Month: August 2007

To understand what is going on with the $60 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and a number of small Gulf potentates – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the UAE – we have to go back to Seymour Hersh’s last piece in the New Yorker, “The Redirection,” which revealed, among other things, that … Continue reading “The New Turn”

In the months leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, scholars from around the world urged the war planners in Washington to take steps to protect Iraq’s priceless archaeological heritage. But the widespread looting of museums and other cultural sites happened anyway. Now, warnings from minority communities in Iraq are also … Continue reading “Iraq’s Religious Minorities Hit From All Sides”

BAGHDAD – Many Iraqis believe the dramatic escalation in the U.S. military’s use of air power is a sign of defeat for the occupation forces on the ground. U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft dropped five times as many bombs in Iraq during the first six months of this year as over the first half … Continue reading “Iraq a Little Easier to Occupy From the Air”