Month: February 2009

JERUSALEM – Israel’s outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert is risking a crisis of confidence with Egypt by insisting that a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas precede any Egyptian-mediated ceasefire arrangement to end the Gaza war. Olmert overrode the objections of his outgoing defence minister Ehud Barak when his security cabinet declared emphatically on Wednesday … Continue reading “Hamas Offered a Bullet to Bite”

BAGHDAD – "We only want a normal life," says Um Qasim, sitting in a bombed out building in Baghdad. She and others around have been saying that for years. Um Qasim lives with 13 family members in a brick shanty on the edge of a former military intelligence building in the Mansoor district of Baghdad. … Continue reading “Still Homeless in Baghdad”

*with Khushal Arsala One of the first difficult foreign policy decisions of the Obama administration will be what the United States should do about Afghanistan. Escalating the war, as National Security Advisor Jim Jones has been encouraging, will likely make matters worse. At the same time, simply abandoning the country – as the United States … Continue reading “The US and Afghan Tragedy”

Joan Walsh, the Salon.com political editor who appears often on MSNBC with Chris Matthews, is emblematic, for me, of a type I know all too well: the well-meaning Bay Area liberal. Her politics exemplify the psychology of our opinion elites who got behind Barack Obama in a big way. Exuding reasonableness from every pore, she … Continue reading “The Joan Walsh Syndrome “

First, the good news. Adel Abdul Hakim, one of five Uighurs (Muslims from China’s oppressed Xinjiang province), who was released from Guantánamo in May 2006, has had his asylum claim accepted by the Swedish government. The Uighurs’ story It has been a long journey for Adel. Seized in Pakistan and sold to U.S. forces in … Continue reading “Bad News and Good News for the Guantánamo Uighurs”

The name search took a year, while the company became persona non grata in Iraq, but now it’s a reality. The notorious Blackwater Worldwide has officially rebranded itself Xe. According to a company memo, "Xe will be a one-stop shopping source for world class services in the fields of security, stability, aviation, training and logistics." … Continue reading “The Military’s Expanding Waistline”

Updated at 7:12 p.m. EST, Feb. 19, 2009At least 20 Iraqis were killed and 31 more were wounded in renewed violence across the country. No Coalition deaths were reported, but a U.S. soldier confessed to the “execution style” killing of an Iraqi detainee in his care. Meanwhile, the mayor of Mosul said that recent peaceful … Continue reading “Thursday: 20 Iraqis Killed, 31 Wounded”

Praise by the U.S. State Department for Sunday’s referendum in Venezuela suggests that President Barack Obama is hoping to ease long-strained relations with President Hugo Chávez, according to regional experts here. While State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid Tuesday noted that Washington had received "troubling reports of intimidation," he added that, "for the most part, this … Continue reading “Washington’s Praise of Venezuelan Vote Suggests Détente”

U.S. President Barack Obama announced Tuesday that he is sending two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan, marking the start of what many believe will be an escalation that will ultimately see the U.S. forces there double. There are some 36,000 U.S. troops already in Afghanistan, and the additional 17,000 alone represent a nearly 50 percent … Continue reading “Afghan Civilian Casualties May Surge as Well”

This week, the self-proclaimed state of Kosovo celebrated the anniversary of the Albanian provisional government declaring “independence” from Serbia. On February 17, 2008, following two years of sham negotiations and diplomatic farce, the institutions ostensibly established by the UN occupation authorities in 2001 as “self-government” decided to unilaterally implement the so-called Ahtisaari plan, a proposal … Continue reading “A Year After”