TRIPOLI – "The war is over and Gadhafi already buried. What else could we possibly ask for?" says Adnan Abdulrafiq at his busy street restaurant in Omar Mukhtar street in downtown Tripoli. But troubles may not have ended with the war. Abdulrafiq’s restaurant is just 50 meters from Martyrs square, the capital’s main gathering point. …
Continue reading “After Gadhafi, Unease Rules”
At least nine Iraqis were killed and two more were wounded in just three reported attacks, none of them in Baghdad. Over 100 were killed or injured in a spate of attacks in the capital just yesterday.
Justin Raimondo: Friday farrago and fanfaronade
The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse edited by Marjorie Cohn (New York University Press: 2011), 342 pages. When I was a child in Reagan’s America, a common theme in Cold War rhetoric was that the Soviets tortured people and detained them without cause, extracted phony confessions through cruel violence, did the unspeakable to …
Continue reading “Understanding the US Torture State”
Updated at 5:09 p.m. EDT, Oct. 28, 2010
As one northern province complained of Baghdad’s overeach by symbolically declaring its autonomy, insurgents used deadlier means to send a signal to the Iraqi government. At least 46 Iraqis were killed and 106 more were wounded in attacks that occurred mostly in the capital.
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” – Thomas Jefferson As a history teacher, I spend a great deal of time with the Founding Fathers, and, as an American citizen, I was raised to see them, their ideas, and the heritage handed down from them as …
Continue reading “Madison and Jefferson Were UnPATRIOTic”
Over two years ago, President Barack Obama, who had campaigned declaring that Iraq was an unnecessary war, doubled down on the war that he declared to be a vital interest, Afghanistan. Today, the United States is departing Iraq and Obama is acting like it is his decision to go, but it is only because the …
Continue reading “Obama Declares Victory, but Will It Win Votes?”
A triple bombing in Mosul may have left the most casualties today, but a bombing in Hilla is the most significant. The second attack targeted a man working for Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s top cleric and possibly the most powerful man in Iraq. Overall, at least 16 Iraqis were killed and 36 more were wounded across the country. Also, three Iranian pilgrims were wounded in an attack in Diyala province.
WASHINGTON/KABUL — A July United Nations report asserting that only 30 civilians died in targeted raids in Afghanistan during the first six months of 2011 reflected only a very small fraction of night raids in which civilians were killed, according to officials of the independent Afghan commission that co-produced the 2010 report on civilian casualties …
Continue reading “UN Tally Excluded Most Afghan Civilian Deaths in Night Raids”
The Iraqi government, sensitive to its public’s perception that occupying U.S. forces have run roughshod over the indigenous population, refused to give immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law for any future lawbreaking by the occupier’s soldiers. The United States had made this rather imperial demand and refused to keep troops in Iraq unless it was …
Continue reading “American Arrogance Accidentally Leads to Good Outcome” 
