AUTHOR
William Milam
Ambassador William Milam is a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC and a former US diplomat who was Ambassador to Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Chief of Mission in Liberia.
By William Milam January 22, 2021 Well, the United States has survived its first insurrection since 1860 and its first ever coup d’état attempt. So, perhaps, the title of this piece, a triumphal, partial quote from Homer’s Odyssey is appropriate. But the verdict on its veracity can surely only come in the generations to
READ MOREby William Milam January 8, 2021 I began writing this on Tuesday, the day that the two runoff elections for the two senate seats in Georgia were being held, and a day before President Trump’s latest, and probably final, assault on our democracy takes place. On Wednesday, Trump’s disciples in Congress will challenge the already-certified
READ MOREOff to the Races Trump has completely captured the Republican Party, and it is unlikely to change in character while he remains in control, writes William Milam by William Milam November 27, 2020 On Monday, November 23, when I started writing this piece, the dam had just broken, and President Trump’s vainglorious effort to undo
READ MOREwhitehouse.gov by William Milam November 13, 2020 Well, the election is over—or at least the vote is almost completely counted, and there is no mystery about who came out on top. Today’s count shows that Joe Biden got 5 million more votes than Donald Trump and now has 290 electoral college votes, which is 20
READ MOREby William Milam May 22, 2020 “The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” wrote William Faulkner. I think of this line as I continue to study the last great influenza pandemic to devastate the world, foreshadowing 102 years ago, the devastation of our current pestilence, COVID-19. Yes, as my medically trained friends point
READ MOREby William Milam May 8, 2020 Finally, just when I thought the Great Pandemic of 1918/19 had been mined for all it could teach us in regard to defending against the COVID-19 pandemic that now afflicts us, a new study is published, which with new looks at old data, and more sophisticated analytic tools, tells
READ MOREby William Milam April 24, 2020 The 1918 Influenza Pandemic came in two waves. The first wave, which in the early months of 1918, struck a large American Army camp in Kansas and spread rapidly to other military camps across the country. Recruits moved between camps for various kinds of training as the government’s policy
READ MOREby William Milam April 10, 2020 There is very little to write about these days except the COVID-19 pandemic. But most human activities, including politics and war, do not stop during pandemics, although their trajectories may bend radically. Two things are clear about pandemics: they are caused by viruses or other bacteria to which innocent
READ MOREby William Milam March 27, 2020 So wrote Albert Camus in his great novel, The Plague, and so we are learning its truth as we cower in our shelters from the Coronavirus, spreading the Covid-19 influenza that grips most of the world. We are certainly not free. I and my friends and family, as well
READ MOREby William Milam March 13, 2020 Two weeks ago, as we awaited the signing of the US-Taliban Agreement which intends to ignite a peace process in Afghanistan, I wrote of the magic realism in general of US foreign policy and specifically in the agreement about to be signed. The agreement was signed on February 29
READ MOREFour concentric circles must come together if the Afghan process is to succeed, writes Willliam Milam Magical Realism in American Foreign Policy – The Friday Times by William Milam 3 March 2020 This theme struck me when I attended last week a discussion among three highly respected experts at a Washington think tank of the
READ MOREby William Milam 19 January 2020 I was disconnected, electronically and, to some extent psychologically, from current events during December. I have now reconnected, and being so has its downsides. As I came back online, President Trump had another brain cramp and appeared to be preparing to start a war with Iran. I guess we
READ MOREWilliam Milam explains why by William Milam November 1, 2019 Does anyone remember the song with the above title made famous by the Kingston Trio in the late 1950s? Does anyone, except a few antiques like me, remember the Kingston Trio? I think of that song these days every time I look at daily newspapers
READ MOREThe problem in Bangladesh is primarily that no basis was ever established for an effective two-party system, writes William Milam by William Milam October 18, 2019 “As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.” So said the celebrated French pioneer aviator, poet, novelist and journalist Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
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