Som 92 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of independents are opposed to the Iraq War, which cannot be good news for John McCain, who has tied his campaign to staying in Iraq. Peter Slevin of WaPo argues that the public is now understanding the Iraq War in terms of other issues, especially the economy. […]
Ahmadinejad in Baghdad, Day II
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began the second day of his state visit to Iraq on Monday. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called Iran’s stance toward Iraq “helpful,” contradicting his American allies. The entire love fest of Ahmadinejad’s visit underscores how George W. Bush has inadvertently opened the Iranian sluice gates. Iran is the regional victor in […]
Ahmadinejad in Baghdad; Iraqi Death Toll up 33% in February; Sadrists Protest Veto of Provinces Law
The Iraqi civilian death toll was up 33% in February over January. AFP says, “The combined figures from the interior, defence and health ministries showed that the total number of Iraqis killed in February was 721, including 636 civilians, compared with 541 dead in January.” Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Baghdad on Sunday […]
Walleser Guest Editorial on Imperilled US Allies among the 4 Million Iraqi Refugees
ON MERCY AND REDRESS Matthew Walleser There have been over four million Iraqis displaced because of the war and its effects, both inside and outside Iraq. They have fled to destinations that span the far reaches of the globe, from Jordan to Sweden, and many places in between. Some of those who have fled have […]
Fact Check on McCain and Political Progress in Iraq
John McCain has been running mainly against Barack Obama in recent days, and has been running on the successes he says that the Iraqi government has racked up. McCain (and the US corporate media) manages to avoid noticing that Turkey has staged a major incursion into Iraq and still has ground troops there and is […]
Burke’s Peerage: Queen Elizabeth II Descended from the Prophet Muhammad
I was surprised that the writers of comments over at Salon.com did not know the below. It is common knowledge to anyone interested in genealogy. I know that it is hard for people invested in a hard East/ West dichotomy to imagine that the icon of Western civilization, the British royal family, has Arab Muslim […]
Obama Scores against McCain
So first came the question posed by Tim Russert and Barack Obama’s answer in Tuesday evening’s debate in Cleveland, which went like this according to the official transcript: ‘ MR. RUSSERT: . . . do you reserve a right as American president to go back into Iraq, once you have withdrawn, with sizable troops in […]
Barack Hussein Obama, Omar Bradley, Benjamin Franklin and other Semitically Named American Heroes
At Cincinnati, Bill Cunningham, according to the LAT, who “introduced presidential candidate John McCain at a rally here today accused Barack Obama of sympathizing with ‘world leaders who want to kill us’ and invoked Obama’s middle name — three times calling him ‘Barack Hussein Obama.’ ” John McCain repudiated Cunningham’s low tactics and said that […]
Turkish Army Kills 41 Kurdish Fighters; 4 Shiite Pilgrims Killed in Bombing; 8 Iraqi Soldiers Killed in Diyala
The Turkish military announced on Monday that it had killed another 41 Kurdish guerrillas inside Iraq. It claims to have killed 151 fighters of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) during the present operation. It admitted the deaths of 2 more Turkish troops, bringing the total loss for Ankara in this operation to 17 dead. The […]