As many as 20 suspects were arrested today in connection with the murders of 22 Shi’ite men near Nukhaib village in Anbar province on Monday. A large anti-terror unit said to be from neighboring Karbala province traveled secretly to Rutba, which is also in Anbar, to make the arrests.
While the Republicans who are running for president seem to have grasped the truth about the economic abyss that the country is peering into, there continues to be an air of unreality whenever the discussions turn to foreign policy and national security issues. Perhaps it is fortunate that the leading candidates rarely venture into those …
Continue reading “Clueless Republicans Demand More Militarism”
Gen. David Petraeus wrote in his 2006 counterinsurgency manual that the U.S. command headquarters should establish a “narrative” for the counterinsurgency war — a simple storyline that provides a framework for understanding events, both for the population of the country in question and for international audiences. But this week’s Taliban attacks on multiple targets in …
Continue reading “Kabul Attack Continues Taliban Control of War Narrative”
A series of bombings mostly in and around Baghdad left dozens dead or wounded. The most significant of the blasts occurred at a busy restaurant near Hilla. To the north, Iranian artillery attacks continued. One civilian was injured in them. Overall, at least 33 Iraqis were killed and 64 more were wounded in those attacks.
BAGHDAD — When a middle-aged mother took a taxi alone from Baghdad to Nasiriyah, about 200 miles south, earlier this year, her 20-year-old driver stopped on the way, pulled her to the side of the road and raped her. And that began a telling legal struggle. “She is not a simple case,” says Hanaa Edwar, …
Continue reading “Fight for Iraqi Women’s Rights Begins All Over Again”
On the theory that the best defense is a good offense, the Obama cult is going on the attack – launching a special web site, and a twitter feed, attackwatch.com, which is devoted to refuting the “smears” being repeated by the counter-revolutionary wreckers who oppose the Will of the Dear Leader. “President Obama’s opponents have …
Continue reading “Debunking Rachel Maddow”
1. Twin Towers Two years from now the staffs of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker will move into the most haunted building in the world. There, the elite of American celebrity photographers, gossip columnists, and magazine journalists may meet some macabre new muses. Aloft in the upper stories of 1 World Trade Center (where …
Continue reading “Edward Gibbon at America’s Grave”
The 10th anniversary of 9/11 vividly illustrated the continued use of the horrible attacks to score political points. The first promise that Barack Obama made as president was to close the torture-tainted Guantanamo prison. Although this could have been a meaningful step toward abandoning the lawless behavior of the George W. Bush administration, Obama has …
Continue reading “Government Always Seems to Focus on the Wrong Things”
At least 12 Iraqis were killed and 29 more were wounded in new violence. Meanwhile, Turkish delegation is in Iraq, discussing the viability of a cross-border raid against Kurdish rebels.
In the commentary on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the news and infotainment media predictably framed the discussion by the question of how successful the CIA and the military have been in destroying al-Qaeda. Absent from the torrent of opinion and analysis was any mention of how the U.S. military occupation of Muslim lands and …
Continue reading “Ignoring the Deaths of Innocents After 9/11” 
