Archives for 2009

According to UNICEF, their preliminary estimate of the damage done by the Israeli military to Gaza infrastructure is $1.9 billion. Note that this is Gaza infrastructure, not Hamas infrastructure. So at least the war weakened Hamas’s political control of Gaza, right? Not so much. So then, the Israeli military boasted that it destroyed 60% of […]

Don’t miss Barney Rubin’s long and personal meditation in the Boston Review on his involvement in Afghanistan diplomacy over the past decades. The depth of that involvement in recent years makes all the more poignant his growing suspicion that the situation is past the point where Obama’s 30,000 extra US troops are going to make […]

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that Shaikh Najih Ibrahim, the leader of the fundamentalist group al-Gama’a al-Islamiya in Egypt, said Friday that his organization fears that al-Qaeda will launch an attack on the United States shortly, in revenge for Israel’s assault on Gaza, with the aim of turning Barack Obama into “another George W. Bush.” […]

An experienced observer writes with regard to rumors that President Obama may cease supporting Afghan President Hamid Karzai: “I read with interest the story about Afghanistan in today’s Independent by Starkey and Sengupta, to which you provided a link. My suspicion is that it certainly captures the politics of the hour. But it also worries […]

President Barack Obama signalled on several fronts on Thursday that the new president is his own man and is eager to actively reverse Bush administration policies. There will be a lot of dispute among journalists and historians over how much continuity there is between Bush and Obama, and how much of a rupture. These matters […]

The Israeli assault on Gaza has drawn to an end, now that its Great Enabler (W.) is no longer in the cockpit of the Calamity Machine, and its architect, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, is the lamest of lame ducks. Those hawks who proclaimed so loudly that Israel had no choice but to just fall […]

President Barack Obama will meet Wednesday, his first day on the job, with his secretary of defense, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other high security officials to discuss the Iraq War and his plans for withdrawing US troops from that country. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Tuesday that Baghdad welcomes […]

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Life, 1954: “Baltimore School Riot:Two school teachers & a local minister driving 3 black students home in a white convertible […]

Some 50,000 Palestinians have been left homeless by the Israeli war on the people of Gaza, with 400,000 now lacking access to running water. Rebuilding what the Israeli military destroyed will cost billions of dollars.Cont’d (click below or on “comments”)Ashraf Khalil of the LAT reports that the Israelis destroyed 21,000 buildings. Khalil writes from the […]