Memorial Day is about honoring those who have sacrificed themselves for the nation, in our armed forces. We cannot honor them properly unless we know the full extent of their sacrifice. We have to count the victims of Post Traumatic Distress Syndrome, what we used to call being shell-shocked, as victims of the war. The […]
Sistani Forbids Feeding Americans; Warns against Security Agreement; Hundreds of Sadrists Arrested
Fars News reproduces in Persian on May 24, 2008, another anti-American fatwa by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf. It says that its correspondent in Najaf reports that an Iraqi Shiite submitted the following to Sistani: ‘I sell foodstuffs. Sometimes the Occupying Powers or their associates come to my establishment. May I sell them foodstuffs?’ […]
Clinton Touches off National PTSD
Senator Clinton’s reference to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in June of 1968 does not seem to me consequential, for all the brouhaha it has provoked. She was just saying that many previous primaries have gone on into June, including that of Bobby Kennedy before he was cut down. The idea that she was […]
6 Marines Injured, 1 Soldier Killed; Sistani Aide: Jihad Fatwa May Come; Karbala’i: Punish Blasphemous GI
Al-Sharq al-Awsat writing in Arabic carries a follow-up article on the AP story regarding Sistani’s oral rulings on the permissibility of attacking multinational troops in Iraq. The article seems to me to reverse the best practices of journalism. It interviews two Sistani aides, one far away from Iraq in London and one in Najaf. It […]
Will Sistani Declare Jihad on US?
Hamza Hendawi and Qassim Abdul Zahra of AP get the scoop: Their sources in Najaf tell them that young Shiite men belonging to the “Troops of the Ayatollahs” (Jund al-Marja`iyyah) militia that protects the leading Shiite clerics in the Middle Euphrates have been imploring Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani for a fatwa or formal legal ruling […]
Hagee Anti-Semitism and Endorsement of McCain
John McCain actively sought and accepted the endorsement of pastor John Hagee. Breaking News: CNN is reporting that McCain has just repudiated Hagee, specifically over these remarks on Hitler as God-sent hunter of Jews. Now, what about Rod Parsely? Or is that OK? And, when will AIPAC, JINSA, etc. also repudiate Hagee and his ilk? […]
Cole on Newshour
The Newshour with Jim Lehrer will be doing an Iraq segment this evening on the Public Broadcasting Service, and I will be one of the commentators.
Assassinations of High Officials; 36 Killed, Wounded in Baghdad; Iraqiya Rebuffs al-Maliki
Signs that things weren’t that calm in Baghdad on Wednesday: Guerrillas assassinated Colonel Abdul Kareem Muhsin, the director of the protection department in the ministry of transportation, in East Baghdad. An attempted assassination by car bomb of an Iraqi court judge who has his seat in Abu Ghraib left him severely wounded. Then “Four civilians […]
Appeasement Breaks out Everywhere
After all that trouble George W. Bush caused with his foolish speech before the Israeli Knesset condemning negotiation with bad guys, it turns out that no one in the Middle East, including Israel, is paying the slightest attention to him. Even his own secretary of state seems to be disagreeing with him in public. Such […]
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