Month: June 2004

UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – When U.S. President George W. Bush desperately sought UN assistance last month to organise elections in Iraq and help form a new interim government, some senior UN officials bragged the United States was crawling back to the world body on bended knee. But quickly the shoe has moved to the other … Continue reading “UN’s Integrity Questioned – Again”

With the notable exceptions of China and India, a majority of people in 19 key countries are pessimistic about the world’s current direction, says a just-released survey, which found a high correlation between that feeling and the belief that U.S. influence is increasingly negative, particularly as compared to Europe. The survey, conducted by the international … Continue reading “Global Pessimism About US Power”

June 3 – A rumbling explosion just let off near my hotel. This not too long after getting back from Adhamiya where I was talking to witnesses at the scene of yet another car bomb; the third in as many days here in Baghdad. At the scene in Adhamiya the scorched, crumpled shell of the … Continue reading “Fallujah, Pacified”

Since sometime before Caesar was a lance corporal, the United States Marine Corps’ greatest fear has been becoming “a second land army.” It has long believed that if the country perceived it had two armies, it would require one to go away, and that one would be the Marine Corps. It is therefore ironic that … Continue reading “Two Marine Corps”

Writing in the New Republic, former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski characterizes the Bush administration’s invasion and occupation of Iraq as “justified by falsehoods, pursued with unilateral arrogance, blinded by self-delusion, and stained by sadistic excesses.”  Brzezinski condemns Bush’s failed Iraq policy for aiding and abetting terrorism and for generating hardcore hatred of the US. Brzezinski … Continue reading “Truth vs. Deceit in Foreign Policy”

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Our allegiances to our allies and friends change constantly. For a decade, exiled Iraqi Ahmed Chalabi was our chosen leader-to-be in a new Iraq. Championed by Pentagon neocons and objected to by the State Department, Mr. Chalabi received more than 100 million U.S. taxpayer dollars … Continue reading “Fresh Failures in Iraq”

ARBIL, Iraq, (IPS) – Fruit and vegetable vendors push their carts around a street market in Arbil, the seat of governance of Iraqi Kurdistan. The city is very different from Baghdad. Kurdish is spoken here, and written large on shop windows. Also, there is no visible American troop presence. The streets are patrolled not by … Continue reading “Liberated Kurds Find Little Freedom”

So now there’s an interim government in Iraq, and at least there’s the appearance that the Iraqis exercised a bit of independence from the United States in the choice of a prime minister (Iyad Allawi, a Shia with longstanding military and CIA connections, head of the Iraqi National Accord, with a power base among former … Continue reading “Entering the Interim”

The abrupt resignation of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director George Tenet adds new grist to Washington’s rumor mills, already churning at warp speed due to the ongoing prisoner-abuse scandal in Iraq and reports that the Bush administration’s favorite in Baghdad turned over critical information to Iran. Whether Tenet, who also served for seven years as … Continue reading “More Imperial Intrigue as CIA Director Resigns”

Bush knew! says Capitol Hill Blue, a Washington-based website, a rumor which, if true, is perhaps why POTUS is getting himself a lawyer: “Witnesses told a federal grand jury President George W. Bush knew about, and took no action to stop, the release of a covert CIA operative’s name to a journalist in an attempt … Continue reading “Riding the Antiwar Backlash”