Archives for 2009

According to al-Zaman, writing in Arabic, Nuri al-Maliki’s Islamic Mission Party (Da’wa) has rejected an appeal from cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq to run as coalition partners in the United Iraqi Alliance in the forthcoming parliamentary election. Da’wa spokesmen say that the party wants to make a broader coalition […]

Juan Cole and Shahan Mufti discuss the Pakistan crisis on Bill Moyers Journal, PBS, Friday May 15 (9 pm in most markets but check local listings). NEWSLETTER – Friday, May 15, 2009 “This talk of Pakistan being a failed state — we’ve heard that. That’s been around for 50 [or] 60 years, and nobody in […]

Anne-Ruth Wertheim writes in a guest op-ed for IC: Words can incite violence. These are the kind of words Geert Wilders used in the Dutch Parliament . . . On Wednesday January 21, 2009, the Amsterdam Court decided a court ruling was required on whether Member of Parliament Geert Wilders (Party for Freedom) was inciting […]

President Obama has reversed himself on his earlier determination not to oppose a ruling by a Federal judge that remaining photos of the torture and abuse of prisoners by the US military in Iraq. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of US troops in Iraq, appears to have made the decisive intervention with Obama on this issue. […]

Pakistani troops say that they have cleared Buner of Taliban guerrillas: “‘Normalcy is returning to Buner. People have started harvesting their crops and shops are reopening in the district. . .” Pakistani troops opened a new front in Peochar, where there was heavy fighting on Wednesday. Helicopter gunships and fighter jets continued to pound Taliban […]

A suspected gas attack on a girl’s school sent 84 girls to hospital in Kapisa Province north of Kabul. There are suspicions that this was another piece of Taliban sabotage. Their ideology forbids the education of girls, even though universal education is an Islamic principle. Aljazeera English has video: The same channel is also covering […]

My column for Salon.com, “The hidden hand of Dick Cheney” is now out. Excerpt: ‘ don’t dismiss Dick Cheney as a fading punch line, or as tragedy reprised as comedy. While the Obama administration has adopted large numbers of policies that directly contradict Cheney’s positions, it would be a mistake to overlook Cheney’s continued influence […]

The best refutation of Dick Cheney’s insistence that torture was necessary and useful in dealing with threats from al-Qaeda just died in a Libyan prison. See also Andy Worthington. Al-Qaeda operative Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was captured trying to escape from Afghanistan in late 2001. He was sent to Egypt to be tortured, and under duress […]

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced on Monday that he had fired Gen. David McKiernan. Time reports that Gates was impatient with McKiernan’s failure to take charge and solve logistical and tactical problems himself. The allegations may well be unfair to McKiernan, who maintained that his army was way too small for its task. But […]