Month: November 2006

Updated at 12:40 p.m. EST, Nov. 5, 2006 Today, the U.S-backed Iraqi High Tribunal sentenced Saddam Hussein to death. Pending appeals, his half-brother and another senior official will be executed as well. Several other officials received prison sentences or were acquitted. Military authorities also reported the deaths of another U.S. servicemember on Saturday. Protestations and … Continue reading “Sunday: 89 Iraqis, 3 GIs Killed; 71 Iraqis wounded; Saddam Sentenced To Death”

Updated at 10:40 p.m. EST, Nov. 4, 2006 Security forces in Iraq are on high alert awaiting the Sunday outcome of Saddam Hussein’s trial. Hoping to curb any violence the expected guilty verdict might incite, authorities have also ordered a special curfew in Baghdad and other parts of the country. However, these measures did not … Continue reading “Saturday: 102 Iraqis Killed, 65 Injured”

Spencer Ackerman, associate editor of the magazine, has written a remarkable piece for the New Republic, most of whose editors and writers, it is worth remembering, were generally favorable to the war in Iraq during the run-up and through most of the first two years. He sees the administration and many war supporters among conservatives … Continue reading “Missing the Fundamentals”

NEW DELHI – By announcing that it would return to the negotiation table and address the major powers’ concerns about its nuclear program, North Korea may have scored an unlikely but impressive diplomatic victory. Pyongyang’s move has put on the mat top officials of the United States and its East Asian allies, Japan and South … Continue reading “North Korea Wins Nuclear Poker Round”

One of the more interesting revelations elicited by Seymour Hersh from Scott Ritter during their public discussion last month, sponsored by the New York Society for Ethical Culture, about the Bush-Cheney administration’s not-so-secret plans to effect regime change in Iran, was the extent to which Ritter has been – and apparently still is – intimately … Continue reading “Who’s Targeting Iran – and Why?”

Updated 9:00 p.m EST, Nov. 3, 2006 Authorities in Baghdad reported the discovery of 87 bodies scattered throughout the capital over a 36-hour period. This brings the tally to 132 Iraqis killed and 14 wounded. In prominent deaths, the gunshot-riddled body of journalist Abdul Majeed Ismael Khalil was discovered in Baghdad; he was abducted last … Continue reading “Friday: 132 Iraqis Killed, 14 Wounded”

You have to give the neoconservatives credit for tenacity. Any other political or ideological group saddled with their record would crawl off into the shadows to expire without fanfare. Not the neocons. Vampire-like, they rise from the crypt of Bush’s "global democratic revolution," fangs extended and hungry for fresh blood. There isn’t enough garlic in … Continue reading “The Neocons, Undaunted”

The evil nature of our enemies has, it turns out, certain advantages – at least when secret imprisonment and torture are at stake. The Bush administration has proved adamantly unwilling to talk to, or deal with, the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, except when it came to parking terror suspects we wanted tortured on … Continue reading “Prison Planet”

As writers note, the Suez Canal crisis 50 years ago marked the last hurrah of the British Empire. Significantly, it also spelled the demise of the pound sterling. When it broke away from the gold standard in 1931, the pound was the reserve currency throughout half the world. After Britain’s failed attempt to prevent Egypt’s … Continue reading “When Sterling Bowed
to the Dollar”

In its original German form – Liebermann – the name means “lovable man.” It is hard to imagine a name less appropriate for the new deputy prime minister of Israel. He is not lovable, neither in his personality nor in his views – and that is the understatement of the year. His personal lovability can … Continue reading “The Lovable Man?”