My fortnightly column for Salon.com is now up, commemorating the 5th anniversary of Bush’s invasion of Iraq: “Five years of Iraq lies:” How President Bush and his advisors have spent each year of the war peddling mendacious tales about a mission accomplished. I posit that each year of the war has been characterized by a […]
Obama, Race and the Dynamism of America
I listened to Senator Barack Obama’s speech on race issues as a resident of the Detroit area. Barack Obama was talking about something very personal to him, about being rooted in family and community. He recognizes that race had shaped both and had wounded both. He refuses to give up on the communities in which […]
Obama: "A More Perfect Union"
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama“A More Perfect Union”Constitution CenterPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania First the video, then the text of the speech, below: “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.” Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these […]
52 Killed in Karbala Bombing; Bombing in Karrada Wounds 8; Cheney and McCain in Baghdad
A massive bomb in the Shiite holy city of Karbala killed 52 persons and wounded 75 on Monday according to AFP. Shiites’ feelings are raw over the attack, threatening further civil war violence. (Courtesy Jafariyanews.com). Sawt al-Iraq/ AFP report in Arabic that the explosion occurred only 100 meters from the shrine of Imam Husayn, among […]
Missile Strikes Kill 20 In Pakistan; Parliament Convenes amid Tensions with Musharraf; 110 Arrested in Connection with Bombing of FBI Agents
The Pakistani parliament convened on Monday for the first time since the February 18 elections, with the Pakistan People’s Party and the Muslim League-N and their allies having a two-thirds majority in the lower house. They have indicated that they will seek to reinstate the Supreme Court and dozens of judges dismissed by dictator Pervez […]
Cole and Clemons on the Middle East: Bloggingheads
See my discussion at bloggingheads.tv of contemporary Middle East issues with Steve Clemons of the Washington Note blog.
US Soldier Killed; US Second to Eurozone;
I can still remember, as a child, the other children on the playground boasting that the US was the greatest country in the world, and the pride we all took from that. Predictably, George H. W. Bush’s cokehead son has managed to reduce the US to the second largest economy after the eurozone. Bush was […]
Reflections on Petraeus’s Comments On lack of Political Progress
General David Petraeus is quoted in WaPo as saying that no one, American or Iraqi, thinks that there has been sufficient political progress in light of the reduction of civilian deaths since last fall. The US troop escalation, the strategy of paying Sunni guerrillas to join pro-US Awakening Councils, and the cease-fire with the Mahdi […]
Bomber Kills 18, Wounds 64; Archbishop Found Dead; Mahdi Army at Kut Shells US Base
A suicide bomber in a BMW killed 18 Iraqis in Baghdad on Thursday and wounded 64. With regard to yet another tragedy on Thursday, The Guardian writes, ‘ Iraq’s unending violence claimed one of its most high-profile victims yesterday when a Catholic archbishop abducted last month was found dead. It was not clear if Paulos […]
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