Month: April 2008

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, citing fears of more attacks. Meanwhile, General Petreus has advised postponing the U.S. drawdown in … Continue reading “Tuesday: 1 US Soldier, 52 Iraqis Killed; 190 Iraqis Wounded”

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 predominantly Shia district of Hwaider in Baquba, the capital … Continue reading “Shia Battles Spread to Baquba”

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, according to a major new survey [.pdf] released here Monday by WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO). The poll, which … Continue reading “Survey: Iranian Public Sees Reduced US Threat”

"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 third deployment to Iraq in … Continue reading “That Other Military Draft”

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 minority. Hard-liners and conservatives critical of Ahmadinejad’s economic and foreign policies are likely to unite with the … Continue reading “Ahmadinejad Faces Stormy New Parliament”

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 advised the bipartisan blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group … Continue reading “Iraq Still a Quagmire,
Say Experts”

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 citizens. Though some opponents claimed that the only controversial part of this legislation was its grant of … Continue reading “The Emerging Surveillance State”

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 the surprisingly effective armed resistance to the joint U.S.-Iraqi Operation Knights Assault … Continue reading “Petraeus Testimony to Defend False ‘Proxy War’ Line”

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 Iraq. Maybe he would or maybe he wouldn’t, but it is dead certain that neither … Continue reading “Obama Meets The Lobby”

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 Nazis from the … Continue reading “Backtalk, April 8, 2008”