Archives: June 2005

Samarra Assaulted By Guerrillas La

Samarra' Assaulted by Guerrillas The LA Times reports that guerrillas launched a major attack in Samarra on Wednesday. Carloads of gunmen came into the city and attacked a building used by security…

Another Us Helicopter Downed This Time

Another US Helicopter Downed, This Time in Afghanistan 17 Dead Taliban used some sort of rocket to shoot down a US helicopter in Afghanistan, killing all 17 servicemen aboard.This is the second…

Guest Opinion Iraq Avalanche

Guest Opinion: Iraq Avalanche Unstoppable: Richards "The Iraq Avalanche Cannot be Stopped"by Alan RichardsUniversity of California Santa CruzSanta Cruz, CAJune 24, 2005I have been reading the debate . . . on "What…

Some Iraqis Criticize Bushs Speech

Some Iraqis Criticize Bush's Speech Looming Health Crisis in Qaim AreaAn Iraqi response to Bush's claim that he is fighting terrorism by drawing terrorists to Iraq:' "Why don't they find another place…

Arguing With Bush Bushs Speech

Arguing with BushBush's speech."The terrorists who attacked us and the terrorists we face murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent. "Terrorists" are…

Tel Afar And North We Have Not Heard

Tel Afar and the NorthWe have not heard much lately about the US campaign in the northern, largely Turkmen city of Tel Afar. The city has been a perennial security problem. There…

Sciri Rejects Negotiations With

SCIRI Rejects Negotiations with Baathists Against the backdrop of the London Times report that the Americans are negotiating with Iraqi guerrillas, confirmed recently by US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Gilbert Achcar…

Parliamentarian Assassinated

Parliamentarian AssassinatedGuerrillas assassinated a member of parliament in Baghdad on Tuesday. They cut down Dhari Ali al-Fayadh, along with his son and three bodyguards. Al-Fayadh had run for office as part of…

Guerrillas Shoot Down Us Helicopter

Guerrillas Shoot Down US Helicopter Bombings in Baghdad Bush Presses Blair for More Troops Guerrillas using a shoulder-held missile launcher, probably an SA-16, shot down a US Apache helicopter Monday north of…

Rumsfeld On Vietnam And Government

Rumsfeld on Vietnam and Government SecrecyThese quotes from Congressman Rumsfeld, circa 1966, are amusing and tragic in retrospect.' A 1966 article in the Chicago Tribune quoted Rumsfeld as saying the following: “The…

50 Killed In Guerrilla Violence Al

50 Killed in Guerrilla Violence Al-Hakim: Sectarian War Could Engulf Middle East Al-Akhbar: Internationalize Iraq Crisis Guerrilla violence killed at least 50 persons in Iraq on Sunday and left a similar number…

It Depends On What Throes Is It

It Depends on What "Throes" IsIt started when Cheney went on "Larry King Live" last month and said this:' "I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a…

Al Hayat On Us Contacts With Ams

Al-Hayat on US contacts with AMS Chalabi Favors Timeline for US WithdrawalGilbert Achcar writes:Quite interesting excerpts from an article written from Baghdad by Basil Muhammad in today's Al-Hayat, reporting on an interview…

Ahmadinejad Uses Bushs Tactics Supreme

Ahmadinejad Uses Bush's TacticsSupreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei gloated Saturday that the Iranian public had "humiliated" Bush by electing hard liner Mahmud Ahmadinejad as president. But in fact, the campaigning style of the…

Mosul Police Station Blown Up Many

Mosul Police Station blown Up, many Dead 31 Killed Saturday, Dozens Wounded Mosul: A suicide bomber detonated his payload at the central police station in Mosul on Sunday morning, bringing down part…

6 Us Military Personnel Killed 13

6 US Military Personnel Killed, 13 Wounded at Fallujah Women Targeted A bomber targeted a Marine convoy near Fallujah coming back from a checkpoint, then guerrillas sprayed machine gun fire. They killed…

Student Unions In Iraq Call For

Student Unions [in Iraq] Call for Withdrawal of Occupation TroopsGilbert Achcar kindly sends along his translation of this newspaper article:' Student Unions [in Iraq] Call for Withdrawal of Occupation TroopsBaghdad – Abdel-Wahed…

Does Karl Rove Hate Our Liberties And

Does Karl Rove Hate our Liberties and Way of Life? ' At a Manhattan fund-raiser Wednesday night, the flamboyant architect of Bush's two presidential campaigns and now White House deputy chief of…

Jaafari In Washington Weeping Madman

Jaafari in Washington Weeping Madman in Sweltering BaghdadRobin Wright and Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post profile the meeting of Ibrahim Jaafari with George W. Bush.As reported here yesterday, on Thursday morning…

Al Duri Leads Baath Birth Of His

Al-Duri Leads Baath Birth of His Daughter in Mosul Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri [al-Douri] just had a daughter in Mosul, according to al-Hayat. The article says, roughly:Al-Hayat has learned from sources close to…

Un And Trying Bush More On My Un

UN and Trying BushMore on my UN Option for Iraq. By the way, someone over at the Kos discussion (scroll down) said that there "was no civil war" when the US withdrew…

Stirling Newberry On Un Option And

Stirling Newberry on UN Option And the Great Oil Price Shock of Gulf War IVStirling Newberry doesn't think the UN has enough troops for Iraq, either; and he instances the Congo as…

Abizaid Cost In Blood And Treasure 2nd

Abizaid: "Cost in Blood and Treasure" 2nd Lt.: "The War is Lost" Vice President Dick Cheney needs to talk to his generals more often. Michael Hedges of the Houston Chronicle reports that…

Brussels Conference Inconclusive 32

Brussels Conference Inconclusive 32 Dead in Guerrilla Violence The Brussels conference of foreign ministers on Iraq seems to me to have yielded little practical result. The real action will come at the…

Questions On Un Option In Iraq Reader

Questions on UN Option in IraqA reader with a US military background writes:"I noted your recent proposal for increased UN military involvement with some questions. 1. With great oversimplification, the civil war…

Kos Discussion Of Un Option Many

Kos Discussion of UN Option Many thanks to "Mark in San Francisco," who runs a diary at Daily Kos, for provoking an extensive and often acute discussion of my piece on the…

Bushs Iraq Incubator Of Terror Syria

Bush's Iraq Incubator of Terror Syria Deploys 7,000 to Block Infiltrators The New York Times reports that the CIA is growing increasingly alarmed about Bush's Iraq as an incubator of terrorists, and…

War On Terror Or War On Each Other

War on Terror or War on Each other?Dawn tells an unedifying little story of a crisis that was not covered by most US corporate media.So, first the Afghan security services broke up…

History And Genetics In Madagascar

History and Genetics in Madagascar Genetics and history have joined forces to explain the origins of the people of Madagascar (the world's fourth largest island, off the coast of East Africa). Early…

Cole On Knowing His Own History And

Cole on Knowing his Own History; and Isaiah Berlin I don't usually bother to reply at any length to my Neocon critics. Mostly this is because they are simply insincere, and say…

Can They Handle It Hawi As Communist

Can they Handle it? Hawi as CommunistA reader writes:' I noted with some relish the subtleties of perception. You and Al-Jazeera identify Georges Hawi [up front] as a communist. CNN and others…

Beirut Bombing Kills Communist

Beirut Bombing Kills Communist Opposition LeaderThe victory in Sunday's polling of the anti-Syrian faction in Lebanese politics has not led to social peace. The coalition of Saad Hariri won in the north…

Condi Cant Count Condi Rice Seems

Condi Can't Count Condi Rice seems extremely confused about military affairs and the nature of guerrilla wars:Interviewed on CNN during her visit to the Middle East, Dr Rice was asked about the…

37 Dead In Attacks On Monday Al Zaman

37 Dead in Attacks on Monday Al-Zaman, the 'Times of Baghdad,' refers to "a sudden and unprecedented deterioration of the security situation in Baghdad" on Monday. The biggest single attack, however, took…

Helman On Un Option Ambassador Gerald

Helman on UN OptionAmbassador Gerald B. Helman writes:". . . On replacing the US with the UN in Iraq[:] It seems clear that US public opinion is ready for a real exit…

United Nations Strategy As Resolution

The United Nations Strategy as a Resolution of the Iraq CrisisThe United States has failed militarily in Iraq, and the situation there is deteriorating rapidly. A protracted guerrilla war is increasingly becoming…

45 Dead Dozens Wounded In Guerrilla

45 Dead, Dozens Wounded in Guerrilla Attacks Restaurant Bombing Mocks Operation LightningThe Associated Press reports that a guerrilla wearing a bomb belt walked into a restaurant near the Green Zone in downtown…

Fixing Intelligence Around Facts Part

Fixing the Intelligence Around the Facts Part Deux AP has gotten hold of the text of some more Downing Street Memos.Mark Danner at Tomdispatch.com has further thoughts about the Downing Street Memo…

Us Uk Bombing Raids On Iraq In Summer

US & UK Bombing raids on Iraq in summer 2002 were illegal Michael Smith of the London Sunday Times continues his reporting on leaked British memos from 2002 that shed light on…

Al Hakim Hails Iran For Its Cultural

Al-Hakim Hails Iran for its Cultural and Religious PrivilegesAbdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the United Iraqi Alliance list that dominates the Iraqi parliament and head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution…

Bush Helps Hardliners Neoconservative

Bush Helps Hardliners Neoconservative Ahmadinejad in LeadThe Iranian voting public put a hardliner and a conservative pragmatist into a run-off election with their ballots on Friday. With a turnout of 62 percent…

Fallujah Massacre Of Iraqi Troops With

Fallujah Massacre of Iraqi Troops, with 14 Dead On Friday in Fallujah, a suicide bomber targeted a gathering of Iraqi troops near the headquarters of the Iraqi Islamic Party. He killed 14,…

First Round Of Irans Presidential

First Round of Iran's Presidential Elections Inconclusive Turnout Stronger than ExpectedThe Presidential elections in Iran produced a messy result that will require a run-off between the two top candidates. The final outcome…

Mosque Attack Wounds 4 Us Raids

Mosque Attack Wounds 4 US Raids against al-Dhari, Muqtada Sibernews reports, 'A car bomb has exploded close to a Shia mosque in eastern Baghdad as people were emerging from Friday prayers, injuring…

Zarqawi And Scarlet Pimpernel Westley

Zarqawi and the Scarlet Pimpernel WESTLEY: ' Well, Roberts had grown so rich, he wanted to retire. So he took me to his cabin and told me his secret. "I am not…

6 Us Servicemen Killed At Ramadi 10

6 US Servicemen Killed at Ramadi 10 Iraqis Killed, 38 Wounded Guerrillas near Ramadi detonated a roadside bomb on Wednesday as a Marine convoy went by, killing 5 Marines. A sailor attached…

Shiites Compromise With Sunnis Over

Shiites Compromise with Sunnis over Constitution Drafting Committee al-Sharq al-Awsat and AFP Jawad Maliki, the deputy leader of the Da`wa Party led by Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, affirmed yesterday that the…

Friedman And Imaginary Troops Tom

Friedman and Imaginary TroopsTom Friedman, writing in the New York Times, makes several policy decisions with regard to Iraq. The first is to stay the course until an effective Iraqi force could…

48 Dead In Guerrilla Violence Suicide

48 Dead in Guerrilla Violence Suicide Bombing in Khalis Targets Iraqi Troops Knight Ridder reports that a suicide bomber in an Iraqi army uniform detonated his bomb belt in the midst of…

Apartheid For Arabs In Irbil Iranian

Apartheid for Arabs in Irbil? Iranian Kurds RiotAn eyewitness has described for me by email driving through the north of Kurdistan and seeing enormous posters of Massoud Barzani (the new president of…

Gitmo By Sea 5 Star Holidays For

Gitmo-by-the-Sea: 5-Star Holidays for Oppressed Christians: FisherGuest Satire by William Fisher"Oppressed Christians: Looking for a five-star holiday? Have we got a deal for you!GITMO-By-The-Sea" Don’t laugh, folks. Our Naval base at Guantanamo…

Guerrillas Kill 29 Iraqis Tuesday

Guerrillas Kill 29 Iraqis Tuesday, Wound over 100 in North 3 US Servicemen Dead Kurds Abducting Arabs, Turkmen in KirkukThe Associated Press reports "And an American soldier was killed when a roadside…

21 Dead 40 Wounded In Guerrilla

21 Dead, 40 Wounded in Guerrilla ViolenceAFP reports*At a checkpoint between Baghdad and Baquba (to the northeast of the capital) at Khan Bani Saad, guerrillas sprayed a police checkpoint with machine gun…

Barzani President Of Iraqi Kurdistan

Barzani President of Iraqi Kurdistan UPI transmits from al-Hayat a report that the Kurds are upset with Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's high-handed decision-making style. They say they will leave their coalition in…

Downing Street Memos And Revenge Of

The Downing Street Memos and the Revenge of the BloggersWhen Michael Smith of the London Times wrote about a further leaked British cabinet document on decision-making about the Iraq war in July…

Top Ten Things You Wouldnt Expect To

Top Ten Things You Wouldn't expect to Happen if You Listened to Bush and Cheney10. You wouldn't expect Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Prison to have been put in "stress positions," or physically…

International Criminal Court And

The International Criminal Court and Blair/Bush: Amy RossGuest Comments by Amy Ross"The International Criminal Court and Blair/Bush""Regarding accountability and the ICC: It does seem that the Blair administration was much more cognizant…

Bush And Blair Committed To War In

Bush and Blair Committed to War in April, 2002 Leaked Cabinet Briefing Shows British Knew War was Illegal The London Times has dropped another bombshell document concerning the planning of the Iraq…

More Than 35 Killed By Iraqi

More than 35 Killed by Iraqi Guerrillas US Kills 40 Fighters with Missile StrikeCBC/AP reports:The new wave of violence began Friday evening when a suicide bomber targeted patrons of a falafel restaurant…

Cole On Iraq 2002 2003 By Way It Has

Cole on Iraq, 2002-2003By the way, it has been alleged by some of my detractors that I supported the Iraq War. Someone wrote me quoting this passage: "I remain convinced that, for…

5 Marines Killed 4 Wounded 21 Bodies

5 Marines Killed, 4 Wounded 21 Bodies Found Sunnis Reject offer on Constitutional Committee Guerrillas killed 5 Marines near Haqlaniyah in Anbar Province on Thursday.Some 21 bodies were discovered near Qaim in…

Attacks In Yusufiyah Mosul Kut Islamic

Attacks in Yusufiyah, Mosul, Kut Islamic Parties Meet to Shape the Constitution A vehicle accident near Hit in Iraq left a Marine dead on Wednesday, according to AP. 1,683 US military personnel…

Piles Of Smoking Guns Kind Readers

Piles of Smoking Guns Kind readers have drawn my attention to other leaked documents on the British side that lend support to the implications of the Downing Street memo, which alleges that…

Downing Street Memo And Fixing Around

The Downing Street Memo and "Fixing Around"At least one commentator has been quoted in the press as questioning what British Intelligence chief Richard Dearlove meant in the Downing Street Memo by the…

Hersh On Journalism And Internet

Hersh on Journalism and the Internet Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh is interviewed in The Guardian. He has some canny comments on journalism and blogging. Hersh is a giant in investigative journalism…

Revenge Of Baghdad Bob Revenge Of

The Revenge of Baghdad Bob"The Revenge of Baghdad Bob" is my current piece in Salon.com about the bizarrely unrealistic assessments of the Iraq War by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.First para.:"The…

Talabani And Al Hakim Call For Role

Talabani and al-Hakim Call for Role for Shiite, Kurdish Paramilitaries 4 US Soldiers Killed Guerrillas killed 4 US servicemen on Wednesday in separate incidents. Other guerrilla operations around Iraq took the lives…

33 Dead In Tuesday Attacks Over 70

33 Dead in Tuesday Attacks, over 70 Wounded At least 33 persons died in guerrilla attacks or from friendly fire on Tuesday. The Australian Broadcasting Co. reports, ' Nine people were killed…

Kirkuk Police Defy Their Dismissal By

Kirkuk Police Defy their Dismissal by Interior Ministry More Car Bombs Wreak Havoc The Associated Press reports, ' Four car bombings within seven minutes killed six people, including at least three Iraqi…

Quran Splashed With Urine At

Quran Splashed with Urine at Guantanamo The Pentagon released this news late Friday in order to defeat the US news cycle, which closes down for the American weekend. I deliberately kept it…

Sunni Arab Issue Continues To Bedevil

Sunni Arab Issue Continues to Bedevil IraqEd Wong of the New York Times reports:' Attacks continued across central and northern Iraq on Sunday. One man was killed in Buhruz, northeast of Baghdad,…

Hizbullah Wins Big In South Lebanon

Hizbullah Wins Big in South LebanonHizbullah and Amal, along with some representatives of Saad al-Hariri's "Future" movement swept the elections in South Lebanon. Lebanon also uses a "list" system, which I have…

Bombings Shootings In Balad Tikrit

Bombings, Shootings in Balad, Tikrit, Samarra, Mahmudiyah Sunni Clerics Condemn Marginalization of their Community, Protest USAl-Sharq al-Awsat reports a suicide attack on an Iraqi military checkpoint in Balad Saturday, which killed three…

Zarqawi Myth Jordanian Terrorist Abu

The Zarqawi MythJordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (actually Ahmad al-Khalayleh of Zarqa) has been elevated by the Bush administration to an almost mythic position as the fomenter of much of the violence…

At Least 19 Dead In Guerrilla Violence

At Least 19 Dead in Guerrilla ViolenceGuerrillas detonated bombs near Balad, and in Samarra. Mortar rounds fell in Baghdad and there was a car bombing in the capital. A firefight took place…

Sufi Gathering Targeted 10 Dead Andrew

Sufi Gathering Targeted, 10 Dead Andrew Marshall of Reuters reports, "A suicide bomber blew himself up at a gathering of Sufi Muslims north of Baghdad, killing 10 people in the latest attack…

12000 Dead In Iraqi Guerrilla War Rate

12,000 Dead in Iraqi Guerrilla War Rate of Killing Same as Under SaddamThe final toll for Iraqis killed in guerrilla violence or the USG/Iraqi government response to it on Thursday grew to…

Oil Workers Mobilize Iran Poised To

Oil Workers Mobilize Iran Poised to Help with Reconstruction Greg Muttit of the Guardian reports that the Iraqi oil workers' union is gearing up to fight any attempt to privatize the Iraqi…

9 Dead In Tuz Khurmatu Bombing Deputy

9 Dead in Tuz Khurmatu Bombing Deputy Governor of Diyala Assassinated in Baqubah Poisoned Watermelons Iraq looked more and more like a macabre horror film on Wednesday, as the Iraqi military announced…

Warring Visions Of Iraqi Federalism

Warring Visions of Iraqi Federalism "Sumer" Rises in SouthAl-Hayat says that its sources in Iraq describe an ongoing dispute between the Kurds, who want an Iraqi federalism that gives "states' rights" only…

Womens Demonstration In Egypt Women

Women's Demonstration in EgyptWomen demonstrated in Cairo on Wednesday as part of a general protest by journalists and other oppositionists. They maintain that they were manhandled by Egyptian security forces during a…

Fallujah Film Italian Magazine Diario

Fallujah FilmThe Italian magazine Diario has posted to its web site a film of Fallujah made by Iraqis (apparently by Iraqi government workers sent in to help with clean-up) in early January…

Iraqization Of Afghanistan Suicide

The Iraqization of AfghanistanA suicide bomber walked into the Abd al-Rabb Mosque in the southwestern city of Qandahar, Afghanistan, at 9 am Wednesday morning and detonated his payload, killing nearly 20 and…

Good Israelis Revered Israeli News

The Good IsraelisRevered Israeli news anchor Haim Yavin has made a five-part documentary on the Israeli colonization of the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967, concluding that it has harmed…

9 Dead In Crashes Jaafari Pledges Not

9 Dead in Crashes Jaafari Pledges not to Contravene Islamic LawA bomb wounded three on the road to the airport from Baghdad. The bombers had been gunning for a US military convoy.…