Month: July 2008

Updated at 7:00 p.m. EDT, July 3, 2008At least 31 Iraqis were killed and 24 more were wounded in the latest round of violence, which included a fresh mass grave in Samarra. Another mass grave, this one containing 33 victims from a 1991 uprising, was found in Khanaqin. No Coalition deaths were reported. A mass … Continue reading “Thursday: 31 Iraqis Killed, 24 Wounded”

Six and a half years since the ouster of the Taliban, U.S. media attention is returning to Afghanistan, where more U.S. and NATO troops were killed in June than in any previous month. Indeed, as noted by both the New York Times and the Washington Post Wednesday, June was the second month in a row … Continue reading “Afghanistan Moves Back into the Limelight”

Statement on House Congressional Resolution 362 before the US House of Representatives, June 28, 2008 Today the Dow Jones Average was down 350-some points, gold was up $32, and oil was up another $5. There is a lot of chaos out there and everyone is worried about $4 gasoline. But I don’t think there is … Continue reading “Congress’s ‘Virtual Iran War Resolution’”

Palestinian activist and former university professor Sami Al-Arian was arraigned Monday in US federal court on two counts of criminal contempt for his refusal to testify in a grand jury investigation of a Northern Virginia Muslim think-tank. The indictment is the latest episode of a long, Kafka-esque process that has violated nearly every tenet of … Continue reading “Critics See Vendetta in Al-Arian’s Legal Limbo”

A senior Iranian official reportedly told members of the Iranian parliament Monday that Iran has agreed to freeze its enrichment program for six weeks and begin negotiations with the P5+1 group of states as early as next week, according to reports of that decision by the Iranian Student News Agency (ISNA) and by a Farsi-language … Continue reading “Official Says Iran Accepts P5+1 Talks Proposal”

This is a forward to the book Flirting with Disaster: Why Accidents Are Rarely Accidental by Marc S. Gerstein. I have participated in several major organizational catastrophes. The most well known of them is the Vietnam War. I was aware on my first visit to Vietnam in 1961 that the situation there – a failing … Continue reading “Learning from Past Disasters, Preventing Future Ones”

Lies about Kosovo are nothing new. For almost two decades now, there’s hardly been any truth in reports that have reached the Western public concerning this southern province of Serbia now posing as an independent state. The 1988 constitutional reforms designed to rein in Albanian separatism were presented as "stripping Kosovo of autonomy." The 1989 … Continue reading “Being Walter Duranty”

Pat Buchanan’s new book, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, is causing a stir, which is a good thing. Buchanan argues that both World War I and World War II were unnecessary wars; that Britain bears at least as much responsibility for both as … Continue reading “The Necessary War?”

Updated at 6:15 p.m. EDT, July 2, 2008Iraq quieted down significantly a day after a series of deadly bombings left dozens of casualties. At least 11 people were killed and 33 more were wounded in the latest attacks. No Coalition deaths were reported. Meanwhile, Sadrists complained loudly as three prominent members of their group were … Continue reading “Wednesday:11 Iraqis Killed, 33 Wounded”

NEW DELHI – India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has plunged his Congress Party and the country’s ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government into a grave crisis by staking his personal reputation on pushing through a U.S.-India civilian nuclear cooperation deal. In the balance is not only the survival of the government, but also the ability … Continue reading “India’s Singh Pushes for Nuclear Deal”