Doug Bandow - The Japan Times

November 24, 2024

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Doug Bandow

COMMENTARY

Apr 2, 2004

Bush bears burden of proof

WASHINGTON -- The ever nastier Washington fight between former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke and manifold Bush officials has taken on a "he said/she said" quality. It's hard to know who to believe. But having routinely undercut his credibility elsewhere, President George W. Bush should bear the...

COMMENTARY

Mar 14, 2004

Getting Beijing to mind its own business

WASHINGTON -- China routinely vilifies any comment on its political practices as unwarranted outside "interference." Yet Beijing is always ready to lecture America on its policies.

COMMENTARY

Mar 2, 2004

Requiem for American nation-building

WASHINGTON -- Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has fled. The island country is in crisis. The United States is sending in Marines as part of a multilateral peacekeeping force. Instead of occupying yet another failed state, however, Washington should declare its era of nation-building to be over....

COMMENTARY

Jan 5, 2004

Tokyo, Seoul owe more than symbolism

WASHINGTON -- Deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is in custody, but the struggle to suppress Iraqi insurgents remains. Washington needs allied help to lighten its burden. The most generous aid should come from nations that the United States has defended for decades, particularly Japan and South Korea,...

COMMENTARY

Dec 28, 2003

Making U.S. voters happier, not safer

WASHINGTON -- "The capture of Saddam Hussein has not made America safer," declared Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, and denunciations have rained down upon him. But Dean obviously was correct: "The capture of Saddam does not end" the coalition's difficulties in Iraq.

COMMENTARY

Dec 21, 2003

Kuwait shows how to tolerate Christians

KUWAIT CITY -- Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein might be in custody, but the process of building democracy in Iraq remains difficult. Kuwait offers an important model of Islamic tolerance. Like other Muslim states, Kuwait is filled with mosques. But Kuwait possesses something that many Muslim nations...

COMMENTARY

Dec 4, 2003

Ethnic cleansing on the Jordan River

WASHINGTON -- Israel can push even U.S. President George W. Bush too far. The Bush administration says it will cut $290 million of $3 billion in promised loan guarantees because Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government continues to construct settlements and a security fence in the West Bank,...

COMMENTARY

Nov 22, 2003

World must denounce anti-Semitic terror

WASHINGTON -- Istanbul sits astride the Bosphorus, a sophisticated, tolerant place that seamlessly mixes Occident and Orient. Now it has been stricken by the cancer of terrorism.

COMMENTARY

Nov 19, 2003

Freedom of choice and the ACLU don't quite go together hand in hand

WASHINGTON -- Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, has written to ask me to become a "card-carrying member" of the ACLU. She explains: "There is no higher calling, nor greater reward, democracy can offer an individual than the opportunity to stand up for fundamental freedoms...

COMMENTARY

Oct 29, 2003

Democracy for whom?

WASHINGTON -- Although the Bush administration won formal U.N. recognition for its rule in Iraq, that diplomatic victory is likely to yield few allied troops for occupation duty. In fact, even Turkey, which agreed to dispatch 10,000 soldiers after Washington's approval of $8.5 billion in loans, is now...

COMMENTARY

Oct 20, 2003

Danger welcomes Americans abroad

JAKARTA -- "It's dangerous here for Americans," said my cab driver when I visited a few weeks ago. No question. A few blocks away sat the J.W. Marriott, its facade broken and blackened from the bombing in August. Scores of windows were blown out; mutilated blinds swayed in the wind. Wrecked autos sat...

COMMENTARY

Oct 12, 2003

Eco-radicals twist tax law to feed habits

WASHINGTON -- Corporate misbehavior remains much in the news in America. One day it is Enron; next it is the New York Stock Exchange. Big Labor, too, must routinely be called to account.

COMMENTARY

Oct 6, 2003

Industry sounds out of key in its campaign against P2P

WASHINGTON -- The recording industry seems to believe that there is no greater enemy of all that is good and wonderful than peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing technologies. Thus the Recording Industry Association of America's campaign to sue grandkids and grandparents who violate copyrights by swapping...

COMMENTARY

Sep 30, 2003

Cooperative Ukraine left out in the cold

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration continues to press for assistance from other nations in Iraq, but without notable success. Both Germany and Russia now indicate a willingness to help, but not with troops. Said Russian President Vladimir Putin in advance of his summit with his American counterpart...

COMMENTARY

Sep 17, 2003

Add eco-terrorism to list of threats faced by Americans

WASHINGTON -- In August, radical environmentalists apparently burned down an apartment complex under construction in San Diego, California.

COMMENTARY

Sep 15, 2003

Wanted: a U.S. exit strategy for Iraq

WASHINGTON -- The number of American combat deaths in the Iraq war has surpassed the number in the Persian Gulf War. Even U.S. President George W. Bush has acknowledged that the U.S. faces a "security issue in Iraq," a "massive and long-term undertaking." The conflict will soak up a large share of U.S....

COMMENTARY

Aug 30, 2003

A tax hike for God? Don't you believe it

WASHINGTON -- It has long been said that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Today religion plays that role in the United States. At least it does for Gov. Bob Riley of Alabama, who is pushing a massive tax hike in the name of God.

COMMENTARY

Aug 20, 2003

Washington must live by the limits of its responsibility

WASHINGTON -- American troops have arrived in Liberia after Liberian President Charles Taylor fled into exile. Whether these peacekeepers, and the larger African contingents to come, will bring peace in the three-sided civil war is yet uncertain. What is certain, however, is that reconstructing Liberia...

COMMENTARY

Aug 6, 2003

A threat to one is a threat to all in a nation of laws

WASHINGTON -- There is a "very real potential" that al-Qaeda will strike again on U.S. soil, warns Attorney General John Ashcroft. Which makes it even more difficult to criticize the Bush administration's efforts to combat terrorism. But while the U.S. Constitution is not a suicide pact, it also means...

COMMENTARY

Jul 19, 2003

No assault on U.S. morality

WASHINGTON -- For more than a year American politics has focused on war in Iraq. But the Supreme Court's decision voiding state antisodomy laws has inflamed the culture war in America. Conservative religious groups prophesy a moral apocalypse; Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is calling for a federal...

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.

A boom for business tourism in Japan?

By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

mission sustainability vol.12 : Kose Corp.Kose takes pride in creating beauty in the world

mission sustainability vol.12 : Kose Corp.Kose takes pride in creating beauty in the world

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