Month: October 2006

At the end of September, the New York Times reported that "A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks." According to … Continue reading “Co-Dependency in Iraq”

[Note for readers: The first TomDispatch book to be published this season has just arrived in the stores. (The second will be not an October, but a late November, surprise.) Mission Unaccomplished, TomDispatch Interviews With American Iconoclasts and Dissenters (Nation Books, $14.95) collects the interviews I’ve done at the site – from Howard Zinn, Juan … Continue reading “George Bush’s
War of the Words”

Updated 10:15 p.m. EDT, Oct. 10, 2006 Violence in Iraq continued Monday into Tuesday, leaving at least 196 dead and 45 injured. Included in the totals are the death of an American GI and a British security worker. One U.S. soldier was also injured. Also, a mass kidnapping of 11 worshippers occurred in the capital. … Continue reading “196 Killed, 45 Injured in Tuesday Iraq Violence”

President Bush has so badly lied himself into a corner that he now needs the bipartisan "Iraq Study Group" – headed by the Bush family’s fix-it man, former Secretary of State James Baker – to tell the American public that things are rapidly going south in Iraq. According to the New York Times, one commission … Continue reading “Partition: The Way Out of Iraq”

North Korea has shocked the world by detonating a nuclear explosion and making good the threat it had held out six days earlier. Pyongyang’s action is one more blow to the existing global nonproliferation order and will trigger greater instability in Northeast Asia and in the Asian continent and world as a whole. Yet, the … Continue reading “Another Blow to Nonproliferation”

In its initial reaction to Monday’s North Korean nuclear test, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush indicated it will seek the strongest possible sanctions against Pyongyang at the UN Security Council but was not considering taking military action on its own, at least for now. At the same time, independent analysts said the … Continue reading “No War, No Talks,
More Pressure”

Moments after hearing about North Korea’s nuclear test, I thought of Albert Einstein’s statement that "there is no secret and there is no defense; there is no possibility of control except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world." During the six decades since Einstein spoke, experience has shown that such … Continue reading “Welcome to the Nuclear Club”

With Ali al-Fadhily BAQUBA – The little-known city of Baquba is emerging as one of the hotbeds of resistance in Iraq, with clashes breaking out every day. The violence in this city 30 mi. northeast of Baghdad is also now spreading elsewhere around Diyala province. "The new waves of terror are now forming a variety … Continue reading “Baquba Erupts”

I‘m still wondering where all the damn outrage is, and I’m not talking about the Foley scandal. On Sept. 29, the Senate voted 100-0 in favor of the pork-swollen Pentagon budget, which earmarked $70 billion for our ongoing military ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. There was no debate over the appropriation, and not one Democrat … Continue reading “Bye-Bye, Civil Liberties”

Updated 10:45 p.m. EDT, Oct. 9, 2006 In Monday and overnight developments in Iraq, the main story is the poisoning of an entire police division. Also, the U.S. military today reported the deaths of three marines on Sunday and the death of one soldier on Monday. At least 74 Iraqis died and 73 others were … Continue reading “Monday: 73 Iraqis, 3 US Marines, US Soldier Killed; 18 Iraqis Kidnapped”