From the start, problems small and large plagued the Pentagon’s media project in Iraq. The Iraqi Media Network (IMN), as it is known, is an American-run outfit contracted by the Pentagon to put out news after Saddam Hussein’s fall. Its mission was twofold: to be both a PBS-style broadcaster and a means for the occupying […]
Alex Gourevitch
Alex Gourevitch is currently a graduate student at Columbia University studying international relations and a former American Prospect writing fellow.
Posted inFeatures
Immaterial and Unsupportable
On May 19, in one of the first anti-terrorism cases brought against U.S. citizens since September 11, Mukhtar al-Bakri, a 23-year-old Yemeni American from Lackawanna, N.Y., pleaded guilty to the charge of providing “material support” to al-Qaeda. Prior to 9-11, al-Bakri and five other young Yemeni Americans had traveled to an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, […]
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Fishing Expedition
The last few months have not been kind to those charged with carrying out the Bush administration’s war on terrorism. Bush’s basic approach to the issue has come into question, and a fear once expressed only by hard-core libertarians — that since September 11, the administration has arrogated to itself too much power to restrict […]
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Eight Bail
EVIAN, France — Members of the U.S. press corps seem convinced that no more news will be made at the G8 summit — and, at least on the surface, they’re right. Though the meeting officially ends today with a working session in the morning, most American journalists left, along with President Bush, yesterday afternoon. “I’ve […]
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Border Line
In the Feb. 13 issue of The New York Review of Books, Timothy Garton Ash argued that anti-Europeanism is on the rise in the United States. This sentiment, he suggested, taps into a variety of cultural prejudices, including the notion that the American love of liberty is a kind of haven from European paternalism. “For […]
Posted inFeatures
Asylum Interrupted
The United States has never opened its arms to immigrants seeking asylum. Before September 11, aliens would arrive only to be shackled and handcuffed to an airport bench, suffer through multiple interviews, wind up in a county jail or private correctional facility, and finally file their cases before an immigration judge. Sometimes an asylum seeker […]
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Tolkien Internationalism
George W. Bush, it turns out, is actually Gollum. As almost everyone knows, Gollum is the character from The Lord of the Rings trilogy with a severe split-personality disorder. He hates J.R.R. Tolkien’s protagonist, Frodo Baggins, because Frodo’s uncle took Gollum’s precious ring — the ring that Frodo now wears and that Gollum covets. At […]
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Dollars, Sense
Before President Bush had even revealed his first budget for the Department of Homeland Security, Democrats were preparing to pounce. The day before Bush unveiled his budget, presidential hopeful Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) accused him of shortchanging homeland security. The next day, according to The New York Times, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) alleged that Bush’s […]
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Detention Disorder
Eleven young, dark-skinned men shuffled out of an elevator handcuffed to one another. A few tripped over ankle cuffs as three officers in puffy blue windbreakers — with “IMMIGRATION POLICE” splashed across the back in bold yellow lettering — ushered them through the entry chamber, out a pair of glass doors and into a van […]
Posted inEducation in America
For Your Information
If the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program scares you, you’re not alone. Of course, even if it doesn’t scare you, and the Pentagon has its way, you still won’t be alone. That’s kind of the point. The problem is, if you’re worried enough to try to find out more about this mass monitoring system, you […]
