Month: October 2007

Insisting that the recent transition in Cuba represents "the dying gasps of a failed regime," US President George W. Bush Wednesday vowed to maintain Washington’s nearly 50-year-old trade embargo against Cuba until its government "has adopted in word and deed fundamental freedoms." "America will have no part in giving oxygen to a criminal regime victimizing … Continue reading “Bush Rules Out Any Détente with Cuba”

SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA – Winter came early this year in the Balkans mountains; the first snow of the season has come and gone, leaving the streets of the capital a soggy mess. As late as last week, Sarajevo’s thousands of cafés still had their summer gardens set up, as a spell of warm weather extended into … Continue reading “Sorrow’s Home”

Before the invasion of Iraq, while millions demonstrated in the streets, often waving homemade placards with “No Blood for Oil” – or equivalents like “Don’t Trade Lives for Oil” and like “How Did USA’s Oil Get Under Iraq’s Sand?” – the Bush administration said remarkably little about the vast quantities of petroleum on which Saddam … Continue reading “Endgame for Iraqi Oil?”

A few months back, I wrote back-to-back weekly messages regarding globalism and isolationism. In writing those columns, I focused on the fact that our nation’s interventionist foreign policy was precisely what was isolating us from other countries. Turkey’s recall of their U.S. ambassador in the wake of last week’s resolution, passed in the House Foreign … Continue reading “Interventionism? Isolationism? Actually, Both”

Iraq war veterans now stationed at a base here say that morale among US soldiers in the country is so poor, many are simply parking their Humvees and pretending to be on patrol, a practice dubbed "search and avoid" missions. Phil Aliff is an active duty soldier with the 10th Mountain Division stationed at Fort … Continue reading “Ill-Equipped Soldiers Opt for ‘Search and Avoid’”

Updated at 11:52 p.m. EDT, Oct. 24, 2007At least 46 Iraqis were killed and 61 were wounded in the latest violence. Also, 34 PKK rebels were killed when Turkish forces crossed the border into northern Iraq. Two American servicemembers were killed in separate incidents.During a mine explosion in Salah ad Din province, one MND-North soldier … Continue reading “Wednesday: 2 GIs, 46 Iraqis Killed; 61 Iraqis Wounded; Turks Kill 34 PKK Rebels in Iraq”

Spurred by the deployment of at least 100,000 troops along Turkey’s border with Iraq, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush is pressing its closest clients in Iraqi Kurdistan to crack down hard against the Kurdish Turkish Workers’ Party (PKK), which Washington considers a terrorist organization. Given the administration’s refusal so far to back … Continue reading “Bush Risks Falling Off Turkish-Kurd Tightrope”

We keep hearing about the "liberal," "antiwar" media, which is supposedly spinning the "success" of the administration’s "surge" in Iraq into a defeat. The stab-in-the-back thesis is being run up the flagpole by the neocons, in the hopes that at least some of their base – the most deluded of the Kool-Aid drinkers – will … Continue reading “How Did We Get Here?”

It’s fun sometimes to collect current clichés, which are worn-out uses of the language, such as "at the end of the day." Why can’t we just say at twilight or after the sun sets? Another cliché is "you can run but you can’t hide." Osama bin Laden has disproved that, and indeed there are literally … Continue reading “Killer Clichés”

Updated at 12:23 a.m. EDT, Oct. 24, 2007At least 60 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 42 more were wounded in the latest incidents, and the DOD reported that two American sailors were killed in Bahrain. Meanwhile, the Turkish government rejected the PKK’s offer of a cease-fire; however, diplomatic talks continue. Also, U.S. President … Continue reading “Tuesday: 2 GIs, 60 Iraqis Killed, 42 Wounded”