Month: December 2005

On July 15, 2003, ABC News aired a story about the plummeting morale of U.S. troops in Iraq. It quoted soldiers questioning the war and the judgment and candor of their commanders. One frosted GI even went on camera to call for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign. It was a devastating report, and the … Continue reading “Smear Pattern”

The Grave Threat Is the Bush Administration The police-state mentality is only a byproduct of the greatest threat to the Republic: our own feckless and desensitized people. We have a president whose obvious third-rate intellect and long history of personal business failures were alone enough to dismiss him as a pampered lightweight – but still … Continue reading “Backtalk, December 3, 2005”

On the Sept. 27 Charlie Rose Show, interviewing New Yorker editor David Remnick, Rose brought up the question of what the United States should do in Iraq. Should we “get out” – or, as Remnick so delicately put it, should we “bolt”? Here was how Remnick ended their discussion, while talking about those who had … Continue reading “How (Not) to Withdraw from Iraq”

There is no real need for a line-by-line analysis of the speech delivered yesterday by the Trotskyite-in-chief: a succinct summary will suffice. The president’s response to the polls, which show overwhelming opposition to the Iraq war, is: screw you. To those Republican members of Congress who rightly fear for their seats as election day approaches, … Continue reading “Bush’s ‘Great Leap Forward’”

A new spotlight has been thrown on the army of private military operators in Iraq, following the emergence of footage that appears to show security guards shooting up civilian cars on "Route Irish," the notorious Baghdad Airport road. The so-called trophy video now circulating widely on the Internet shows a series of clips of shots … Continue reading “Trophy Video Could Prove Costly for Aegis”

Nothing puts the lie to the Bush administration’s absurd claim that it invaded Iraq to spread democracy throughout the Middle East more decisively than its ceaseless attacks on al-Jazeera, the institution that has done more than any other to break the stranglehold over information previously held by authoritarian forces, whether monarchs, military strongmen, occupiers, or … Continue reading “The War on al-Jazeera”

I really should have learned by now. The White House offers some tantalizing hints that this time the president is really going to lay things out in a way the American people can understand, demonstrate that he is conversant with the facts on the ground and how to overcome them. He might even offer a … Continue reading “A Pathetic Performance”

Hoping to reverse plunging confidence in his strategy for Iraq – and in his own leadership – U.S. President George W. Bush Wednesday launched a major campaign to persuade the public that Washington is indeed prevailing against the insurgency there. Speaking before a generally friendly, if somewhat restrained, audience of cadets at the U.S. Naval … Continue reading “The Unpopular in Pursuit of the Unwinnable?”

BAGHDAD – Before the recent war in Iraq, the sanctions decreased access to many resources, but gas was still plentiful and affordable. Since the invasion in 2003, gas and kerosene have been in short supply. Iraq has the second-largest oil deposits in the world, but Iraqis are forced to sit in excruciatingly long lines, waiting … Continue reading “Iraq: So Much Oil, and So Little”

The suicide bombings in Jordan recently carried out by al-Qaeda in Iraq seem to have blown back on the jihadis. According to Western press reports, almost all those killed were Muslims, including a Palestinian wedding party. Outrage among Jordanians has compelled al-Qaeda to issue a quasi-apology, saying the wedding party was not its target. Had … Continue reading “It Ain’t Fair”