Month: November 2006

At least 92 Iraqis were killed or found dead and another 42 were wounded today as President Bush is in Jordan for talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and others. Also, Coalition sources reported that an American soldier was killed on Wednesday and another GI today, both in Baghdad. The Coalition also stated that troops … Continue reading “Thursday: 92 Iraqis, 2 GIs Killed; 42 Iraqis Wounded”

A coalition of U.S. peace groups is pressing ahead with plans for what it hopes will be a massive march on Washington Jan. 27, even though newly released documents show the antiwar community is under Pentagon surveillance. “The peace and justice movement helped make ending the war in Iraq the primary issue in this last … Continue reading “Spying Won’t Deter Us,
Peace Groups Say”

Despite a growing and virtually universal consensus both in America and abroad that the United States must engage Syria and Iran if it hopes to stabilize Iraq, U.S. President George W. Bush appears determined to ignore Baghdad’s two key neighbors as long as possible. That is increasingly the assessment of analysts in Washington who had … Continue reading “Bush Seems Determined to
Stay the Course”

Initial press reports on information provided to the Senate by Robert Gates, President George W. Bush’s nominee for the post of defense secretary, show Gates hewing very closely to the rhetoric of his predecessor. Gates is more parrot than innovator in his responses to a questionnaire given him by the Senate Armed Services Committee, which … Continue reading “Gates, Hadley:
More of the Same”

NEW DELHI – At the end of an important week-long visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to South Asia, what does the complicated triangular relationship among Beijing, New Delhi, and Islamabad, three of Asia’s four nuclear powers, look like? Going by conventional wisdom, and most media reports, there was a sharp contrast between the relatively … Continue reading “China, India Make Progress – at No Cost to Pakistan”

Updated at 6:40 p.m. EST, Nov. 29, 2006 Today, at least 83 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 61 were wounded in separate incidents across Iraq. Also, U.S. military sources reported on the death of an American soldier from "enemy action" in Anbar province. Another U.S. soldier was killed and a third GI wounded … Continue reading “Wednesday: 83 Iraqis, 2 GIs Killed; 61 Iraqis Wounded”

The horrific murder of Alexander Litvinenko, ex-KGB officer and minor conspiracy theorist, has unleashed a wave of Russophobia that is sweeping over the Western media with Katrina-like force – washing away reason, logic, and the natural curiosity that makes for good investigative journalism. In their rush to convict Russian President Vladimir Putin as the evil … Continue reading “The Litvinenko Mystery”

On Sunday, in a front-page New York Times piece (“U.S. Finds Iraq Insurgency Has Funds to Sustain Itself“), John Burns and Kirk Semple reported that a federal “interagency working group,” looking into the finances of the various branches of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, had come to the conclusion that it was now financially self-sustaining. … Continue reading “Iraq’s Insurgency
Does It on the Cheap”

While ethnic cleansing plagues "liberated Iraq," Moqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the powerful Shi’ite Mahdi militia, has issued an ultimatum to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Sadr warned that if Maliki met President Bush in Jordan this week, the cleric and his 30 followers in Iraq’s parliament would pull out of the shaky ruling coalition, effectively … Continue reading “The Balkanization of Iraq”

I find it almost impossible to write another post about our nauseatingly immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq. I’ve made my views clear, and offered numerous reasons for my conclusions. See, for example, “No Way Out – But Out,” “A Genuine Mission Impossible,” and “Get Out Now: Just Do It.” And “The Missing Moral Center: … Continue reading “The Abominables of
The New Republic“