A significant bomb attack rocked Baghdad for the second day in a row. At least 23 Iraqis were killed and 85 more were wounded there and elsewhere. Stunning testimony continues to seep out of the Iraq Inquiry as well. Also, corruption at Iraqi jails has reached dangerous levels.
Kelley Vlahos on quickie trips to Afghanistan
The business is registered in the name of Binyamin Netanyahu. But the reality is different. Netanyahu has never been more than a slick patent-medicine salesman. That is a type that appears frequently in American Westerns and sells an elixir that is good for everything: against the flu and against tuberculosis, against heart attacks and against …
Continue reading “The Liebarak”
Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, approved last week the upgrading to university status of a college in a settlement located deep inside the West Bank, a move certain to further undermine Palestinian confidence in the peace process. The decision, authorizing the first Israeli university in Palestinian territory, is expected to entitle the college to significant …
Continue reading “Israel Creates First ‘Army-Owned’ University”
In the absence of an intact corpse, families often gather for memorial services rather than funerals. The families of Salah Ahmed al-Salami, Mani Shaman al-Utaybi, and Yasser Talal al-Zahrani – three Guantánamo prisoners whose earlier purported suicides were declared "asymmetrical warfare" by the Bush Justice Department – received Salah’s, Mani’s, and Yasser’s broken and lifeless …
Continue reading “Remembering ‘Suicides’ in the Rotunda”
Jeff Huber on the Pentagon’s public affairs zombies
Updated at 8:34 p.m. EST, Jan. 25, 2010
Chemical Ali was executed for genocide and crimes against humanity today. In Baghdad, three suicide bombs that exploded shortly before news became public could have been in retaliation for the execution. Not including Chemical Ali, at least 50 Iraqis were killed there and elsewhere. Another 104 Iraqis were wounded. Meanwhile, a controversial bomb detector will be kept in service, and a number of Iraqi candidates accused of ties to the Ba’ath Party will be allowed to run in March elections.
The most recent audio missive from Osama bin Laden, claiming responsibility for the attempted Christmas bombing of Northwest Airlines flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, rationalizes Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab’s act in the name of the suffering of the people of Gaza: "America will never dream of living in peace unless we live it in …
Continue reading “Israel and Islamic Terrorism”
There’s something viral about the wondrous new weaponry an industrial war system churns out. In World War I, for instance, when that system was first gearing up to plan and produce new weapons by the generation, such creations – poison gas, the early airplane, the tank – barely hit the battlefield before the enemy had …
Continue reading “The Forty-Year Drone War”
At least 19 Iraqis were killed and nine more were wounded in the latest attacks. The casualty figures include eight victims found in a mass grave. Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has ordered a probe into the purchase of ADE 651 bomb detectors from a British company.
