Month: January 2007

How it is that, having lost an election widely viewed as a referendum on the war, the Bush administration has the temerity to announce a “surge” in American forces engaged in active combat in Iraq? The answer was given by incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Carl Levin (D- Michigan): “‘There are a … Continue reading “Confronting the Empire”

During the same week that former U.S. president Gerald Ford passed away, Iraqi authorities executed Saddam Hussein. As one might expect, official Washington’s reactions to the two events were radically different. President Bush expressed sadness in the wake of Ford’s death, calling the former president a "great man" while Representative Nancy Pelosi voiced respect for … Continue reading “A Single Standard for Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein”

Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan, said a rueful John F. Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs. George W. Bush knows today whereof his predecessor spoke. For as he prepares to “surge” 20,000 more U.S. troops into a war even he concedes we “are not winning,” his erstwhile acolytes have begun … Continue reading “Cakewalk Crowd Abandons Bush”

After six years, the administration’s foreign policy team is a wreck. The president’s poll ratings look good only in comparison to those of the vice president. Both the original defense secretary and deputy defense secretary are gone, discredited by the Iraq debacle. The original secretary of state and deputy secretary of state also have left, … Continue reading “Failure Personified: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice”

Every now and then, you have to take a lesson or two from history. In the case of George Bush’s Iraq, here’s one: No matter what the President announces in his “new way forward” speech on Iraq next week – including belated calls for “sacrifice” from the man whose answer to 9/11 was to urge … Continue reading “The Surge to Nowhere”

Updated at 11:40 p.m. EST, Jan. 4, 2007 Today’s planned execution of two of Saddam Hussein’s colleagues has been postponed indefinitely following criticism over the former leader’s hanging. The 96 Iraqis who were killed or found dead today were not so lucky nor was the American soldier who was gunned down in western Baghdad. Another … Continue reading “Thursday: 96 Iraqis, GI Killed; 78 Iraqis, 5 GIs Wounded”

With the New Year, the Democrats have now taken over the Congress. In the last election the public turned against the mismanagement of the war in Iraq and against the war itself, leading the voters to throw out the Republicans. To respond to the voters, the politicians must rein in the war and bring it … Continue reading “The Democrats’ Agenda”

On New Year’s Eve, the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq passed 3,000. By Tuesday, the death toll had reached 3,004 – 31 more than died in the Sep. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But the number of injured has far outstripped the dead, with the Veterans Administration reporting … Continue reading “Iraq Vets Come Home Physically, Mentally Butchered”

The Trap of Recognizing Israel Jonathan Cook denies the right of the Jewish people to political self-determination and independence. He writes nothing against the right of any other nation-state in the world to exist, just the Jewish one. That is as racist as it can be. Just to remind him, when the UN voted to … Continue reading “Backtalk, January 4, 2007”

An Iraqi friend whom I’ve known for 10 years looked worn and very weary yesterday when he came to visit me at my apartment in Amman, Jordan. He hadn’t slept the night before because he’d been on the phone with his wife, who throughout the night was terrified by crossfire taking place over the Iraqi … Continue reading “A Death Threat Wrapped Around a Bullet”