Struggling to Survive

From Dahr's weblog I revisited Chuwader General Hospital in Sadr City yesterday. Unlike at Yarmouk Hospital, the manager at Chuwader was very open about the desperate plight facing his hospital, where 78 doctors work with desperate medicine and equipment shortages to...

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Will the Commissioners Cave?

Will the Sept. 11 Commission follow the example set by Congress and the Intelligence Community and let itself be intimidated by Vice President Dick Cheney? Now that the commission's staff report has pulled the rug out from under the notion so successfully fostered by...

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‘Our Duty Is to Export Violence’

From Dahr's weblog The evening of the 21st found me at a CPA-approved demonstration of Shia men in support of the recent U.S airstrike of Fallujah. Remember, demonstrations in Iraq now must obtain permission from the CPA, otherwise risk being broken up by the...

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The Stab in the Back

The victors in the Iraq war are now moving rapidly to consolidate their gains, and carry out the second phase of their operation. No, I don't mean the June 30 American handover of pseudo-"sovereignty" to a puppet regime, but the ongoing invasion of Kurdistan...

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The Honest Case for War

What if, instead of giving the speech he actually gave on the eve of war, President Bush had said the following? Would America be in Iraq today? "My fellow Americans, I come before you tonight to make my case for invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein. In...

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Bring the Troops Home (from Korea)

The vortex of Korean politics can make even Donald Rumsfeld sound like the most radical Korean peace activist. "After the cold war," he declared on June 3, "U.S. forces have been stationed in South Korea for too long." The occasion was the announcement of the largest...

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Egyptian Police Learn From Abu Ghraib

WASHINGTON – In what may be the first concrete example of the effects of the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal in Iraq, lawyers and human rights groups in Egypt, a major U.S. ally in the Middle East, say that local police are increasingly resorting to new torture...

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Afghan Elections Threatened by Lack of Security

While more than 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq continue trying to impose security in advance of the June 30 handover of limited sovereignty to the new Iraqi administration, the security situation in nearby Afghanistan continues to deteriorate. With national elections...

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