Month: June 2004

When an off-Broadway show opened a few seasons ago with the deliciously relevant title, Now That Communism is Dead My Life Feels Empty, it made me think of the bright, clever neoconservatives I have known. Looking back, many of their prominent publications and groups were far too inflexible to accept that the USSR was no … Continue reading “The Neocons Earn an ‘F’”

BAQUBA – Just six days before Iraq’s interim government is to gain partial sovereignty from the U.S., resistance fighters launched a series of coordinated attacks against U.S. forces and Iraqi government targets in Baghdad, Mosul, Ramadi and Baquba today. Fierce fighting between the Iraqi resistance and U.S. forces has killed at least 85 people and … Continue reading “Baquba Sealed off as US Loses Control”

From Dahr’s blog Mohammed works at our hotel. He just came up to deliver our laundry. When we asked how he was doing, he took off his sunglasses to show us a black eye. “Not so good,” he said. Someone was drinking beer outside the hotel last night, and when Mohammed asked him to please … Continue reading “‘This Is the Freedom’”

Unless you own a lot of stock in Halliburton or other big defense, security, or construction companies, chances are the Iraq war has turned out to be a pretty bad investment, both in human lives and taxpayer dollars, according to a new assessment by a progressive Washington-based think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). … Continue reading “Iraq War Analysis Paints Grim Picture”

Peoples the world around have a history of culture and religion. In the Mideast, the religion is predominantly Muslim and the culture tribal. The Muslim religion is strong, i.e., those that don’t conform are considered infidels; those of a tribal culture look for tribal leadership, not democracy. We liberated Kuwait, but it immediately rejected democracy. … Continue reading “The US Has Lost Its Moral Authority”

LONDON – The man known only as “G” was lucky that the deterioration of his mental health became obvious. “G,” one of the 12 men held indefinitely without trial in Britain’s top security prisons, was let out on bail in April on the basis that his indefinite detention had caused deterioration of his mental health. … Continue reading “Britain’s Guantanamo”

A last minute spending spree by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and language in the UN Security Council resolution setting the conditions for Iraqi sovereignty appear likely to limit the interim government’s ability to exercise meaningful control over the country’s oil revenues. According to documents posted on its own web site, the CPA’s little-known … Continue reading “‘Sovereign’ Iraq to Have Little Control Over Oil”

SEOUL – Although the government announced that its decision to deploy 3,000 troops to Iraq is unlikely to be swayed by the beheading of a South Korean hostage, mounting public protests, however, could force it to cancel the deployment. In a scene similar to that of U.S. engineer Paul M. Johnson before he was beheaded … Continue reading “South Koreans Protest Troop Deployment”

Following the publication of a 42-page report by the Srebrenica Commission of the Bosnian Serb government, media around the world carried a variation of this headline on Friday, June 11: “Bosnian Serbs Admit Srebrenica Massacre!” Many saw this as the final and incontrovertible proof that what happened in Srebrenica in July 1995 was a planned, … Continue reading “Srebrenica Revisited”

UNITED NATIONS – Faced with the prospect of a humiliating defeat, the United States abandoned its proposal to seek Security Council exemption for U.S. soldiers from possible war crime charges in future UN peacekeeping operations overseas. Unable to muster the necessary nine votes in the 15-member Security Council, Washington jettisoned the draft resolution Wednesday following … Continue reading “US Abandons War Crimes Exemption”