Wayne Allensworth

Latest by Wayne Allensworth in Chronicles

• Vital Signs

  October 2005

  Losing the “War on Terror” at the Border

  According to a host of news reports, the porous, virtually unprotected southern border of the United States has attracted the attention of Islamic terrorists, as many of us warned it would at the outset of the “War on Terror.”

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• Cultural Revolutions

  August 2005

  Downing Street Memo

  The Downing Street Memo, a British-government document on Iraq leaked in May to the Sunday Times, may be as close as the American public will get to a “smoking gun” implicating the Bush White House in manipulating this country into war.

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• View

  July 2005

  A Place to Stand

  The names are legendary; the tales of heroism, a part of our heritage as Texans and Americans. Houston, Crockett, Bowie, Travis: All, save William Barret Travis, were nationally known figures before they came to Texas, which was then considered Mexican territory.

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• News

  June 2005

  Why Russia Does Not Fear an Iranian Bomb

  When President George W. Bush met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Bratislava, Slovakia, this past February, the first item on the White House’s laundry list of discussion points for the summit was nuclear programs, including Russian aid to Iran’s nuclear-power effort.

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• Cultural Revolutions

  June 2005

  Becoming Extinct

  Iraq's Christians may be on their way to extinction, thanks to the Bush administration’s decision to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime.

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• Reviews

  May 2005

  A Rumor of War

  George W. Bush’s man at the CIA, Porter Goss, is now purging the agency, an act prompted by the persistence of certain parties in the CIA in presenting the White House with “reality-based analysis.”

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• View

  February 2005

  War on the Home Front

  U.S. officialdom calls them “Special Interest Aliens,” as much because they might have a special interest in us as we in them. They are aliens from countries that are considered potential sources of terrorist attacks on the American homeland, and their numbers are reportedly growing.

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• Correspondence

  January 2005

  Everything Dies

  It was one of those winter days in Texas that seem as gray as the surface of the moon and about as hospitable. It’s cool outside, so you wear a jacket. Inside, it’s stuffy.

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• Cultural Revolutions

  November 2004

  Key Proposals

  President Bush announced in September that he would partially support key proposals for intelligence reform made by the September 11 Commission, which, in its final report, recommended a sweeping restructuring of the U.S. intelligence apparatus.

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• Vital Signs

  October 2004

  Remembering the Alamo

  The familiar mythic image of the Alamo was burned into my mind at an early age, augmented by legends told by my grandfather; pictures of my namesake, who died in combat in what everybody called “The War”; and celluloid images of Audie Murphy, Sergeant York, and Western heroes.

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• News

  August 2004

  The Bush Clan at the “Oligarchs’ Ball”

  Vladimir Putin reacted swiftly to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s criticism of Russian democracy following the Russian president’s reelection on March 14.

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• American Proscenium

  August 2004

  The League of Frightened Gentlemen: U.S. Occupation and Iraqi “Sovereignty”

  Before the surprise early transfer of power to a “sovereign” Iraqi government on June 28, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told the House Armed Services Committee that the interim government was “prepared to step up to its responsibilities.”

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• News

  May 2004

  Strange Bedfellows

  Last November’s “Rose Revolution” in the Caucasian republic of Georgia made political bedfellows of an unlikely couple: George W. Bush and billionaire “philanthropist” and global meddler George Soros.

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• Cultural Revolutions

  April 2004

  Firing the Government

  Vladimir Putin’s surprise firing of the Russian government on February 24 and his appointment of “technocratic” Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov on March 1 had Western officials and observers buzzing about another round of “reform” and Russian cooperation with the West, while Western investors were optimistic that the new government would favor them.

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• Cultural Revolutions

  February 2004

  Managed Democracy

  Russia's parliamentary elections, held December 7, produced a wave of alarmed reactions in the Western press that betray the ignorance and hypocrisy of Western elite thinking regarding Russia and the West’s—particularly Washington’s—relations with Moscow.

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• Cultural Revolutions

  November 2003

  Johnny Cash, R.I.P.

  John R. Cash went to his reward on September 12. His beloved wife, June, preceded the “Man in Black” in death on May 15. His friends report that Johnny Cash was at peace and ready to meet his Maker.

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• View

  August 2003

  The Real War

  In a small café in Belgrade nearly 20 years ago, I had a drink with a young man named Michael. He was an architect and, like many people I met there, was no friend of the Soviet regime, which was the subject of our conversation.

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• Vital Signs

  July 2003

  Palestinianization and the Iraq War

  As American troops seized the center of Baghdad on April 9, looting, guerrilla warfare, and chaos continued across Iraq.

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• Cultural Revolutions

  July 2003

  Murder in Politics

  Sergey Yushenkov’s murder on April 17 may have been the result of machinations aimed at destroying Russian President Vladimir Putin politically and personally, as well as undermining U.S.-Russia relations, seemingly on track again after the rift over Iraq.

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• Cultural Revolutions

  June 2003

  Hardened Line

  Vladimir Putin, prodded by a reporter’s question regarding the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, remarked that Russia, for “economic and political” reasons, “has no interest in the defeat of the United States.”

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