The debate over Senator John Kerry’s service in the Vietnam War sounded a sour and dispiriting note as the presidential campaign of 2004 approached the Labor Day weekend, the traditional start of the final and most serious phase of the campaign. While President Bush prepared to accept the offi

The American story has been the “story of flawed and fallible people united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals,” said President George W. Bush in his inaugural address of Jan. 20, 2001. The theme of a united people also ran through the keynote speech of Illinois senatori

The disaster unfolding in the Darfur region of Sudan shines a spotlight once again on the plight of refugees and internally displaced persons. The Sudanese government has stood by as Arab Janjaweed militias engaged in the systematic destruction of Darfurian villages and water sources. Thirty thousan

The conventional wisdom about presidential election campaigns is that the American voting public does not begin to pay attention until after the Labor Day weekend. For both Democrats and Republicans the candidates have been clearly identified long in advance of the national conventions in which they

For years the hypothetical case of the “ticking time-bomb” has served as a test for moralists probing the limits of absolute prohibitions: Are authorities permitted, by way of exception, to torture a captive who probably has information about a hidden time-bomb that could kill large numb

Smuggling and trafficking in human beings is on the rise, and with that rise has come an increase in victims’ suffering. Throughout the world, they are treated simply as commodities, often in ways that are physically and psychologically brutal. Although there are differences between smuggling

The early Christians lived in a police state and were judged subversive if they refused to worship the Roman emperor. Yet even during periods of persecution, these Christians insisted they were law-abiding citizens. The anonymous author of a short second-century essay known as the Letter to Diognetu

The United States went to war in Iraq to destroy weapons of mass destruction and depose Saddam Hussein. No weapons have been found; Saddam is under arrest. The time has come to declare “mission accomplished” and announce a deadline for bringing the troops home. The administration has mad

The presidential campaign of 2004 promises to be the most expensive in U.S. history. Unfortunately, and not by accident, the most expensive presidential campaign in history also threatens to be the least enlightened. The enormous sums available to campaign organizations are for the most part investe

On May 17, 1954, neither the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, nor anyone else, could have predicted that 50 years later both the U.S. secretary of state and the president’s national security advisor would be African-Americans. But on that Monday morning, the court announced its decisio