The NYT reports, “the Department of Defense has agreed so far this fiscal year to sell or transfer more than $32 billion in weapons and other military equipment to foreign governments, compared with $12 billion in 2005. The trend, which started in 2006, is most pronounced in the Middle East, . . .’ There are […]
28 Killed, 40 Wounded; Peshmerga Killed in Roadside Bombing; 4 Sharqiya Staff Kidnapped, Killed
In a continuing wave of violence in Iraq, 28 persons were killed and 40 wounded on Saturday. Among the dead were 9 members of the Kurdish Peshmerga paramilitary, killed by a roadside bomb near the disputed city of Khanaqin in Diyala. Arabs and Kurds are increasingly at odds over the future of this city, which […]
Azizabad Survivors Demand Justice from US; S. Asian Britons "Boiling" with Anger over US Raids
Aljazeera English reports that the Afghans bombed by the US near Herat are demanding justice. Apparently an al-Qaeda operative named “Nadir” tricked the US, telling them that there was an al-Qaeda safe house in that village, when in fact they were just civilian villagers. Afghan authorities say the US killed 90 civilians at Azizabad in […]
Palin: Not Governor of Alaska, Visited it once on Spring Break
Satire alert The Republican campaign of Sarah Palin admitted on Satuday that contrary to their previous assertions,she had not actually visited US troops inside Iraq, only visiting a border checkpoint while she was in Kuwait. They further admitted that she had not actually been in Ireland, but just sat in the plane while it refueled […]
Bombings at Dujail, Sinjar Kill over 30, wound 85
Two big bombings targeted Shiites on Friday. A bomb killed over 30 persons and wounded over 40 in Dujail, a largely Shiite city northeast of Baghdad. Earlier on Friday, a bomb at the Dhakir al-Din Mosque in Sinjar killed two and wounded 15. The security situation has deteriorated in Mosul, (pop. 1.8 mn), Iraq’s second […]
Afghanistan: Taliban hit US Security Firm, 23 Dead
Taliban in Afghanistan attacked the convoy of the US security firm, US Protection and Investigations, on Friday. 23 persons were killed in the clash,including 15 Taliban attackers. A US predator attack on a target in nothern Waziristan, Pakistan, left 12 persons dead on Friday. The target appears to have been a building used by the […]
Palin on World Affairs: Just not Ready for Prime Time
Sarah Palin revealed herself in the Charlie Gibson interview on ABC to be nervous,uninformed, green and generally not ready for prime time. The interview was full of stock phrases she was made to memorize, and which she repeated over and over again when stumped. She knows nothing about how Iran is run, or about Pakistan, […]
Bombings in Karbala; US Plot against Maliki? Japanese say Sayonara to Iraq
Two bombs in the Shiite holy city of Karbala were detonated near the shrine of Imam Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. The explosions killed 3 and wounded 15. Because of the extreme religious sensitivity of the Shiite shrines in Iraq, these bombings had security implications far beyond what is apparent on the surface. […]
On the Seventh Anniversary of September 11: Time to Declare the original al-Qaeda Defeated
The original al-Qaeda is defeated. It is a dangerous thing for an analyst to say, because obviously radical Muslim extremists may at some point set off some more bombs and then everyone will point fingers and say how wrong I was. So let me be very clear that I do not mean that radical Muslim […]