Archives for 2004

Fallujah and Allawi’s Fate Tom Lasseter of Knight Ridder reviews the pros and cons of the coming US attack on Fallujah for caretaker Prime Minister Allawi. If the attack is swift and successful, Allawi will be strengthened. If it is prolonged, the protests within Iraq and in the Arab world could mount and cause a […]

More on Lancet Stephen Soldz has more on why the Lancet article estimating 100,000 excess Iraqi deaths since the beginning of the war cannot lightly be dismissed, even if the headlines tended to take the upper limits of the estimates.

Mosul Car Bomb AMS PLedges Civil Disobedience Campaign Wire services report that guerrillas tried to use a car bomb to assassinate an Iraqi general in Mosul. The explosion killed seven soldiers and 4 civilians, but missed the general. In Basra, an assassination attempt on the chief of police, Muhammad Kadhim, failed, but left three of […]

Who Needs Sleep? CNN is calling Michigan, Minnesota and Hawaii for Kerry. The total is 249 Bush, 242 Kerry at 2:35 am. Kerry may well get Wisconsin, as well, giving him 252. If he gets Nevada, it would be Kerry 257 to Bush’s 254. Ohio settles it. The question is whether Ohio settles it sometime […]

Race Up in Air Early Wednesday Morning As of this writing, Kerry could still win, but it won’t be easy. Bush has a very small lead in Ohio, of about 100,000, at 1:40 am. But the Democrats maintain that there are over 200,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted, and that they could make up […]

Carville thinks It is Over James Carville has essentially called the election for Bush. He says his contacts in Ohio are not able to give him any good news. Carville has been around the block and should be taken seriously. But he isn’t infallible and I’d rather wait and see the numbers from Cleveland and […]

Kerry takes Oregon, Maine CBS is projecting Washington, Oregon and California all for Kerry, and he gets all four electoral votes from Maine. This is excellent news for Kerry, since it makes it less likely Bush can put together an alternative if Kerry takes the upper midwest.

Bush is on the Verge of Winning? Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer are pointing out that with Kerry’s loss of Florida, he needs to sweep Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, to win. If Bush takes either Michigan or Ohio he will be within spitting distance of winning. For Kerry to take Ohio and Michigan, however, is not […]

Can the US System be Reformed? Given the talk in Washington about whether it is possible to reform the Arab world, I found the discussion this evening on al-Jazeera amusing. They had an Iraqi analyst on, who said that if there wasn’t a clear break for one of the candidates in the next few hours, […]