Reconstructing the Middle East
How Might It Be Done? There is an odd precision attaching to certain key events in the Middle East. Jimmy Carter’s third and final State of the Union address on January 23, 1980, was his “doctrine” speech and set in…
Journal Entry #13
NORFOLK, Conn.—A correspondent and later an editor named David Watts and I had—please note the tense—a friendship that stretched across the sky, it seems to me now. I treasured it and will say a few things about it here. It…
Journal Entry #12
NORFOLK, Conn.—A moment this morning to share the moments of silence and reflection I and surely many others have spent since Dan Berrigan passed away last Saturday, April 30, at an infirmary for aging and ailing Jesuits on the campus…
Journal Entry #11
NORFOLK, Conn.—A reader sent a note the other day remarking on one of the entries in this Cú Chulainn—an entry dated last October, the latest before this one. It was one more reminder among many that I’ve fallen radically behind…
Making American Foreign Affairs Reporting Great Again
How can the U.S. media more effectively challenge the official D.C. narrative on national security, and why is this so important? During the heyday of print reporting, most major U.S. newspapers had a sizable number of foreign bureaus. The advent…
Brexit=More Democracy for Europe?
The European Union was supposed to mean a continent of nations united by democratic ideals. Instead power and decision making has become more concentrated and centralized. First it was Greece, then Spain threatening to pull out of the EU, now…
Journal Entry #10
NORFOLK, CONN.—When I began the two columns I now produce weekly—four years and some, two years and some ago—they weren’t my first outings in the foreign affairs scene. I had written one for three years at Bloomberg—a (politically) difficult engagement…
Journal Entry #9
NEW PRESTON, CONN.—I wrote about markets this week—the appalling crack-up in global exchanges, wholly irrational—and I wrote about journalism. I’m invested in both. What pennies I have are in some kind of mutual fund, but never mind that. I have…
Journal Entry #8
NORFOLK, Conn.—I suppose this past week or so is a harbinger of the political season to come. Anyone who reads the columns knows I have little respect for the political process in this country. It is an offense to be…
Journal Entry #7
S.FREEPORT, MAINE—The biggest even in foreign affairs of the past week or so, trumping (as it were) even Schumer’s capitulation to the Israeli lobby on the Iran accord, is the Republican debate sponsored by Fox News in Cleveland last week….
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