Baghdad was again the target of a massive, coordinated bomb attack just a couple days after a similar attack struck the capital’s foreign embassies. This attack was more personal as it focused on apartment buildings across the city. Overall, at least 39 Iraqis were killed and 149 more were wounded across the country.
To amend a line made immortal by Walt Kelly, creator of the comic strip Pogo, we have met the evildoers and they are us. It would be nice to think that we managed to change the vector of American foreign policy with the 2008 elections, but the New American Century is still afloat and running …
Continue reading “McCrackers”
Strobe Talbott once called Richard Holbrooke the "diplomatic equivalent of a hydrogen bomb." Oh, the many ways we could interpret that today. When Talbott, Bill Clinton’s deputy secretary of state and a friend of Holbrooke, made that comment to the New York Times in February 2009, Holbrooke was riding a wave of fairly breathless publicity …
Continue reading “Richard Holbrooke: Bulldozer Stuck in the Mud”
The efforts of the Barack Obama administration to maintain the secrecy of the counterterrorism policies of its predecessor, the administration of former President George W. Bush, hit a major speed bump last week. On March 31, a federal judge ruled that the National Security Agency violated a 1978 federal statute requiring court approval for domestic …
Continue reading “Judge Rebukes Bush-Era Spying Program”
Updated at 8:48 p.m. EST, April, 5, 2010
A day after one of the deadliest attacks of the year took place in Baghdad, there was a lull in new violence. Overall, at least 11 Iraqis were killed and 11 more were wounded across the country. Also, a U.S. soldier was killed in a non-combat incident in Baghdad.
Every government lives in fear of its own citizens. The fear waxes and wanes, as the tides of public opinion and economic ups and downs crest and wash over the political landscape. In good times, the fear is somewhat subtle: discontent, albeit ever-present, is masked by prosperity and contained; in bad times, the fear overflows …
Continue reading “Rachel Maddow, McCarthyite”
"Hold me back!" is a part of Israeli folklore. It reminds us of our childhood. When a boy has a scuffle with a bigger and stronger boy, he pretends that he is going to attack him any moment and shouts to the spectators: "Hold me back, or I am going to kill him!" Israel is …
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Updated at 5:59 p.m. EST, April, 4, 2010
The worst attack so far this year took place in Baghdad leaving hundreds dead or wounded. At least 55 Iraqis were killed and 320 more were wounded there and across the country. Some of the casualties from the Baghdad blasts may have been foreign personnel, but reports suggests otherwise. Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari was quick to tentatively blame al-Qaeda. Meanwhile, casualty figures climbed in March due to the national elections, but if attacks continue, April figures could be even higher.
Updated at 10:07 p.m. EST, April 3, 2010
A gruesome massacre that left at least two dozen Sunnis dead in an area just south of Baghdad has recharged concerns that a new period of sectarian bloodshed is at hand. Overall, at least 31 Iraqis were killed and 18 more were wounded across the country, mostly in what used to be called the Triangle of Death.
RAMALLAH – An Israeli journalist remains under house arrest and another lives abroad after they broke news on Israeli undercover units carrying out assassinations or "targeted killings" of non-combatant Palestinian political opponents. Anat Kam, 23, who used to work for the Israeli news site Walla, was arrested last December for allegedly copying secret Israeli Defense …
Continue reading “Israel Gags News on Extrajudicial Killings” 
