Archives: November 2004

5 Us Troops Killed 18 Wounded I Take

5 US Troops Killed, 18 Wounded I take today's New York Times/ AP report on Iraq as a very bad sign. For one thing, it says "On Monday, the military reported five…

Fallujah Report And

The Fallujah Report and the Liberal/Conservative Divide The "Fallujah Report" prepared by the Marines concerning their enemies in the most recent big campaign is now up on the Web in HTML rather…

Kurdish Nationalism Kurdish Writer

Kurdish Nationalism Kurdish writer Sabah Salih has an interesting piece on the way the image of the Kurds has changed among European leftists from that of victim to that of collaborator with…

Fresh Wave Of Violence In Iraq 5 Us

Fresh Wave of Violence in Iraq 5 US troops Killed The relentless guerrilla war continued apace in Iraq on Sunday. AFP reported that guerrillas killed two Marines in clashes on Sunday. Also,…

Henry Siegman In New York Review Of

Henry Siegman in the New York Review of Books Amid the unwarranted outbreak of optimism about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the wake of Yasser Arafat's death, Henry Siegman's essay in the New…

Shock Of Week Liberals In Liberal Arts

Shock of the Week: Liberals in Liberal Arts George Will's column this week is unusually unreflective. I don't often agree with Will, but he is usually a bright and well-informed columnist on…

Elections In Iraq Will Be Held On

Elections in Iraq will be Held on Schedule, But with What Result? Or, how Khatami and Krauthammer are Both Wrong At least 12 persons died violently in the guerrilla war on Saturday…

Supporting Nawal Saadawi Al Hayat On

Supporting Nawal Saadawi Al-Hayat on Saturday ran an attack from a Muslim fundamentalist point of view on Egyptian novelist Nawal Saadawi. She recently argued that children should all receive hyphenated last names,…

Things Are Not What They Seem

Things are Not What they Seem Department On Thursday night on the David Letterman Late Night show on CBS, actress Natalie Portman announced that she was studying Arabic. On Friday night on…

Election Plans Roiled Sunni Extremist

Election Plans Roiled Sunni Extremist Death Threats against Sistani Hamza Hendawi of AP reports that the Shiite vote may get split. He says that Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is declining to join…

Iraq And Damned Statistics Red

Iraq and Damned Statistics The Red Crescent has finally been allowed into Fallujah (its earlier exclusion was probably a violation of international law). Its spokesman is saying that less than 200 civilian…

Guest Editorial Levine Iraqs Lose Lose

Guest Editorial: Levine: "Iraq's Lose-Lose Scenario" Note: This version of the text is slightly revised from the one posted earlier on Friday November 26. Iraq's Lose-Lose Scenario By Mark LeVine Dept. of…

25000 Us Casualties In Iraq 9 Of

25,000 US Casualties in Iraq; 9% of Troops Put in Hospital or Killed Over 2000 Iraqis Killed in Fallujah CBS has elicited from the Pentagon the real figure of US casualties in…

Bloggers Respond Weblogging Community

Bloggers Respond The weblogging community responds to Colonel Yigal Carmon's outrageous threat to sue me over my characterization of MEMRI as a well-funded organization dedicated to cherry-picking Arab news reports to make…

Fall Out Of Fallujah Keeps Falling

Fall-Out of Fallujah Keeps Falling Sunni Arabs in Iraq are blaming Shiites for conspicuously failing to come to the defense of Fallujah during the recent American assault. Dhiya Rasan and Steve Negus…

More On Memri On Torture Everyone

More on MEMRI On Torture: "Everyone Experiences Pain" Further to the frivolous threat of a lawsuit directed at me by Colonel Yigal Carmon, director of MEMRI and formerly of Israeli Military Intelligence…

Boycott Statement Of Iraqi National

Boycott Statement of Iraqi National Constituent Assembly The intrepid Alissa Rubin of the LA Times reported last week on the meeting of political organizations in Iraq calling for a boycott of the…

Memri Funding I Have Received Several

MEMRI Funding I have received several emails from people who looked up the funding for MEMRI in the internet guide to charitable organizations, and found that it reported income of a little…

Another Campaign Against Sunnis Major

Another campaign against Sunnis A major military campaign was launched by US and British troops in Iraq on Tuesday, targetting Babil province or what is called "the triangle of death." This is…

Memri And Bias Many Thanks To All

MEMRI and Bias Many thanks to all the readers who have written in response to my posting about the attempt of the Israel-linked MEMRI "translation service" to intimidate me with the threat…

Persian Gulf Flap As If We Did Not

Persian Gulf Flap As if we did not have enough life and death issues to deal with, the Iranian state is now keeping National Geographic out because it identifies the Persian Gulf…

Deliberate Murder Of 10 Year Old Girl

Deliberate Murder of 10-year-old Girl by Israeli Military A tape recording has surfaced showing that Israeli soldiers deliberately killed a frightened 10-year-old little girl in Gaza, who had been identified to them…

Intimidation By Israeli Linked

Intimidation by Israeli-Linked Organization Aimed at US Academic MEMRI tries a SLAPP I just checked my campus mail and found a letter in it from Colonel Yigal Carmon, late of Israeli military…

Massing On Iraq Press Coverage Way In

Massing on Iraq Press Coverage The way in which so much of the US press neglected to exercise their faculties of critical reasoning in the face of Bush administration claims about Iraq…

Turkish Role Neighboring Turks Take

Turkish Role Neighboring Turks take a dim view of the "Iraqi resistance" in the Sunni Arab heartland of Iraq, given that it has slaughtered 64 Turkish truck drivers. The Turkish Foreign Minister,…

Vote Set For January 30 Interim

Vote Set for January 30 The interim government of Iyad Allawi set the elections for Jan. 30, on Sunday. Even as the announcement was made, major violence broke out in Ramadi and…

Large Protests Against Fallujah

Large Protests Against Fallujah Campaign, Mosque Killing US Hated From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli In Baghdad itself, AP's Hamza Hendawi writes, tensions rose to a fever pitch…

Fallujah Operation Does Not Bring

Fallujah Operation Does not Bring Peace Wire services report dozens of violent deaths in Iraq on Saturday. Guerrillas attacked a police station in Baghdad, killing one American serviceman and wounded 9. Guerrilla…

Engagement Of Rules Rod Nordland And

Engagement of the Rules Rod Nordland and Babak Dehghanpisheh of Newsweek believe that the US military simply cannot win hearts and minds in Iraq. That's a pretty safe conclusion by now. Quite…

Iraqi National Guards Us Raid Mosque

Iraqi National Guards, US, Raid Mosque of Abu Hanifa, Kill 2 Iraqi security forces backed up by US troops raided the famed mosque of Abu Hanifa on Friday and arrested its prayer…

Will Osamah Bin Laden Benefit From

Will Osamah Bin Laden Benefit from Arafat's Death? My opinion piece on the implications of Arafat's passing for al-Qaeda has appeared at Newsday. Excerpt: "Arafat's secular nationalism was supple enough to compromise…

Reagan First Bush Administrations

Reagan, First Bush Administrations Cynically winked at Saddam's use of Chemical Weapons: Salon.com Barry Lando, writing in Salon.com, surveys the ways in which Reagan and Bush senior winked at Saddam's use of…

Did Fallujah Sink Elections Among

Did Fallujah Sink the Elections? Among the justifications given by the US for its campaign against guerrillas in Fallujah was that it would prepare the way for elections in January. It was…

27 Killed In Iraq Violence 3 Us

27 Killed in Iraq Violence, 3 US Soldiers Wounded Wire services report that some 27 persons were known to be killed in violent incidents in Iraq on Wednesday, though this number seems…

More On Marine Mosque Killing Iraqis

More on Marine Mosque Killing Iraqis continued to be furious Wednesday over the shooting by a US marine of a wounded Iraqi fighter in a mosque in Fallujah. Indeed, the Arab press…

Election Boycott Announced Forty Seven

Election Boycott Announced Forty-seven Iraqi political parties, including many with a religious base, have announced that they will boycott the planned January elections. They met at the Umm al-Qura mosque in Baghdad…

Iraqi Press Reaction To Fallujah

Iraqi Press Reaction to Fallujah Mosque Killing Al-Hayat: (trans. J. Cole): "The killing of a wounded Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque by an American Marine and the killing of the Iraqi-British hostage…

Sistani Urges Iraqis To Put Aside

Sistani urges Iraqis to put aside Narrow Interests Al-Hayat, Ja`far al-Ahmar: The battle of Fallujah uncovered some of the fissures, contradictions, and crticisms that had not been admitted by any local, Arab…

Powells Resignation Colin Powells

Powell's Resignation Colin Powell's resignation as secretary of state may be a more important development than meets the eye. It could be argued that he has been so marginalized and ineffective that…

Sunni Arab Regions In Flames Heavy

Sunni Arab Regions in Flames Heavy fighting continued in Fallujah on Monday, according to Reuters, as some guerrillas there demonstrated that they would fight to the death. Meanwhile, police stations were attacked…

Fallujah And Aftermath In Baiji On

Fallujah and the Aftermath In Baiji on Sunday, clashes between US troops and guerrillas left 12 Iraqis dead and 25 wounded. Most Americans do not realize that Fallujah is celebrated in Iraqi…

Member Of Parliament Assassinated

Member of Parliament Assassinated Bombs go off in Baghdad AP rounds up Saturday's events in Iraq. Explosions went off in Baghdad and at the Green Zone, apparently not far from caretaker Prime…

Regionalist Model For Iraq Fred Kaplan

Regionalist Model for Iraq Fred Kaplan at Slate discusses the proposal of former Iraqi national security adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie for consolidating the 18 Iraqi provinces into 5-- one Kurdish, two Sunni Arab,…

Mosul Chaos Al Hayat Reported

Mosul Chaos Al-Hayat reported incidents all over the country. A US Black Hawk helicopter was downed near Taji (20 km northwest of Baghdad), hurting 3 of the 4-man crew. Another US serviceman…

Sistani Calls For Peaceful Resolution

Sistani calls for Peaceful Resolution of Fallujah Crisis Az-Zaman: Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, th leading Shiite spiritual authority, called Friday for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Fallujah. His representative in…

Dylan Still Subversive It Is Good

Dylan Still Subversive? It is a good thing that Bob Dylan has US citizenship, otherwise he might be in the same fix as Cat Stevens (a.k.a. Yusuf Islam). The mere singing of…

Levine On Arafat Guest Editorial Death

Levine on Arafat: Guest Editorial The Death of Arafat and the Myth of New Beginnings Guest editorial by Mark LeVine, Professor of modern Middle Eastern history at UC Irvine, author of Overthrowing…

17 Dead In Baghdad Bombing Fallujah

17 Dead in Baghdad Bombing Fallujah, Mosul and Raids on AMS The Washington Post reports that the wave of violence in the Sunni Arab heartland continued unrelentingly on Thursday. A bomb at…

Wave Of Violence In Sunni North Leads

Wave of Violence in Sunni North Leads at least 28 Dead US Marines moved into most of Fallujah on Wednesday, though they were still meeting pockets of resistance. The Fallujah fighting has…

23 Us Troops Killed In 2 Days

23 US Troops Killed in 2 Days Guerrilla and Civilian Toll Unknown Associated Press surveys developments on Tuesday, including the deaths of 10 US troops in the fighting at Fallujah along with…

Senor Double Agent I Have It From

Senor Double Agent? I have it from a source I consider reliable that the order for the arrest of Muqtada al-Sadr in early April, 2004, which came as such a surprise and…

Desertions And Church Bombings And

Desertions and Church Bombings and Fallujah The Guardian has a good overview of events on Monday in Iraq. Notable were the 6 killed and 80 wounded as a result of carbombings of…

Ams Sadrists Forbid Fallujah Fighting

AMS, Sadrists forbid Fallujah Fighting as "Mortal Sin" The Iraqi Islamic Party lead by Muhsin Abdul Hamid, has been among the few Sunni Muslim groups willing to cooperate (even if rather lukewarmly)…

35 Killed Including 2 Americans

35 Killed, Including 2 AmericansThe Pakistan Times does among the best jobs of summarizing the horrific news from Iraq on Sunday.Highlights:*Allawi declares Martial Law for 2 months. Maybe it is just me,…

Polk American Options In Iraq American

Polk: American Options in Iraq American Options in Iraq Guest Editorial By William R. Polk Official inquiries have verified what independent observers have long said: the invasion of Iraq was not justified;…

Volcanic Weekend Leaves 30 Dead 60

Volcanic Weekend Leaves 30 Dead, 60 wounded 14 US Troops Among Wounded An explosion of violence on Saturday and early Sunday left 30 dead and some 60 wounded, including 14 wounded Marines…

Gang Fight In Karbala Over Elections

Gang Fight in Karbala over Elections Al-Karbala'i: Voter Registration Cards Fall Short Al-Hayat: The first victim of the electoral campaign in Iraq fell on Saturday in Karbala after a shouting match deteriorated…

More On Massad Case There Is Now

More on Massad Case There is now another petition site for Professor Joseph Massad of Columbia University. Darryl Li of Harvard sends in the following: "Friends and Colleagues, Many of you are…

24 Dead In Samarra Guerrillas In

24 Dead in Samarra Guerrillas in Samarra detonated three car bombs on Friday, killing some 24 persons and wounding dozens. The guerrillas targeted national guards' outposts, policemen, and US troops. Samarra had…

Annan Condemns Us Assault On Fallujah

Annan Condemns US Assault on Fallujah It seems to me that Kofi Annan's letter attempting to forestall a US levelling of Fallujah puts the Allawi caretaker government, which rejected it, in a…

Al Qubanji Give Us Indepencence Afp

Al-Qubanji: Give us Indepencence AFP/ Ash-Sharq al-Awsat: Sadr al-Din al-Qubanji, a Friday prayers leader in Najaf, called on Persident George W. Bush on Friday to keep the promises he had made to…

Levine Guest Editorial Were All

Levine Guest Editorial: "We're all Israelis Now." We’re all Israelis Now By Mark LeVine, History, University of California, Irvine Author of Why they Don't Hate Us: Globalization in a Post-9/11 World. Three…

Meet Bubba Readers Argued With Me

Meet Bubba Readers argued with me about this during the Democratic primary, but I maintained then that I thought it would be very difficult for a non-Southern Democratic candidate to get any…

1 Us Soldier Killed Guerrillas

1 US Soldier Killed Guerrillas employed a roadside bomb to kill a US soldier near Salman Pak on Wednesday, and wounded one other. Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports that guerrilas used a car bomb,…

Fallujah And Allawis Fate Tom Lasseter

Fallujah and Allawi's Fate Tom Lasseter of Knight Ridder reviews the pros and cons of the coming US attack on Fallujah for caretaker Prime Minister Allawi. If the attack is swift and…

More On Lancet Stephen Soldz Has More

More on Lancet Stephen Soldz has more on why the Lancet article estimating 100,000 excess Iraqi deaths since the beginning of the war cannot lightly be dismissed, even if the headlines tended…

Mosul Car Bomb Ams Pledges Civil

Mosul Car Bomb AMS PLedges Civil Disobedience Campaign Wire services report that guerrillas tried to use a car bomb to assassinate an Iraqi general in Mosul. The explosion killed seven soldiers and…

Who Needs Sleep Cnn Is Calling

Who Needs Sleep? CNN is calling Michigan, Minnesota and Hawaii for Kerry. The total is 249 Bush, 242 Kerry at 2:35 am. Kerry may well get Wisconsin, as well, giving him 252.…

Race Up In Air Early Wednesday Morning

Race Up in Air Early Wednesday Morning As of this writing, Kerry could still win, but it won't be easy. Bush has a very small lead in Ohio, of about 100,000, at…

Carville Thinks It Is Over James

Carville thinks It is Over James Carville has essentially called the election for Bush. He says his contacts in Ohio are not able to give him any good news. Carville has been…

Kerry Takes Oregon Maine Cbs Is

Kerry takes Oregon, Maine CBS is projecting Washington, Oregon and California all for Kerry, and he gets all four electoral votes from Maine. This is excellent news for Kerry, since it makes…

Bush Is On Verge Of Winning Dan Rather

Bush is on the Verge of Winning? Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer are pointing out that with Kerry's loss of Florida, he needs to sweep Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, to win. If Bush…

Can Us System Be Reformed Given Talk

Can the US System be Reformed? Given the talk in Washington about whether it is possible to reform the Arab world, I found the discussion this evening on al-Jazeera amusing. They had…

Legal Stalling In Ohio Josh Marshall

Legal Stalling in Ohio? Josh Marshall is reporting that Republicans in Ohio have resorted to the courts to interfere with the election. NYT has some reporting on the back story from Monday…

Pennsylvania For Kerry Florida For

Pennsylvania for Kerry, Florida for Bush CNN is calling Pennsylvania for Kerry. They are still saying Florida is too close to call, but CNN analysts clearly think Bush has it in the…

Pennsylvania For Kerry Suburbs Kerry

Pennsylvania for Kerry? Suburbs? Kerry did amazingly well in exit polls in Philadelphia suburbs, according to AP. That could easily offset the Bush vote in the "T." This report is one of…

At Last Jon Stewart Is On Comedy

At last! Jon Stewart is on the Comedy Channel Nothing much is moving with regard to calling important states. The next poll closings are not until 11:00 EST. The easy things to…

Arab Americans Vote In Large Numbers

Arab-Americans vote in Large Numbers I'm watching al-Jazeera, which is broadcasting from Dearborn. The guests are saying that the Arab-Americans came out to vote in very large numbers. A Chaldean Christian representative…

Virginia North Carolina For Bush Cnn

Virginia, North Carolina for Bush CNN is calling Virginia and NC for Bush. CNN's exit polling seems to show Bush doing well in central Florida. Ohio, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin are all…

New Jersey Cnn Is Calling New Jersey

New Jersey CNN is calling New Jersey for Kerry. It had recently been thought to be in play. CNN is also saying that New Jerseyans who were concerned about terrorism (NJ lost…

New Minorities And Election South

New Minorities and the Election South Asian Americans include people from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, etc. In swing states like Ohio, they could be a factor, and some observers…

Voting Turnout Enormous Voting Turnout

Voting Turnout Enormous Voting turnout in Minnesota is so high that it may put in doubt the 1956 record of 83 percent. You have to go back, in other words, to the…

Bin Ladens Audio Threat To States

Bin Laden's Audio: Threat to States? A complete English transcript of the Bin Laden audiotape released last week has now been posted by al-Jazeera. The Arabic text, for those who can use…

20 Killed Or Wounded At Education

20 Killed or Wounded at Education Ministry Bombing 6 Hostages Taken Guerrillas detonated a car bomb outside the Ministry of Education in Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 5 persons and wounding…

Whats At Stake Revolutionary Vs

What's at Stake The Revolutionary vs. the Statesman The decision between Bush and Kerry will shape the world Americans live in during the next four years. Even though Bush has been called…

At Least 24 Dead Dozens Wounded Ap

At Least 24 Dead, Dozens Wounded AP reports that guerrillas fired a rocket into the Sunubar Hotel in Tikrit, leaving 15 Iraqis dead and 8 wounded. Guerrillas in Fallujah responded to days…