Juan Cole

Iraqi Hospitals still not Functional US spokesmen keep insisting that Iraq’s over 200 major hospitals are back to functioning normally. This statement is manifestly not true, given what reporters have revealed of the situation on the ground. For another such report, see the report of the BBC’s Martin Asser: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/ hi/world/middle_east/3184326.stm

US Destroying Orchards of the Uncooperative Patrick Cockburn of the Guardian says that US troops are tearing up orchards belonging to clans that they believe are being uncooperative in the hunt for the Baath remnants. He calls this a form of collective punishment. (Collective punishment is strictly forbidden to Occupying Powers under the Fourth Geneva […]

Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson Both far rightwing commentators Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson have been in the news this weekend. Limbaugh, of course, is going into rehab to try to kick his addiction to prescription painkillers. Robertson agreed with the sentiment that the US State Department should be “nuked.” I think Limbaugh’s addiction problems […]

Veiling and Male Cousins Noted ignoramus Stanley Kurtz, an India anthropologist who wrote his dissertation on a psychoanalytic theory of Hindu mother goddesses and who knows nothing about the Middle East, has delivered himself of the theory that “veiling” protects male cousins of Muslim women from the competition of outsiders seeking their hands in marriage. […]

“Baghdad Most Dangerous City in the World” “We’ve had people Killed on our Front Lawn” David Enders, a recent U-M graduate, has been trying to run an English-language newspaper in Baghdad, but has run into severe problems of financing and of security. The Detroit Free Press says: “The news magazine hired an armed guard for […]

Lame PR Letters supposedly from US Soldiers Backfire on Bush Administration LEDYARD KING GANNETT NEWS SERVICE The Olympian Online WASHINGTON — Letters from hometown soldiers describing their successes rebuilding Iraq have been appearing in newspapers across the country as U.S. public opinion on the mission sours. And all the letters are the same. A Gannett […]

Baghdad’s Homeless Orphans Justin Alexander, who is in Baghdad on a trip for Jubilee Iraq, discusses a problem I haven’t seen others mention, which is the homeless children in Baghdad. He says they sleep in the streets, and he can’t imagine how they eat. http://www.justinalexander.net/ 2003_10_01_archive.htm#106580063475049673

4 Iraqi Policemen Wounded in Baqubah; Attacks in Karbala kill one; Pipeline, employees attacked In Falluja, a guerrilla threw a grenade on a passing U.S. military convoy on Friday. The Americans responded by opening fire. Three pedestrians were hurt, but it wasn’t clear if their wounds were caused by the grenade or the gunfire. Local […]

Army of the Mahdi on the Move; 10,000 Demonstrate Militiamen of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Army of the Mahdi spread through the slums of East Baghdad Friday, after two of their number were killed in clashes with American troops. A crowd of 10,000 angry Shiites gathered to protest the deaths. Al-Hayat said that the militiamen were killed […]