Archives for May 2004

Thoughts on Torture Guest Editorial By William R. Polk Displays of naked Iraqi prisoners being humiliated in American military prisons have shocked not only Arabs and Europeans but also most Americans. They need not have been surprised – torture is not new. Widely practiced by the Germans during World War II, it was standard French […]

America’s Incompetent Colonialism Guest Editorial by Keith Watenpaugh America’s Incompetent Colonialism: The Failures of the US Administration of Iraq A year ago, word began to filter out of Baghdad that in addition to the National Museum, the Iraqi National Library and Archive had also been looted, and burned, not once, but twice. Like the current […]

Zinni on What Went Wrong In the wake of Gen. Anthony Zinni’s 60 Minutes appearance, it is worth looking in detail at his recent essay on what went wrong. The Center for Defense Information has put up a concise diagnosis of the follies of the Bush administration Iraq policy by Gen. Zinni has presented a […]

Zinni on What Went Wrong In the wake of Gen. Anthony Zinni’s 60 Minutes appearance, it is worth looking in detail at his recent essay on what went wrong. The Center for Defense Information has put up a concise diagnosis of the follies of the Bush administration Iraq policy by Gen. Zinni has presented a […]

Continued Fallout of War of Holy Cities Even though Karbala has fallen quiet, there were clashes on other fronts. 20 people were killed and 50 wounded in clashes between the US and the Mahdi Army militia in Kufa, the stronghold of radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr. In the fourth such incident in a week, angry […]

Continued Fallout of War of Holy Cities Even though Karbala has fallen quiet, there were clashes on other fronts. 20 people were killed and 50 wounded in clashes between the US and the Mahdi Army militia in Kufa, the stronghold of radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr. In the fourth such incident in a week, angry […]

A Shiite International? There was more heavy fighting in Karbala early on Friday, after which the city fell eerily quiet. By Friday night into early Saturday morning, Mahdi Army militiamen had mysteriously ceased fighting, and the US had withdrawn from sites like Mukhayyam mosque near the shrine of Imam Husain. Meanwhile, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr […]

A Shiite International? There was more heavy fighting in Karbala early on Friday, after which the city fell eerily quiet. By Friday night into early Saturday morning, Mahdi Army militiamen had mysteriously ceased fighting, and the US had withdrawn from sites like Mukhayyam mosque near the shrine of Imam Husain. Meanwhile, Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr […]

Guest Editorials I’m going to be doing some traveling this coming week. I will be posting more guest editorials than usual, and may not be able to comment as often on hard news. Back to normal by May 31. In the meantime, the guest editorials are first rate, and it will be worth checking in […]