Word: strongman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...have liberated Kuwait is an academic question. The fact is that from the outset of the Persian Gulf military buildup intended to thwart Iraq, a multinational effort was politically necessary. Designed to demonstrate that the world community opposed Saddam Hussein, it was also meant to show that the Iraqi strongman was not the leader of an Arab-Muslim holy war against the infidel. That was the symbolism, a display of teamwork that skeptics thought would work only in an internationalist's fantasy. In practice, however, the alliance moved as a smoothly coordinated machine during the stunningly triumphant 100-hour ground...
...meanwhile forging into uncharted waters, most notably laundering drug money. In 1983 B.C.C.I. acquired a Colombian bank with 30 branches that included several in Medellin and Cali, homes to the world's most powerful cocaine cartels. Among those laundering drug profits through B.C.C.I., say investigators, was former Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, who was collared by U.S. authorities in early 1990. Prosecutors who tracked his finances said Noriega had funneled $500,000 of cocaine funds through First American's flagship bank in Washington. First American officials denied any knowledge of the transaction...
Even after his death in 1985, Enver Hoxha dominated the town and city squares of Albania. Statues of the dictator were everywhere, including a 30-ft. bronze monolith in the center of Tirana, the capital. But the legacy of the Stalinist strongman has come under assault in recent months, and last week Hoxha's statues were falling. Students in the capital, demanding that Enver Hoxha University be renamed, threw ropes around the monument and brought it crashing down...
...first war in which the ecological consequences of battle have been a focus of world attention even as the fighting takes place. Yet that very awareness multiplies the sense of horror and demoralization caused by Saddam's callous acts of environmental terrorism. In his quixotic madness, the Iraqi strongman seems intent on waging what he calls "the mother of all battles" against the mother of us all -- the earth itself...
...coalition will not attack Iraq if its troops leave Kuwait. Bush has even hinted that Iraq could negotiate its border disputes with Kuwait and perhaps get an international conference on the Palestinian problem convened. Saddam might view these as sufficient concessions to enable him to continue posturing as the strongman of the Middle East. On the other hand, recalls a Bush adviser, "we have said ourselves that Saddam probably would be overthrown and assassinated by his own people if he withdrew unconditionally from Kuwait." Though many experts doubt that this would happen, the dictator might have to be convinced that...