Nir Rosen reports on ‘How we lost the War We Won’ in Afghanistan: ‘ Until recently, Ghazni, like much of central Afghanistan, was considered reasonably safe. But now the province, located 100 miles south of the capital, has fallen to the Taliban. Foreigners who venture to Ghazni often wind up kidnapped or killed. In defiance […]
Game Over: A Good Neighbor in the Gulf?
The third and final debate again went to Obama in the instant polls done by organizations such as CNN. Independents told CNN they generally thought Obama won. CNN’s real-time tracking of opinion among viewers in its studio showed that independents especially disliked the smear tactic of attempting to link Obama to prominent Chicago educator Bill […]
The Great Reagan Pyramid Scheme Comes Crashing Down
The Republican Party that Nixon invented melded the moneyed classes of the Northeast with the white evangelicals of the South. This odd couple went on to simultaneously steal from and oppress the rest of us. The moneyed classes were happy to let the New Puritans impose their stringent morality, since they could always just buy […]
NIE: Pakistan on Brink
The new National Intelligence Estimate on Pakistan will apparently depict that country as ‘on the edge,’ with ‘no money, no energy, no government.’ The fear is expressed that an unstable Pakistan will become a center for al-Qaeda plotting against the US. The situation in Pakistan for ordinary people is indeed tough. Fuel and wheat prices […]
Church Bombed in Mosul; Christian Leaders Protest Gov’t Unconcern; Sadrists Show Support for Christians
A church in the northern metropolis of was bombed in Mosul on Tuesday, as Christian leaders accused the government of PM Nuri al-Maliki of minimizing the seriousness of the crisis facing their community. Meanwhile, members of the hard line Shiite Sadr Movement reached out to the Christians. The Sadrists are Iraqi nationalists and enemies of […]
Daughter of Mossad Chief Jailed for being a Conscientious Objector
Omer Goldman, daughter of a former head of the Israeli intelligence organization, Mossad, has gone to jail as a conscientious objector. She visited the West Bank and came to know too much about what the colonists were doing to the Palestinians to be able to serve in a military that is an adjunct to colonization. […]
Hashimi: Security Agreement in Doubt; UN Worries about Iraqi Christians; Physicians Close Clinics in Karbala
The UN is concerned about the continued flight of Christians from the northern metropolis of Mosul. Sunni radicals are targeting them and several have been assassinated. Iraqi refugees who try to return to their old homes are often still facing violence on their return, McClatchy reports. The UN High Commission on Refugees staff in Amman […]
Guantanamo Counsel Resigns in Disgust
Lt. Col. Darrel J. Vandeveld resigned from the military commissions tribunals at Guantanamo convinced that the system denies defense attorneys exculpatory evidence that the government knows about, which might prove the innocence of the defendant. The Guantanamo issue tells us a lot about the candidates and their commitment to the Constitution and the rule of […]
1000 Policemen Sent to guard Christians of Mosul; Turkish War Planes Strike Again
Turkish war planes again bombed positions in northern Iraq where guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) were thought to be holedup. Iraqi authorities ordered 1,000 police into the districts of Mosul where Christians tend to live to stanch the flow of emigrants sparked by a series of assassinations of Christians. About 3,000 Christians are […]