Christian Science Monitor World News -

Saudi Arabia's quiet voices of reform start to speak up

Since Sept. 11, Saudi dissidents have increased calls for elections and a new constitution.

US Troops pour in, scenarios narrow

As US approaches full deployment in Gulf, pressure on Bush is to go to war or pull forces out.

The flurry of news on deployments may also contain elements intended to deceive the enemy.

"They are inundating us with discussion of deployments, make it difficult to track what is going on," says Patrick Garrett at GlobalSecurity.org, a defense think tank. "There is a ton of call-ups for Reserve and National Guard units, and my guess is most are not going."

Preludes to war and its aftermath

From Washington to London to Tel Aviv - and in many other places - anticipating the effects of what will likely be America's most significant military engagement since the Vietnam war has become a subject of intense endeavor.

At the UN and private relief agencies, aid workers are girding for the aftermath.

There's a brief bit on Pax Americana:

Andrew Bacevich, a Boston University professor of international relations, argues that "the time has come for us as Americans ... to acknowledge the reality that we do preside over an empire of a sort. "The aim of this empire, he says, is to preserve and expand American freedom and prosperity, in part by promoting secular democracy and free markets abroad.

In that context, he told participants at a conference last week at Bar-Ilan University outside Tel Aviv that the US campaign can be seen as "war to establish a bridgehead of American power to transform Iraq into ... the first Arab democracy" and thus further the interests of the American empire.