Month: June 2007

Looking idly at the front page of last Wednesday’s Washington Post Express as I rode the Metro to work, I received a shock. It showed a railroad station in Iraq, recently destroyed by an American air strike. So now we are bombing the railroad stations in a country we occupy? What comes next, bombing Iraq’s … Continue reading “US Military Riding the
Perfect (Sine) Wave”

An 11-Quote Quiz on the Bush Administration’s War of Words From “mission accomplished” through those endless “turning points” and “tipping points” up to the “brink” of “the abyss” and “the precipice,” and back again, American officials, military and civilian, in Baghdad and Washington, have never spared the images or the analogies. (Do you remember when … Continue reading “Fighting Words”

BELGRADE – Weapons from the Balkans wars of the 1990s are beginning to arm conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, well-placed officials have revealed. A vital element of the Dayton Peace Agreements that ended the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995 was the destruction of huge caches of heavy weapons, artillery, small arms, and ammunition. The 39,000-strong … Continue reading “Bosnia Linking Arms With Iraq”

U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s call for cross-border raids into Iran appears to be the culmination of a two-week long campaign by proponents of war to put the military option center-stage in the U.S. debate over Iran once more. The immediate effect of re-igniting the let’s-bomb-Iran discussions is the undercutting of the recently initiated U.S.-Iran talks … Continue reading “Neocons Hope Bluster Will Undercut Iran Talks”

Sometimes it really is déjà vu all over again. Those who have hoped for a peaceful resolution of the outstanding issues between the United States and Iran must have been discouraged to watch the June 5 Republican presidential candidates’ debate. With the honorable exception of Ron Paul, the Republicans lined up firmly in support of … Continue reading “Accusations Pave Way for Assault on Iran”

Updated at 1:10 a.m. EDT, June 13, 2007At least 72 Iraqis were reported killed or found dead and another 58 Iraqis were wounded, not including dozens of newly reported casualties stemming from a weekend incident in Camp Bucca. Also, bombers destroyed a bridge on a Baghdad highway. In good news, the government in Ankara is … Continue reading “Tuesday: 72 Iraqis Killed, 58 Wounded”

Friday’s announcement that Gen. Peter Pace will not be nominated for a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. armed forces marks the latest in a series of moves by Pentagon chief Robert Gates to transform the leadership of the Pentagon and consign his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, to distant … Continue reading “Gates Overhauls Rumsfeld’s Pentagon”

The Iraq War has made refugees of millions of Iraqis. They have been ethnically cleansed or displaced to other locations both inside the country, to neighboring countries, and overseas. Yet the Bush administration, the creator of the chaos and mayhem in Iraq, has done little to help them. According to NBC News, since April 2003, … Continue reading “Bush Should Take Responsibility for Iraqi Refugees”

The Bush/Cheney White House, which told the American people in 2003 that the Iraqi invasion would be a three-to-six-week affair, now tells us that the U.S. occupation is permanent. Forever. Attentive Americans, of which, alas, there are so few, had already concluded that the occupation was permanent. Permanence is the obvious message from the massive … Continue reading “The Neocon Threat to World Peace and American Freedom”

Ten days before the vote in the U.S. Senate to authorize a preemptive war against Iraq, a 90-page classified version of the National Intelligence Estimate, containing numerous qualifications and dissents on Iraq’s weapons capabilities, was made available to all 100 senators. It was the most comprehensive analysis by America’s intelligence agencies. Only six of the … Continue reading “Scowcroft Vindicated, Congress and White House Shamed”