Racism is as American as apple pie, H. Rap Brown/Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin once said, and any cursory observation of American history and culture would conclude that racial hatred and categorization is an integral and predictable fact of American life.

John McCain said it first: "In the 21st century nations don't invade other nations." George W. Bush said it, too: Russia's way is not the "way to conduct foreign policy in the 21st Century". And Condoleezza Rice on August 19 said it: "Russia is a state that is unfortunately using the one tool that it has always used whenever it wishes to deliver a message and that's its military power. That's not the way to deal in the 21st century."

BEIRUT (AFP) Lebanon has issued an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi over the disappearance 30 years ago of a senior Shi'a Muslim cleric after a visit to Libya, officials said on Wednesday. Kadhafi was also indicted for allegedly "inciting the abduction" of Imam Mussa Sadr, the spiritual guide of Lebanon's Shi'a community, investigating magistrate Samih el-Hajj said in a charge sheet.

Barack Obama's vice presidential pick, Joe Biden, is a self-avowed Zionist. As he explained to an American Jewish TV station last year, you don't have to be Jewish to be Zionist. Of course, this discovery is not uniquely his. It is shared by the likes of John Hagee of the Christian Zionists, whose power is courted by Israel but whose views are decidedly anti-Semitic. Hagee believes, for example, that in the Second Coming all Jews will perish except 144,000 who will convert to Christianity. John McCain courted Hagee until some of his outrageous comments became too public.

In June, a federal Appellate Court in New York tossed out Canadian engineer Maher Arar's suit against John Ashcroft and other officials for shipping him to Syria to be tortured.  Technically, the court held, he was never in the U.S.

In a press release issued August 27, 2008, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Metropolitan Detroit (JCRC) criticized my article "Detroit Jewish Federation: Celebrating racism and making money at it" as "despicable." The article was published in the August 9-15, 2008, edition of The Arab American News and is available on the TAAN web site. I want to thank the JCRC for circulating my article.

SOUTHFIELD — Samir Haddad has had plenty of guests on his "Arabian Candles" afternoon radio show before. But on Monday, August 26, he had perhaps his three most intimidating guests ever in studio.

Thabit Abdullah and his wife, Iraqis, were in Syria when the U.S. invaded in 2003.  Yes, they were glad to see that Saddam Hussein was on the way out, but at the same time they had real concerns about U.S. intentions, concerns that were unfortunately prescient.  This book is an account of recent Iraqi history and politics, especially but not exclusively since 1989.