Today is the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Navy shooting down an Iranian passenger jet. Following is the writeup on the shootdown from my 2003 book, Terrorism & Tyranny: In the wake of the Iranian arms debacle, the Reagan administration sent the U.S. Navy to patrol the Persian Gulf—in part to reassure Arab nations that the U.S. […]
Tag Archives | Iran
Damned Nuisance Fact for Iran Warmongers – from New York Times
The mainstream media has often been as craven regarding the warmongering against Iran as they were in 2002-03 on Iraq. But every now and then, a clear headline breaks through the claptrap. New York Times February 25 2012 U.S. Agencies See No Move by Iran to Build a Bomb By JAMES RISEN and MARK MAZZETTI […]
Great Antiwar Song & Video from Old Crow Medicine Show
As so many politicians and pundits try to whip up enthusiasm for attacking Iran, we’d be wise to recall the ravages of war on those who actually have to fight and bleed. I’ve long enjoyed the Old Crow Medicine Show song, “Big Time in the Jungle.” I came across this YouTube video that makes its […]
Persian Gulf Folly Redux (1987)
Following is a piece I wrote in 1987 on the Reagan administration’s idiotic intervention in the Persian Gulf. Versions of this piece appeared in USA Today and the Detroit News. JUST ANOTHER AMERICAN SITTING DUCK by James Bovard Sentimentality now appears to be the soul of Reagan’s foreign policy. From charging into the Persian Gulf […]
The Folly of Attacking Iran
Listening to the half-witted ratcheting up of hostilities by both the U.S. and Iranian governments reminded me of this piece I wrote for the Future of Freedom Foundation in the wake of George W. Bush’s Iraq victory speech. It is difficult to detect a learning curve in Washington in the subsequent 7+ years. Instead, the […]
Our Know-Nothing Foreign Policy
From January 2011, my American Conservative review of Derek Leebaert’s Magic and Mayhem. Worst and Brightest Review of Magic and Mayhem: The Delusions of American Foreign Policy From Korea to Afghanistan, Derek Leebaert, Simon & Schuster, 336 pages By James Bovard In the decades since John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, foreign-policy experts have become Washington’s leading […]
Iran’s Worst Barbarism: Honesty About Torture
The current government is Iran is a bunch of damn rascals and thugs, and there are boatloads of questions about the honesty of their last election. The regime’s brutal crackdown on protestors reveals its true character. (But the Iranian government is not novel in this sense: the Syrians have been as brutal with their dissidents, […]
