Month: March 2008

The global human rights panorama offered a decidedly mixed – if not mostly negative – picture in 2007, according to the latest edition of the State Department’s annual human rights Country Reports released Tuesday. Its 19-page introduction, the most closely read part of the reports, appeared to mute criticism of China compared to the editions … Continue reading “US State Dept. Found Little to Cheer in 2007”

“If, in the dying light of the Bush administration, we go to war with Iran,” says the March Esquire, “it’ll all come down to one man. If we do not go to war with Iran, it’ll come down to the same man.” The piece describes this top military figure as the last obstacle to the … Continue reading “‘Fox’ Fallon Fired”

[Excerpt from the new book by Greg Mitchell, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits – and the President – Failed on Iraq (Union Square Press).] On March 6, 2003, less than two weeks before he ordered the country to war, President Bush conducted a televised press conference, stating in his intro, … Continue reading “Questions We Wish They’d Asked Five Years Ago”

At a recent book party for Winslow Wheeler’s new history of the military reform movement of the 1970s and 1980s, I was asked for my views on the prospects for genuine reform. I replied that “So long as the money flow continues, nothing will change.” Chuck Spinney, a reformer who spent decades as a polyp … Continue reading “When the Money Stops,
Military Reform May Start”

Updated at 11:38 a.m. EDT, Mar. 12, 2008At least 80 Iraqis were killed or found dead and another 123 were wounded in the latest reports. Also, a bombing in Mahmudiya left an unknown number of casualties. No Coalition deaths were reported. Twenty of the victims were found badly decomposed in a mass grave near Samarra. … Continue reading “Tuesday: 80 Iraqis Killed, 123 Wounded”

Media critics, foreign policy experts, and human rights advocates are charging that questions asked by the moderators of the televised debates among U.S. presidential hopefuls have frequently been trivial and designed to produce conflict to boost ratings, while ignoring many of the most pressing issues facing the United States. Danny Schechter, editor of MediaChannel.org, a … Continue reading “We Don’t Do Torture – Especially in Debates”

BAQUBA – Iraq’s children have been more gravely affected by the U.S. occupation than any other segment of the population. The United Nations estimated that half a million Iraqi children died during more than 12 years of economic sanctions that preceded the U.S. invasion of March 2003, primarily as a result of malnutrition and disease. … Continue reading “In Iraq, Childhood Is a Thing of the Past”

Public support for stronger measures, including possible military strikes, to curb or destroy Iran’s nuclear program has declined significantly in most countries around the world compared to 18 months ago, according to a new survey of public opinion [.pdf] released Tuesday by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). In only three of 21 nations – Turkey, … Continue reading “Int’l Support Ebbs for West’s Nuclear Hard Line”

[Foreword to the book So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits – and the President – Failed on Iraq by Greg Mitchell (Union Square Press, March 2008).] In war truth is too often the first casualty, and it is not just a president or a secretary of defense or assorted official spokesmen … Continue reading “The First Casualty”

I was reminded this week of the old tale about a Jewish mother taking leave of her son, who has been called up to serve in the czar’s army against the Turks. "Don’t exert yourself too much," she admonishes him, "Kill a Turk and rest. Kill another Turk and rest again…" "But mother," he exclaims, … Continue reading “‘Kill a Hundred Turks and Rest…’”