They can’t help themselves. Really, they can’t. Like children, the most monstrous of secret police outfits evidently come to believe themselves immortal. They lose all ability to imagine that they might ever go down and so keep records to the very moment of their collapse. Those records, so copious, damning, and unbearably detailed (which doesn’t …
Continue reading “Mummies and Models in the New Middle East”
The idea that there is a nation called “Libya” is the central problem with our understanding of what is going on in that fake “country,” the flaw in our projections of what will or ought to happen. The country known today as Libya has only existed since the end of World War II, and was …
Continue reading “‘Libya’ Does Not Exist”
At least eight Iraqis were killed and 17 more were wounded in new violence and a prison riot. A riot at a prison in Tikrit left two inmates dead and 14 people wounded, including seven policemen. Apparently, the prison was damaged to the point that remaining prisoner had to be transferred elsewhere. Also, the city …
Continue reading “Sunday: 8 Iraqis Killed, 17 Wounded”
At least nine Iraqis were killed and six more were wounded in only three reported attacks. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government has asked tribal leaders to discourage ongoing protests — which seem to be having an effect on some politicians. Lawmakers tentatively agreed to halve their salaries, but not their benefits, to appease protestors who continue …
Continue reading “Saturday: 9 Iraqis Killed, 6 Wounded”
Marko Markanovic on the morality of an NFZ
Dan Ellsberg is outraged, Obama is clueless
Japanese professional baseball teams have kicked off their spring exhibition games. In February I attended a match between the Yomiuri Giants and Hiroshima Carp in southern Miyazaki Prefecture. For a sport so central to the collective identities of both Americans and the Japanese, the game I attended reminded me of how different our two cultures …
Continue reading “Japan’s Culture of Peace: Reflections on Constitutional Antimilitarism”
Despite an ongoing dialogue between U.S. officials, human rights groups and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh regarding concerns over the use of lethal force to quell anti- government protests throughout the Persian Gulf state, the death toll continues to rise in Yemen’s port city of Aden and in other locations. "Shooting into crowds is no …
Continue reading “Death Toll Rising at Peaceful Yemen Protests”
At least one Iraqi was killed and 29 others were wounded in new violence and one previous attack. Iraq also saw protests again today as demonstrators filtered out of mosques and onto the streets.
As the tide of battle appeared to shift for the first time Thursday in favor of forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, the United States and its European allies moved closer toward intervening – if not yet militarily – on the side of the insurgency. In testimony before Congress, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton …
Continue reading “US Edges Towards Libyan Rebel Recognition” 
