Antiwar.com

A year ago, the President of the United States harkened back to his days as an aviator for the Texas Air National Guard to deliver a dramatic, made-for-television speech. Eager to experience the thrill of a carrier landing, the President donned a flight suit, strapped into a jet, and rocketed off into the wild blue … Continue reading “Mission Not Accomplished”

John Negroponte, the Bush administration’s nominee to become Washington’s first ambassador to Iraq since last year’s invasion, was talking about how much “sovereignty” the country’s new government will enjoy after Jun. 30, when U.S. military forces will remain in control of security. “When it comes to issues like (the siege of) Fallujah,” said Negroponte, currently … Continue reading “Congress Ignores ‘Dirty War’ Past of New Iraq Envoy”

As the U.S. military continues to clash with Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army in the holy city Najaf, the mid-day call to prayer sounds in the poor, Shia neighborhood Showle in Baghdad. A group of residents crowd around a cigarette stand to explain to the US army reporter what happened when the Army came … Continue reading “Iraq: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People”

The tiny Martha’s Vineyard hamlet of Tisbury, Massachusetts, this week became the 300th local or state government to denounce the USA Patriot Act, even as President George W. Bush was campaigning for Congress to make the Act permanent before its expiration next year. Tinsbury’s voters Tuesday joined New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago – the … Continue reading “300 Local Governments Slam PATRIOT Act”

Even though I still think it could be a turning point, and one that just might lead to a relatively large-scale rethinking of what we might term the imperial imperative, I’m reluctant to write about Fallujah just now because I really have little or no idea what’s going on there. It’s not that I haven’t … Continue reading “How Wars Subvert Freedom”

The Abu Ghraib prison was a symbol of Saddam’s horrific tyranny: electrodes hanging out of the walls, floors stained with the blood of god-knows-how-many victims, bodies dangling from meat-hooks, like in some cheap Grade-B horror flick. So when the Americans came and “liberated” the place, the long-suffering Iraqi people were supposed to be grateful. After … Continue reading “Depravity as ‘Liberation’”

One year after President George W Bush declared an end to “major hostilities” in Iraq, public opinion there and in the United States is beginning to converge, as people in both countries increasingly agree that the US invasion and occupation might not have been such a good idea after all. That is one conclusion of … Continue reading “US, Iraqi Views of Occupation Converging”

As violence continues to escalate in Iraq, killing dozens of soldiers and hundreds of civilians, the United Nations remains ambivalent about its own ability to help salvage a country on the brink of disaster. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been dragging his feet over the appointment of a new special representative for Iraq to succeed … Continue reading “Annan: Never a UN Force in Iraq”

From March 22 to April 2, 60 trained Iraqi pollsters interviewed 3,444 randomly selected Iraqis for USA Today. This is one of the first polls in Iraq that seems to me well weighted statistically, though to be sure we’d have to know more than USA Today told us. The numbers are negative for the US, … Continue reading “Iraqis Say: ‘US Out Now!’”

The 26 April explosions at a chemical warehouse being raided by the U.S. military constitute yet another example of heavy-handed tactics gone awry. US officials say they had reason to believe the facility was being used to manufacture chemical munitions. Rather than use other means to investigate, such as better human intelligence or a more … Continue reading “Heavy-Handed Baghdad Raid Backfires”