Middle East

Aljazeera English on the $3 Trillion War in Iraq, as argued by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and his co-author Linda J. Bilmes. Note to US corporate media: Notice how the discussion includes a Republican spokesman, a left intellectual, and an Iraqi voice. Why don’t we hear Iraqi voices about Iraq on US t.v.? […]

Guerrillas fired rockets at a US base south of Baghdad on Wednesday, killing 3 US soldiers and wounding 2. An Iraqi civilian was also wounded. A US soldier was killed and another wounded at Diwaniya on Tuesday by a roadside bomb (that is Shiite territory). So the death toll for Monday through Wednesday was fifteen […]

AP reports that political violence left 42 dead across Iraq on Tuesday, including the bombing of a bus near Nasiriya in the south. Actually, McClatchy reports 62 dead if you count the 20 bodies found in a mass grave near Samarra. The wave of violence (see McClatchy below) came a day after guerrillas killed 8 […]

Sunni Arab Iraqi guerrillas launched a four-pronged attack on their enemies on Monday. They killed eight US troops in two separate bombings, one in the al-Mansur district of Baghdad and one in the small town of Baladruz east of the capital in Diyala Province. They set off two bombs targeting Shiites in east Baghdad, taunting […]

William R. Polk With all eyes fixed on the forthcoming election, we must consider the issues that will face whomever becomes our next president for these are issues that we – and perhaps even our grandchildren will have to cope. The urgent issue before our country in this time of great danger is the health […]

Some 5,000 protesters rallied in downtown Basra to protest the horrible security situation on Saturday. AP notes, ‘Many carried banners, decrying the killing of women, workers, academics and scientists. Dozens of women were slain in Basra by religious extremists last year because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against “violating […]

Police in Baghdad raised the death toll for the two bombings in Karrada on Thursday to 68, with 120 wounded. Meanwhile, on Friday two bombings in Mosul killed 6 persons and wounded 35. Iraqi president and Kurdish leader, Jalal Talabani, met in Turkey with high Turkish officials and pledged to them that he would rein […]

Sunni Arab guerrillas carried out two bombings in the Shiite Karrada district of Baghdad on Thursday. First a bomb went off in a dumpster near a market, killing 3 persons and attracting a dense crowd. Then a suicide bomber waded into their midst and detonated his belt bomb. The death toll early Friday morning had […]

Turkish war planes attacked targets inside Iraq again on Wednesday, only days after the Turkish military withdrew ground troops after a major incursion. Reuters says: ‘n Iraqi border guard official said Turkish aircraft struck a village in the Amadiya area close to the Turkish border on Tuesday evening. There were no reports of casualties. At […]