A series of coordinated attacks on checkpoints and a Shiite mosque on Monday in Iraq demonstrated that the guerrilla opposition to the US-imposed new order in that country continues to be active and organized. Some 300-400 civilians and members of security forces are still being killed in political violence every month, not counting the insurgents […]
Archives for May 2010
Salisbury: Times Square Rorschach Test
Stephan Salisbury of the Philadelphia Inquirer and author of Mohamed’s Ghosts writes in a guest essay for Informed Comment: In the smoke roiling up from the street of a busy Saturday night in Times Square can be found traces of endless fantasies and obsessions lurking in the nation’s post-9/11 primordial lobes. The stages of the […]
Afghanistan: 57 Insurgent Attacks a Day; Taliban Vow Major Campaign; Karzai to Visit Washington
The guerrilla forces in Afghanistan had launched new attacks on NATO and Afghanistan National Army targets in the past few days, after weeks in which they were busy making sure to get their cut of the profits from the poppy-based heroin trade. The return to the battlefield is an annual late spring and summer ritual […]
Feds still Granting Environmental Waivers to Big Oil in Gulf after Spill
McClatchy gets the story: Since the BP oil leak began on April 20, the Federal government has granted 22 waivers to oil companies allowing them to avoid doing environmental impact studies on their further drilling plans in the Mexican Gulf. The Department of the Interior’s “Minerals Management Service” has a history of ignoring environmental law. […]
Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: Niass & Shahzad
I received some snarky message after the Shahzad attempted bombing in Times Square, asking if I were still standing behind the idea of Islam as a religion of peace. It was a stupid comment. Classical Islamic law forbids murder and forbids terrorism, and it forbids aggression. Whether that makes it a religion of peace is […]
Lieberman’s Modest Gulag Proposal
In order to prevail in his attempt to have the US citizenship of ‘obvious terrorists’ revoked, Sen Joe Lieberman would have to overturn the Fourteenth Amendment, which says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States . . . are citizens of the United States . . .” Moreover, he would have to overturn […]
Parliament as a whole may have to Choose Iraqi Prime Minister
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that despite their announced coalition, the religious Shiite State of Law and National Iraqi Alliance lists will probably have to resort to an up and down vote in parliament to choose the prime minister. The State of Law refuses to put forward any alternative to incumbent prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, who […]
Shiite Parties Form Largest Coalition in Iraq; Ayatollahs to choose PM; Win for Iran
The pan-Arab London daily al-Hayat [Life] reports in Arabic that sources close to the two major Shiite coalitions have revealed that they will form a 10-person committee of “wise men” to choose the country’s prime minister. The “wise men” will consist of or include prominent Shiite clerics chosen by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual […]
Israeli Settler Terrorists Plan more Mosque Burnings
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas charged that a fire that damaged a Palestinian mosque in the Israeli-Occupied Palestinian West Bank was set by Israeli terrorists among militant colonists of the territory. Israeli Trade Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer also said he suspected arson. Hamas, the Muslim fundamentalist party that controls the Gaza Strip, the other territory of […]
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