was to stretch my legs and make my rounds at the vendors selling their wares and promoting their presses in the cold September rain. But before that, I attended the War in Words panel, hosted by the venerable journalist, Laura Flanders. It was a hot ticket. The Brooklyn court room brimmed with political junkies, and even my heroine of heroines Amy Goodman dropped in (Amy, if you’re reading this… drinks?).

The title of this piece is ripped from Eric Alterman’s book of the same name (Basic, 2003), but it speaks to an issue that’s been gnawing at me for the past couple of weeks. And this is thanks to Danny Schechter, a.k.a., The News Dissector, and a recent discussion we had on his radio program (listen below). I wonder: where is the left, progressive media? Or, more acutely, what is the hydra-headed progressive media in this country, and how do liberals leverage its many assets and ambitions into a cohesive, message-making machine?

On March 31, the United Nations and the United States will co-host a conference in New York in attempt to “lay the foundations for Haiti’s long term recovery.” It is vital that this platform is used to address the fact that the country has become too reliant on international NGOs to provide basic services to citizens.

Last night at the venerable 92Y, Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haass took a few questions from a smiley, curious, leggy Katie Couric. Haass has a new book out, War of Necessity, War of Choice, and The MANTLE would love a good progressive critique of it--so get crackin'!