Juan Cole

Heavy Fighting at Buhriz Kills 15 Paul Garwood of AP reports that “the carnage” continued in Iraq over the weekend. US troops made a sweep of Buhriz, northeast of Baghdad near Baqubah, which is a radical Salafi (“Sunni fundamentalist”) stronghold, which has mounted numerous rebellions in recent months. Its nearby date palm groves were suspected […]

200,000 Israeli Fascists Demand Colonization of Gaza Tens of thousands of rightwing Israeli imperialists formed a human chain aimed at stretching between Jerusalem and Gaza to protest plans of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw Israeli colonists from Gaza. Let’s just talk a little bit about Gaza. The Palestinians are largely descendants of people […]

Sadrists Boycott National Congress As US Troops Surround Muqtada’s House Az-Zaman is reporting that US troops surrounded Muqtada al-Sadr’s house on Sunday for several hours before withdrawing. It was not known if he was in the house. He had come out of hiding to deliver the Friday prayers sermon in Kufa this weekend. He delivered […]

9/11 Commission report in HTML Thanks to Jason Kottke’s Documents Page for making the 9/11 commission report available in html, which I find generally easier to use than pdf. Ooops. That was only the executive summary. The whole thing is at Vivisimo. and PDF Hacks.

Black Banners and Economic Warfare in Iraq Claude Salhani of UPI reports that the recent kidnappings of truck drivers in a bid to force the companies that employ them out of the Iraq market are being claimed by a shadowy group called “the Black Banners.” He speculates that this phrase has a Shiite ring to […]

Guest Editorial: Penn on the Fall of Pacifist Japan Michael Penn examines the impact of the Iraq crisis on Japan. Ending the “Irresponsible Peace”—The Fall of Pacifist Japan by Michael Penn More than two centuries ago James Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers that “the mild voice of reason, pleading the cause of an enlarged […]

September 11 Report Due Today The September 11 Panel will issue its findings on Thursday. It notes 10 points at which the US made key mistakes that might have stopped Bin Laden’s plot. Four of these were under Clinton and 6 under Bush. Bush came out today and said that if he had known what […]

US Military Death Toll in Iraq Reaches 900 Some Two Dozen Iraqis Killed in Baghdad, Ramadi, Baquba, Samarra Violence AP reports that a roadside bomb killed a 1st Infantry Division soldier in Duluiyah, 45 mi. north of Baghdad when his Bradley fighting vehicle struck it. He was the 900th US soldier to die in Iraq […]

Naylor on Iran/al-Qaeda Red Herring Professor Thomas Naylor of McGill writes: This is certainly not the the first time these tales about Iran cooperating with al-Qa’idah have surfaced. About two years ago US spooks floated via the Washington Post and other outlets some silly stories about al-Qa’idah involved in the underground traffic in gold. Since […]