Updated at 8:37 p.m. EDT, Apr. 8, 2008As U.S. officials briefed Congress on Iraq withdrawal plans, Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr warned that his Mahdi army will end their unilaterally imposed ceasefire and called off a peaceful demonstration scheduled for tomorrow,...
Shia Battles Spread to Baquba
BAQUBA - Battles between rival Shia groups have spread from Basra in the south to Baquba in the north. Clashes between the Mahdi Army of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the Badr Organization militia of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) have been reported in the...
Survey: Iranian Public Sees Reduced US Threat
While still distrustful of U.S. intentions, the Iranian public believes that the threat posed by Washington has diminished over the past year and favors increased exchanges between the two countries, including direct talks on stabilizing Iraq and other issues,...
That Other Military Draft
"There sure as hell is a draft going on," the passenger sitting next to me said grudgingly as the flight attendant handed him a ginger ale on our way into Los Angeles last week. "I signed up to be in the Navy, not the damn Army." It will be his...
Ahmadinejad Faces Stormy New Parliament
TEHRAN - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can expect considerable opposition in the newly elected parliament – set to be installed on May 27 – that has a considerable number of representatives from rival hard-liners, conservatives, and a stronger reformist...
Iraq Still a Quagmire,
Say Experts
Despite a reduction in violence over the past 15 months, "the U.S. risks getting bogged down in Iraq for a long time to come, with serious consequences for its interests in other parts of the world," according to a new assessment by the same group of experts who...
The Emerging Surveillance State
Last month, the House amended the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to expand the government's ability to monitor our private communications. This measure, if it becomes law, will result in more warrantless government surveillance of innocent American...
Petraeus Testimony to Defend False ‘Proxy War’ Line
A key objective of the congressional testimony by Gen. David Petraeus this week will be to defend the George W. Bush administration's strategic political line that it is fighting an Iranian "proxy war" in Iraq. Based on preliminary indications of his spin on...
Obama Meets The Lobby
The considerable buzz in conservative circles about Barack Obama, best exemplified by Andrew Bacevich's article "The Case for Obama" in The American Conservative, has largely focused on his potential as the only candidate who might actually end the war in...
Backtalk, April 8, 2008
Was WWII Really 'The Good War'? Pat Buchanan says: "[T]he destruction of the Jews of Europe was a consequence of this war, not a cause." Perhaps it was not a "cause" of the war, but neither was it a consequence. The murder of the Jews was uppermost in the minds of the...