Everybody’s got a status report on Iraq these days. The consistently best and most clear-eyed wire service on Iraq, whose Pentagon correspondents are pointedly not invited to fly with the Secretary of Defense, is McClatchy (formerly Knight-Ridder). It has a long article on Sunday on how the security situation is not in fact better in […]
Oil Bonanza for Hunt; Displacement, Hunger, Alcoholism, Addiction for Iraqis
My Texas oil theory of the Cheney wing’s decision to go to war against Iraq got some (admittedly ex post facto) support on Sunday when it was announced that Hunt Oil is doing a deal for petroleum development in Iraqi Kurdistan. (Such Kurdistan deals are not typically being put through the federal government in Baghdad, […]
Helman: Refugees a Measure of Security Conditions
Ambassador Gerald B. Helman writes: In current discussions of the situation in Iraq, insufficient attention is being paid to perhaps the most sensitive barometer available, that of refugee flows. To date, of Iraq’s pre-war population of about 30 million, about 13% have either fled their country or are internally displaced–a historically very large proportion of […]
Questions about Authenticity of Bin Laden Video
Some evidence that the audio track of the recent Osamah Bin Laden video was laid down over an older video has been given. If true, this manipulation would not in my view prove that the audio was fraudulent. One problem is that the video would have to be awfully old to have Osama with a […]
Cole on CSPAN-2 Tonight at 10 EDT
Note: My talk on Napoleon’s Egypt will be shown in the US on CSPAN-2 at 10 pm EDT on Sunday evening, September 9. At the Napoleon’s Egypt Blog, a letter from one of Bonaparte’s scientists (a botanist) exhibiting the disillusionment the invaders felt on seizing Egypt. My assistant said it reminded him of Conrad’s “Heart […]
Global Affairs: Israel Peace Conference; and Roy on the Neocons
At the Global Affairs group blog: Gershon Shafir writes ‘ The focus of political debate in Israel between now and November will be the planned Peace Conference. Two approaches seem to be shaping up. One is expressed by the Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, who argues that no withdrawal from the West Bank should take […]
2.2 Million Internally Displaced Iraqis; Sadrists Warn US on Basra; 37 Killed in Bombings, Shootings Saturday
The Sadr Movement in Basra is warning the US military not to try to come into the province to replace the departing British troops. Suspected Mahdi Army roadside bombs have inflicted unusually high casualties on British troops in the deep south this year. The International Organization for Migration is reporting that its data show that […]
Sadrists Reject Moves to Unseat al-Maliki 7 US Troops Killed Bush was Told Iraq Had no WMD
7 US troops were killed 4 of them in al-Anbar profince and the other 3 in Ninevah proince. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Sadrist spokesman Baha’ al-A’raji says that his bloc in parliament is not exploring new alliances with a view to unseating Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. He said such a move would destabilize Iraq […]
Bin Laden Brandishes Jihadi Threat against US in Iraq
I don’t know why so many press commentaries keep saying that the new videotape from Usama Bin Laden does not contain any threats. It contains a clear threat: to escalate regional jihadi resistance against the US troops in Iraq. (The text is here in PDF format. Bin Laden, however, is not now and perhaps never […]
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