The largely partisan debate over what really happened in Benghazi has centered around the public pronouncements of UN Ambassador Susan Rice, whose comments on the Sunday talk show circuit attributed the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others to a riot precipitated by the “Innocence of Muslims” video. With indications the administration may be …
Continue reading “Susan Rice Is Bad News”
News stories on the latest International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report suggested new reasons to fear that Iran is closer to a “breakout” capability than ever before, citing a nearly 50% increase in its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium and the installation of hundreds of additional centrifuges at the Fordow enrichment installation. But the supposedly …
Continue reading “News Media Misled by IAEA Data on Sensitive Iranian Stockpile”
History, it is said, arrives first as tragedy, then as farce. First as Karl Marx, then as the Marx Brothers. In the case of twenty-first century America, history arrived first as George W. Bush (and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith and the Project for a New America — a …
Continue reading “The Fall of the American Empire (Writ Small)”
What do Israel’s assault on Gaza and the American War of 1812 have in common? Much more than meets the eye. The stated purpose of the Israeli assassination of Hamas’s military leader, which provoked the conflict in Gaza, was to impede the group’s rocket firings on southern Israel. Yet the rocket fire has been going …
Continue reading “How Israel’s Assault on Gaza Is Like the War of 1812”
Tensions following a firefight in disputed Tuz Khormato continued to rise as the central government sent more troops into the region. Meanwhile, at least three people were killed and 26 more were wounded in fresh violence.
HAIFA, NORTHERN ISRAEL — Dozens of Israeli tanks slowly made their way south on the back of flatbed trucks along Israel’s Road 6 highway Sunday. Emblazoned with Stars of David and Hebrew letters and carrying frayed Israeli flags, the movement of these tanks has left many believing that Israel will soon launch a large-scale ground …
Continue reading “Attacks on Gaza Unite Palestinians”
At least three Iraqi security personnel were killed and seven more were wounded in attacks. Tikrit was the scene of numerous bombings and mortar strikes, but no fatalities were reported. Also, insurgents targeted a mosque containing the remains of Saddam’s father.
The Israeli assault on Gaza was triggered Nov. 8 when the IDF crossed the border and murdered Ahmed Younis Khader Abu Daqqa, a 13-year-old boy playing football in his front yard: the official explanation for this action was an alleged weapons cache, supposedly stored nearby, but no credible evidence supporting this contention has come to …
Continue reading “Why Gaza?”
A short interview broadcast by CNN late last week featuring two participants — a Palestinian in Gaza and an Israeli within range of the rocket attacks — did not follow the usual script. For once, a media outlet dropped its role as gatekeeper, there to mediate and therefore impair our understanding of what is taking …
Continue reading “The Four Guilty Parties Behind Israel’s Attack”
How did it start? Stupid question. Conflagrations along the Gaza Strip don’t start. They are just a continuous chain of events, each claimed to be in “retaliation” for the previous one. Action is followed by reaction, which is followed by retaliation, which is followed by… This particular event “started” with the firing from Gaza of …
Continue reading “Another Superfluous War” 
