Erkan's field diary

Morning Brief: Obama's milestone

By Joshua Keating

Top Story

Barack Obama won the majority of pledged delegates in last night's primaries, though he lost badly in Kentucky. Hillary Clinton has no plans to drop out of the race before June.

Barack Obama and Turkish foreign policy by EMRE USLU & öNDER AYTAÇ

With his latest victory in Oregon on Tuesday, it became clear that Barack Obama will be the Democratic Party's nominee for president of the United States to run against Republican John McCain.

Caribbean Musicians for Barack Obama

By Maximilian Forte

Slowly I have seen the emergence of Caribbean musical tributes to Barack Obama, something one ordinarily does not see happening with US presidential candidates, most of whom I would argue inspire indifference, resignation, or plain hostility in the English-speaking Caribbean which, without a language barrier, and with significant family connections, and blanketed by US media, is directly exposed to US politics.

 

Fernando Botero Opens Abu Ghraib Exhibit at the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno Colombian Painter Fernando Botero attended the inauguration of his exhibit Abu Ghraib - The Circus at the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM). Photo: EFE / Manuel Bruque.

Obama targets McCain, shifts to full US election mode

Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama is bidding this week to reach a symbolically potent milestone in his nominating battle with Hillary Clinton and take the fight to Republican John

Neoconceit and the Iraq Debacle

By now all but the most ardent of Bush administration admirers must face the obvious: the mission in Iraq was never accomplished, only botched. Historians and pundits will devote tomes upon tomes in assessing one of the most egregious blunders in American foreign policy. But it is not that difficult to see how it happened. Take a horrific tragedy (9/11), a convenient scapegoat (Muslim extremists), a personal grudge (Saddam surviving the first Gulf War and bragging about it), ideological nitwits (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, and the list goes on), a bottom line (oil supply), a fear factor (WMDs) and outright lies. Much of the evidence for the Iraq Debacle survives on videotape. Now Christopher Cerf and Victor S. Navasky have documented what the “experts” bungled in their recent Mission Accomplished or How We Won the War in Iraq: The Experts Speak (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008).

Funny Friends in the Middle East

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Who hates us? Who loves us? Who’s an enemy? Who’s an ally? These are important questions, but the people who presume to answer them for us often seem to be more than a little disingenuous—or just plain ignorant—when they try to persuade Americans that we’d be fine if we could shut down the Shia and rely on the Sunni, among whom we have so many staunch friends.

Why She Fights On

By Richard Cohen

The New York Times recently ran down a list of women who might someday become the nation's first female president. Out of both courtesy and caution, it included Hillary Clinton, but the whole point of the exercise was that it is not going to be her. Her campaign is all but over, but that's no longer the point. She's ending it in a way to start all over.

A New Report About the FBI, CIA and Interrogation

A new Justice Department reports faults the CIA's handling of prisoner interrogation

Understanding America

Peter H. Schuck: As in de Tocqueville’s time, American culture, politics, and economics stand apart from the rest of the world. Examining American institutions, public policies and cultural patterns would help the world understand America's exceptionalism compared to other liberal democracies.