IRAQ
Occupation and Resistance Report

As the United State and its allies engages in yet another colonial occupation, it is essential that the real nature of this occupation be recorded. Further, as resistance to this occupation spreads, it is critical that information on this resistance be made available from a variety of sources.

[Speaking of and documenting this resistance in no way means that all opponents of US occupation are likeable folks who necessarily have the well-being of the Iraqi population as their priority. There is no reason to believe that the well-being or freedom of the Iraqi population figures in the calculations of the occupying powers, either. In any case, in the post-colonial world, it should not be up to the "occupying powers" to choose the way of life or the rulers of Iraq.]

Interviews with & Writings by Antiwar GIs & Vets

The Occupation

Occupation

Resistance

Analysis

Statement, but no action: Iraq PM won't sign death warrants. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

No. 2 at US Embassy in Baghdad accused of passing secrets to Israel: US Diplomat Is Named in Secrets Case. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Christian fascists continue their rampage at Air Force Academy: Generals for Jesus Ignore Air Force Academy Flap. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Latest on police execution in London: London: Last Police Lie Blown Off. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

They sound like Enron: Iraqi official unpleased with governorates' refusal for power supply to Baghdad. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Lock up even more in illegal concentration camps: US deploying paratroopers at Iraq prisons . (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Constitution: Delegates snagged on basic issues: Some have doubts sticking points can be erased in a week; Group Criticizes Iraq Constitution Panel; And: Non-Muslims’ Constitution Fears. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Iraqis vent rage on call-in TV after bombs kill 43. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

US soldier chronicles abuse, hard times in Iraq. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Protecting us from what? Babies Caught Up in 'No-Fly' Confusion. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Why the US won't withdraw until we force it to: The Biggest Jump at the Pump: 18-Cent Weekly Hike Sets 15-Year Record. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

A grizzly new record: Secrets of the morgue: Baghdad’s body count. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Sadr City: A Photo Essay. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Barbarism triumphant: Iraq Leader Paves Way for Legal Hangings. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

IMF tells Iraq that making populace suffer is critical for "growth," e.g., multinational corporate dominance: IMF slashes growth forecast for Iraq. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Not surprisingly: Psychological trauma widespread in Iraq. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Views on the constitution delay: Zaid Al-Ali on Open Democracy: Iraq: a constitution or an epitaph?; Reuters: Behind constitution talks, Iraq's troubles loom; Der Spiegel gives a roundup of the German press: Iraq's Draft Constitution Needs Revisions; LA Times: Fallout of Iraq Charter Delay Is Uncertain If the extension turns out to be the first of many, 'the impact will be considerable'; and Iraqi opinion: Failure to meet constitution date worries Iraqis; and the usual White house spin: White House Eyed Prompt Iraq Constitution. Finally: US pressure on Iraq could backfire, say experts. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Just another "regrettable" error: 26 civilians injured in US firing. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

War Crimes! US troops hold children hostages in northern Iraq: police. [Holding hostages is a war crime.] (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Reports Kurdish militia fired upon a demonstration of a religious minority resisting forced Kurdishization: Kurdish Gunmen Open Fire on Demonstrators in North Iraq. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Iraq press blasts government for ignoring basic needs: Newspapers say upgrading basic services is more important than drafting constitution. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

"Why talk about progress in the political process when the quality of life is deteriorating at all levels," said Al-Mashriq, a daily close to the Kurdish community. "Politics was invented to improve life, not to make it worse, but in Iraq this truth has been altered."

Sone out? Japan party to pull Iraq troops. Some in: Ecuador: Iraq mercenaries recruited. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Lies! Murder! As the London police claims about what the Brazilian man shot in the subway was doing have all proved to be lies, the death looks increasingly suspicious: Death in Stockwell: the unanswered questions . He wasn't wearing a heavy jacket. He used his card to get into the station. He didn't vault the barrier. And now police say there are no CCTV pictures to reveal the truth. So why did plainclothes officers shoot young Jean Charles de Menezes seven times in the head, thinking he posed a terror threat? Other evidence suggest cold-blooded murder: Leaked report lists 'blunders' as police shot bomb suspect. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

'[Death:] It was an execution - nothing more, nothing less,' Jean's cousin, Rubens de Menezes, says bluntly.

[Leaked:] Leaked witness statements from officers who took part in the botched operation reveal that Jean Charles de Menezes was being restrained by a member of the Yard’s surveillance team before being shot eight times as he sat on a Tube train

U.S., British Geodetic Surveyors Map Iraq. "A team of surveyors establish reference points for the Iraqi Geospatial Reference System, a system that helps create accurate maps to rebuild the Iraq's roads, bridges and pipelines." And, no doubt, for more precise bombing of targets. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

Freedom's over in the Islamic Republic: Under the clerics' thumbs. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

Drafting the constitution, Mohammed says, "is not for the interest of the Iraqi people but on what to give to certain groups. The Kurds want Kirkuk [an oil-rich city they consider the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan], and the Shiites want the Islamic Republic of Iraq, just like Iran's. The genie is out of the bottle in terms of political Islam [by Shiites] and the resistance [by Sunnis]. America will tolerate any conclusion so they can leave, even it means destroying women's rights and civil liberties. They have left us a regime like the Taliban. It's not limited to women's rights; it's a theocracy. Freedom to speak and self-expression are gone."

The new civil war in Washington. President who does absolutely nothing about foreign or military policy, and who doesn't even read the newspapers, vs. nearly everybody else: Bush, Pentagon may differ over 'war'. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

Constitution not agreed to by deadline: Iraq parliament extends constitution deadline. Juan Cole points out that Parliament does not have the right under the Transitional Administrative Law to extend the deadline now; it had to be done by August 1. New elections for Parliament are now legally required: Now They're moving the Goalpost. The TAL is now being ignored and Iraq now has no guiding law. If one TAL provision can be ignored, why not others, such as that allowing any three provinces to turn down the Constitution? (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

Previous tentative deals on issues such as the distribution of natural resources came apart as factions engaged in hard-nosed brinkmanship as the initial midnight deadline loomed.

Reuters on: Outstanding issues in debate on Iraq constitution. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

A Baghdad fruit seller on the Constitution: 'It is all promises and lies'. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

The New Iraq looks awfully like the Old Iraq: Torture complaint challenges Iraq constitution. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

Antonia Juhasz in the LA Times: Bush's economic invasion of Iraq: U.S. corporations march into Baghdad, at the expense of self-determination.. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

By all accounts, the draft constitution has failed to provide Iraqis with the means to control their economic future. As Iraq prepares for the October 15 referendum on the constitution these crucial issues must be added to the debate, and the influence of the Bush administration countered, so that Iraqis can truly determine their own economic and political fate. Just as discussions are finally emerging for ending the U.S. military occupation of Iraq, so too must the economic invasion be brought to an end.

Worst case for Iraqi constitution? Will Shia and Kurds ram through a draft over Sunni objections? Deadline for Iraq Constitution Arrives. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

With the deadline for the new constitution just hours away, Shiite and Kurdish leaders signaled they were prepared to submit the draft to parliament Monday - even over Sunni Arab objections.

US really getting desperate. Ambassador sort of says what US has refused to even hint at for 2 1/2 years. But notice language:"has no plans to set up permanent military bases." Of course, plans can always change if opportunity arises. He did not renounce any permanent bases: U.S. does not plan permanent Iraq bases. See, for background: Permanent U.S. Bases in Iraq? Experts See a Political Minefield. President Bush and his top advisors have never said the United States wants to establish permanent military bases in Iraq. But they have never ruled out the possibility either. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

Hobnobbing with the powerful, unlike Robert Fisk's perspective from the ground, the New York Times;s Dexter Filkins Doesn't see much hope of a cohesive country arising from "leaders" attempting to kill one another: A Nation in Blood and Ink. (POSTED: August , 2005)

We all pay, and pay, and... Nationwide gas prices set another record. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

As of Sunday night, a constitution deal looks questionable: On Eve of Deadline, Charter Isn't Ready: Iraqi Factions Divided on Host of Issues. See Juan Cole's commentary: Constitution likely Not Achieved. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

Time magazine claims Iran has a massive effort in Iraq to drive out the US and build a Tehran-friendly Shiite Islamic Republic. At this point, these claims should be taken with a huge grain of salt. They could be true. they also could be a massive US Psyops campaign. After all, why engage in such a high-risk endeavor when the US is helping defend a pro-Iranian Shia regime? Inside Iran's Secret War for Iraq. A TIME investigation reveals the Tehran regime's strategy to gain influence in Iraq--and why U.S. troops may now face greater dangers as a result. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

Doug Ireland on the horror that is Iran. Presumably, this is Iraq's future: Rape Charges? (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

Robert Fisk returns to Baghdad to practice unembedded journalism and goes grocery shopping: Ten Minutes. Followed by a visit to the home of a second grader whose head was crushed by a US tank: US Win? (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

Iraqis resent US and Britain telling them what should be in their constitution: Iraqis claim pressure in drafting constitution. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

Kirkuk demonstration Sunday: Kirkuk women demand %40 of seats. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

The New York Times Magazine writes of the thousands of mercenaries crawling around Iraq, doing whatever they want: The Other Army. (POSTED: August , 2005)

Al-Sadr supporter: Controversial cleric freed in Iraq. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

If this is what he does back in the US, what did he see, and perhaps, do in Iraq? 'Marine of Year' opened fire on noisy crowd. War is hell for all involved. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

Cotnoir, now a Marine reservist, was a military mortician in Iraq. During his deployment last year, he was responsible for preparing soldiers for open-casket funerals.

English teacher crippled by US torture in 3 1/2 years of confinement in gulag: Guantanamo Detainee Says Beating Injured Spine: Now in Wheelchair, Egyptian-Born Teacher Objects to Plan to Send Him to Native Land. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

He said military personnel and interrogators stomped on his back, dropped him on the floor and repeatedly forced his neck forward soon after his arrival at the prison. He said he has been denied an operation that could save him from permanent paralysis....

He said the military also forced a large object into his anus on what his lawyer called the "pretext" of doing a medical exam....

[After convincing the US kangaroo court of his total innocence:] Military interrogators have told Al-Laithi they may return him to Egypt, the birth country he fled 17 years ago, where he believes he will be imprisoned and tortured for his past criticism of rigged elections there. Al-Laithi, 49, would prefer to be sent elsewhere, including Pakistan or Afghanistan, where he lived for most of his adult life....

"They'd rather have them in detention in a country where there'll likely never be heard from again," said Jumana Musa, Amnesty's director of advocacy for domestic human rights. "It seems to be an effort to keep them from suing and to keep their cases and claims underground." Claims that detainees received serious injuries from their captors are becoming common, she said.

Shrub has Gen. Casey told off: Bush slaps down top general after he calls for troops to be pulled out of Iraq. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Giving up the fantasy. Unfortunately, many tens of thousands are now dead and millions suffer the consequences: US Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq: Administration Is Shedding 'Unreality' That Dominated Invasion, Official Says. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say....

"We set out to establish a democracy, but we're slowly realizing we will have some form of Islamic republic," said another U.S. official.

[As yet another sign of how out in la la land US policy-makers are:] U.S. officials now acknowledge that they misread the strength of the sentiment among Kurds and Shiites to create a special status. The Shiites' request this month for autonomy to be guaranteed in the constitution stunned the Bush administration, even after more than two years of intense intervention in Iraq's political process, they said....

[The damage was caused by US policy, NOT Saddam Hussein:] The most thoroughly dashed expectation was the ability to build a robust self-sustaining economy. We're nowhere near that. State industries, electricity are all below what they were before we got there," said Wayne White, former head of the State Department's Iraq intelligence team who is now at the Middle East Institute. "The administration says Saddam ran down the country. But most damage was from looting [after the invasion], which took down state industries, large private manufacturing, the national electric" system.

Yet another US massacre: 15 killed when attacked U.S. patrol returns fire -doctors. See Juan Cole comment: US attack on Mosque? Here, in contrast is the New York Times coverage: "Iraqis said that an American military patrol opened fire after a bomb exploded next to its convoy west of Baghdad on Friday, Reuters reported. Fifteen Iraqis were killed and 17 wounded in the incident, the news agency said. Whether the explosion was followed by insurgent gunfire is unclear, but Reuters quoted an American military official as saying that United States forces "were certainly not involved in any indiscriminate fire incident." Note the NYT doesn't bother telling Americans that the alleged firing was at worshipers leaving a mosque. Of course they also include it near the end of an article on a different topic. After all, deaths of Iraqis by Americans are hardly newsworthy, especially when denied by the US. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Following the explosion, U.S. troops opened fire, the residents said, shooting towards those emerging from the mosque. Munem Aftan, the director of Ramadi General Hospital, said 15 people were killed, including eight children, and 17 wounded.

[Cole:] So did the US fire on innocent civilians at prayer? Or was the mosque being used as an insurgent base, in the vain hope that the US would not hit a mosque? At this point, I have no way of knowing. But I can say that al-Zaman is a paper of record for Iraqis, and this reportage will be influential. Nothing would make Iraqis angrier at the US than such an attack on a mosque congregation at prayer,and they will likely believe the report.

Peter Beaumont: New dark age for Iraqi women. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Under American pressure: Iraqis paper over cracks to hit constitution deadline. But: Sunnis Pressured to OK Iraq Constitution. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Hussain Osman, one of the men alleged to have participated in London's failed bombings on July 21, recently told Italian investigators that they prepared for the attacks by watching "films on the war in Iraq," La Repubblica reported. "Especially those where women and children were being killed and exterminated by British and American soldiers...of widows, mothers and daughters that cry."

Quick! While they're still alive: Italy hastens troop withdrawal. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Fighting elections by opposing US war plans: Schroeder plays the Iran card. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Falling out among the War Party? War Messages That Don't Quite Match. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

What we don't know won't hurt them: Pentagon moves to block new Abu Ghraib photos. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Iraqi president orders detained women be set free if they're in Iraqi custody. All the President can do about those held by Americans is beg the ocupiers to let them go. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Iraqis writing American constitution. Or is it the other way around? U.S. Builds Pressure for Iraq Constitution as Deadline Nears. (POSTED: August , 2005)

Constitution or not, daily life suffers: The Aid Bottleneck. Despite continuing commitment from the international community, reconstruction efforts in Iraq are making little progress. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Iraq: Tuberculosis On the Rise. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

According to Dr. Dhafer Salman, head of the health ministry’s department for chest and respiratory diseases, a total of 2,668 people are currently being treated for the disease in Baghdad alone. Throughout the whole country there are 10,498 patients registered as suffering from TB, compared to just 4,753 in 1990. However, it is thought there are many more suffering from the disease who are too poor or too ashamed to come forward for treatment.

Claims of deal: Iraqi Leaders Reach Tentative Deal on Oil, Removing One Obstacle to a Constitution. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Sunni Arabs Fear Exclusion. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

The possibility of death around every corner. And now this: Police Don’t Make Marriage Material. Women are shunning suitors with high-risk jobs in the security forces. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Ousted Baghdad mayor says gun, not vote, rules Iraq. [Note: Juan Cole thinks the Mayor's removal was appropriate because SCRII won the Baghdad elections.] (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Poll numbers falling? Bush Threatens Force Against Iran. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

[Not being an American newspaper, the article includes:] IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei had underlined that there was no evidence Iran was developing nuclear weapons. The right to peaceful nuclear technology is enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that for 35 years has governed efforts to contain the spread of atomic weapons. The New Yorker’s award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh revealed in January 2005 that American commandoes have been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran....

[And:] "Iran made this decision because they are getting the impression that the United States and the Europeans are spineless," a senior official from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Israel itself is the only nuclear power in the Middle East.

No multiculturalism here: Hawaiian 'salute' angers brass. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

British MP Michael Meacher on the planned destruction of Iraq: My sadness at the privatisation of Iraq. The US transnational companies are taking over — and they'll benefit for years to come (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Before the US proconsul Paul Bremer left Baghdad, he enacted 100 orders as chief of the occupation authority in Iraq. Perhaps the most infamous was Order 39 which decreed that 200 Iraqi state companies would be privatised, that foreign companies could have complete control of Iraqi banks, factories and mines, and that these companies could transfer all of their profits out of Iraq. The “reconstruction” of the country amounts in effect to wholesale privatisation of the economy and is little short of economic colonisation.

These laws will not be reversed while 140,000 US troops remain in the country, or a network of US military bases planned to be retained in Iraq for a much longer period. Aid for rebuilding the electricity and water services, the oil industry, and the legal and security systems will reside with the US Embassy for many years to come.

If all 100 orders are taken together, they set the overall legal framework for overriding foreign exploitation of Iraq’s domestic market. They cover almost all facets of the economy, including Iraq’s trading regime, the mandate of the Central Bank, and regulations governing trade union activities. Collectively, they lay down the foundations for the real US objective in Iraq, apart from keeping control of the oil supply, namely the imposition of a neoliberal capitalist economy controlled and run by US transnational corporations.

But what is remarkable about these laws is not only their overall degree of control, but their far-reaching application. Order 81, for example, has the status of binding law over “patent industrial design, undisclosed information, integrated circuits and plant variety” — a degree of detailed supervision normally associated with a Soviet command-and-control economy. While historically the Iraqi Constitution prohibited private ownership of biological resources, the new US-imposed patent law introduces a system of monopoly rights over seeds. This is virtually a takeover of Iraqi agriculture.

Another American massacre: "Quick Strike" causes civilian casualties in western Iraq. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Can Britain declare war without Parliamentary approval? Inquiry to look at MPs' role in declaring war . (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Postpone the constitution, women say: Iraqi women urge lawmakers to ensure their rights are protected. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Major disagreements down to the wire: Iraqi leaders race to meet constitution deadline; Iraq''s Islamic clerics split over call for Shi''a federal region in the south; and: Sunni leaders reject demand for Shiite area. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Who cares, say many: Anger in Iraq as politicians argue over constitution. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

New York Times puff piece on the good life in Iraq. No bombs here, only air conditioning and audiovisual equipment: Life at the front: GIs savor the good life. What's Cindy Sheehan complaining about? Her son had the good life, while it lasted. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

And war as a futuristic Easter egg hunt: obot army ready for duty. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Google Earth: Troops Worried About Popular Google Feature: Soldiers Worry About Insurgents Using Information. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Iraqi debt deal in works. Profits being made: On Wall Street: Pathfinders on the Iraqi paper trail. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Bombing victims widely reported are a small fraction of the dead: Bombs bad enough, but guns worse in Baghdad: Death toll from shootings soars in capital's streets. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

A total of 1,100 corpses were received in July, a sharp increase from the previous record of 879 in June.... [M]ore than 60 percent of the deaths--676, or more than 20 a day--came from shootings, in yet another indicator that overall violence in the world's most violent capital keeps getting worse, even as the U.S. military and the Iraqi government insist that the insurgency is being tamed....

The figures point to the only clearly discernible trend to the violence in Iraq's capital: It keeps getting worse. The patterns shift, the methods evolve, the tactics adjust and the nature of the killings changes month to month, but there has been no letup in the dying. June was a peak month for beheadings, May was a record month for suicide bombings, and now assassinations and drive-by shootings are the trend. In recent weeks, politicians, government employees and religious leaders have been among the victims in what appears to be a coordinated campaign of assassinations....

"In the days of Saddam, we had maybe 16 shootings a month," Bakr said. "Now we have more than that every day."

Turning mass murder into a kangaroo court? Saddam could be tried and executed over minor case. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

The new Iraq: Audit: Iraq fraud drained $1 billion in Iraqi defense contracts. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

The Iraqi Board of Supreme Audit, in a report reviewed by Knight Ridder, describes transactions suggesting that senior U.S.-appointed Iraqi officials in the Defense Ministry used three intermediary companies to hide the kickbacks they received from contracts involving unnecessary, overpriced or outdated equipment....

The audit board's investigators looked at 89 contracts of the past year and discovered a pattern of deception and sloppiness that squandered more than half the Defense Ministry's annual budget....

Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who oversees the U.S. military's training of Iraqi troops, conducts weekly briefings with the defense minister. Other Iraqi defense officials seldom are spotted without American civilian advisers nearby. The close relationship has raised questions as to how $500 million or more could vanish without U.S. intervention to stop the suspicious contracts that flowed for at least eight months. "Ask them. I have the same question," al-Dulaimi said. "I blame those who posted them (the officials under investigation). And, by the way, the CPA posted them...."

Even as hints of a corruption scandal emerged last spring, Cattan told others in the ministry that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld personally had assured his job and no Iraqi had the power to remove him

US claims: Alleged Bin Laden Contact in Iraq Gov't. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

They should have thought of the consequences before setting up a torture center: Don't show photos, top brass says: Abu Ghraib images would threaten security -- Pentagon. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Senior Pentagon officials have opposed the release of photographs and videotapes of the abuse of inmates at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, arguing they would incite public opinion in the Muslim world and put the lives of U.S. soldiers and officials at risk, according to documents unsealed in federal court.... [What's in those photos?] The ACLU said the government was seeking to withhold the photos only to avert a bad reaction, undermining the purpose of the FOIA.

From PA, the price at home: With funding being cut by war in Iraq, Midway sewerage too pricey to expand. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

The crack-up accelerates: Clerics push for Shiastan in southern Iraq. See Juan Cole's comments: Federalism Issue Bedevils Constitution. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

bdul Aziz al-Hakim used a rally in the Shia holy city of Najaf to make one of the boldest pitches yet for a "Shiastan" encompassing the Gulf oilfields and almost half of Iraq's 26 million population. "Regarding federalism, we think that it is necessary to form one entire region in the south," he told tens of thousands of chanting supporters.

Afraid of popular rage: Despite Crushing Costs, Iraqi Cabinet Lets Big Subsidies Stand. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Workers fight back: New Resistance in Iraq. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Another record day: Oil surges to $66 a barrel. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Dancing on the dead for propaganda: Pentagon announces September 11 concert. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Duh! Iraqi: Iran smuggling reports exaggerated. Why would Iran aid enemies of its closest ally? (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Cover-up continues: ACLU 'have 60,000 documents of US torture and abuse'. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Romero noted that until the first photos of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib were made public in April 2004, the government had consistently denied that any wrongdoing had taken place despite news reports to the contrary. Since then, the ACLU has obtained through a court order more than 60,000 pages of government documents regarding torture and abuse of detainees. Despite this evidence, the government continues to minimize the extent of the torture and to describe it as the action of a few rogue soldiers.

Fighting for power: Political power struggles in Iraq feature expulsions and feuding. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Badr Brigades leader calls for federal Shia state in the south: Call for federal Shia state in Iraq. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

The Iraqi future draining away: Insecurity threatens to leave students with late start. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

"The capital, Baghdad, has been one of the most affected areas in Iraq and, last year, the quality of our education decreased shockingly," he added. "We may not have any other choice than to delay the current academic year in schools...."

Suheyla Hussein, 34, a Baghdad resident, complained that the combination of insecurity and educational decline was not new, and said that her children had not learned anything new in the last year. "My daughter has passed to a new school degree," she said, "but I can guarantee that she has not learned anything new - just few subjects, which were incomplete and without meaning," she said.

Update on Shia conflict in Samawah: Political turmoil hits Iraq town. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Iraq to probe smuggled weapons claim. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

"Our security agencies will investigate the US claims," Mr Jaafari told reporters today. "If we find any truth in these claims, we will not hesitate to take up the matter with Iranian authorities."

Britain and Basra: Democracy's ugly consequence. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

[O]nly $2 billion of the $18 billion-plus allocated by the US Congress was earmarked for the south. Only $1 billion has been spent, most on security. That is a source of resentment. The complaint is that for all the “restraint” in not attacking the “occupation”, there is no reward.

For troops, the bad news keeps rolling: Myers: Possibility of third Iraq tours for active-duty troops 'always out there' . (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Go North for opportunity and safety: Iraqi Arabs flock to Kurdish north for jobs, safety. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

"Here it is a wonderful life. The children are in school, my wife is happy and there is good work," he says. "I don't think I will ever return to Basra...."

Around 25 eye specialists alone have since taken the same route out of Basra, he says. At the Razgari out-patient clinic in Sulaimaniya, eight of the 13 doctors are Arabs who arrived in the past two years.... Young trainees, desperately needed in places like Baghdad and Basra where hospitals are understaffed and overworked, are also getting out.

Increasing alienation from corrupt government: Iraqis thirst for water and power: Lack of basic services is prompting growing protest aimed at Iraqi officials. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

We have two problems: the terrorists and the government that is stealing from us," he explains.

If they keep on spinning different views, will the public just give up any attempt to understand? U.S. tempers predictions on pullout from Iraq. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Isn't it a little late to notice? Iraq constitution limits religious freedom: US official. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Crude oil at record high, again: U.S. stocks end lower as crude surges. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Australian officers tried to control trigger happy Americans: Aussies kept gung-ho US in check. See also: Australian ex-army chief urges Iraq pullout by 2006. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Badr Brigade takes over Baghdad: Baghdad Mayor Is Ousted by a Shiite Group and Replaced (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Those who can, go: Baghdad elite flees Iraq and the daily threat of death. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Women suffer another indignity: Female circumcision surfaces in Iraq. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Of 1,554 women and girls over 10 years old interviewed by WADI's local medical team, 907, or more than 60 percent, said they had had the operation.

War pimp alert! Iran supposedly arming mortal enemy to fight closest ally: Iranian weapons are found in Iraq. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

War isn't bad for your health. at least not when the US will have to pay to put the pieces back together: Sticker shock over shell shock. The U.S. government is reviewing 72,000 cases in which veterans have been diagnosed with severe post-traumatic stress disorder, claiming that misdiagnosis and fraud have inflated the numbers. Outraged vets say the plan is a callous attempt to cut the costs of an increasingly expensive war. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Join the Marines and go broke: U.S. lags in payment to Iraq war veteran. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Fantasies of troops reductions NOT end to occupation: Iraq Troop Reductions Likely Next Year. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

For electricity alone: US $20 billion needed for electricity projects in next five years. What about clean water or schools? (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

This is the force that will take over? Iraq's 1st Brigade: Begging for basics. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Armored Humvees and helicopter gunships would be nice. But what the soldiers of Headquarters Company, 1st Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division, want more immediately is a gym. And cots that don't sag so much they need cinder blocks for support. Or a system that drains away the human sewage that pools in the street outside their barracks. Or working phones....

Requests to fix the camp's sewage system have also been ignored, he says. Large pools of human sewage bubble in the street outside the barracks of the base security platoon, sending strong, rank smells through the building....

So far, no one from the Defense Ministry has showed up, he says. "They don't understand our operation at all," says Kadum, who walks over to the U.S. barracks each night to check his e-mail. "They are kings playing chess with us.

Another day with sand in command: Sandstorm Brings Iraq To A Halt: Military operations slowed, airport and stores closed. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

“Today the situation is very strange,” said Arkan Adwan, 47, the owner of a butcher shop in the Karrada district of Baghdad. “Most of the streets are empty. Most of the shops are closed. This is the first time I've seen that.”

Women among the losers: Women Losing Out in Parliament. And: Rape Victims Suffer in Silence. (POSTED: August , 2005)

Smugglers among the winners: Subsidized Fuel Is Spirited Out of Iraq. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

A real Iraq: Photographs From Iraq: July 15 - 29, 2005. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

The extortion racket: Military Says Troops Demanded 'Rent' From Iraqi Vendors. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Michael Klare: Entering the Age of Resource Wars. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

The sand rules: Sandstorm forces delay in Iraq constitution talks. Choking Iraqis fill hospitals in crippling sandstorm. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Another aspect of daily life under occupation: Focus on boys trapped in commercial sex trade. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Amid all the troop withdrawal talk: Pentagon Expects to Send More Iraq Troops. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Claim: De Facto U.S. Withdrawal From Iraq Timetable Developed. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

US forces raid home of prominent Sunni official. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Torture is us: Documents Tell of Brutal Improvisation by GIs: Interrogated General's Sleeping-Bag Death, CIA's Use of Secret Iraqi Squad Are Among Details. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Another way the war comes home: The Iraq Infection. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Iraq as seen by one soldier on holiday in Ireland: 'America will never leave Iraq', US solider says. (POSTED: August 1, 2005)

"America is never going to leave Iraq," he claims. "We're building permanent bases out there now...."

Prostitution, he tells me, once illegal before the American occupation, is now rife in Iraq, and hundreds of girls throughout the country are being sold into the seedy world of brothels and sex slavery. "For one dollar you can get a prostitute in Iraq for one hour," Patrick says....

Patrick Lackatt is a mass of contradictions. Against the war in the Gulf, but all for the idea of invading a country to spread 'freedom': anti-Bush, but prone to using much of the President's parlance. As one Irish journalist noted about the United States: "Truly, America's irrational streak runs deep."

CIA agent who reported Iraq had dismantled its nuclear weapons program was fired: Spy's Notes on Iraqi Aims Were Shelved, Suit Says. (POSTED: August , 2005)

Female Iraqi police officers hold signs during a protest to demand their pay in the holy city of Najaf July 31, 2005. (POSTED: August 1, 2005)

Leaked emails claim Guantanamo trials rigged. (POSTED: August 1, 2005)

The first email is from prosecutor Major Robert Preston to his supervisor. Maj Preston writes that the process is perpetrating a fraud on the American people, and that the cases being pursued are marginal. "I consider the insistence on pressing ahead with cases that would be marginal even if properly prepared to be a severe threat to the reputation of the military justice system and even a fraud on the American people," Maj Preston wrote. "Surely they don't expect that this fairly half-arsed effort is all that we have been able to put together after all this time...."

Capt Carr says that the prosecutors have been told by the chief prosecutor that the panel sitting in judgment on the cases would be handpicked to ensure convictions. "You have repeatedly said to the office that the military panel will be handpicked and will not acquit these detainees and that we only needed to worry about building a record for the review panel," he said.

Protest, Resistance, and Civil War

Occupation

Resistance

Analysis

Thursday, four more Casey Sheehan's: Four U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq Bombing. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

5 Saudis die fighting U.S. forces in Iraq. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Sunni Muslim scholar assassinated. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Five more Casey Sheehan's announced Wednesday: Five US soldiers die in Iraq. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Wednesday, another horrible day: Triple Baghdad blasts kill dozens. Two US soldiers were killed in other attacks. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

[P]olice say their apparent co-ordination and planning means casualty figures are almost certain to rise.

Tuesday, three more families to greave: Three More 48th Guardsmen Killed. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Swiss demand guarantees for Iraq-bound tanks. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Canadian executed in Iraq: Kidnappers thought man's family wealthy, sought $250,000. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Monday: 17 killed in violence across Iraq; Three members of 278th killed in Iraq; and: Fort Drum female soldier killed in Iraq. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

In the "don't know their ass from their elbow" category: Report of suspects held in Marine deaths disputed. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

In Ramadi: Iraqi Sunnis Battle To Defend Shiites: Tribes Defy an Attempt by Zarqawi To Drive Residents From Western City. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

Statements posted on walls declared in the name of the Iraqi-led Mohammed's Army group that "Zarqawi has lost his direction" and strayed "from the line of true resistance against the occupation."

Central Bank manager kidnapped in Iraq. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

Iraq bombs, shooting kill six US troops. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Dating back about six months: Thirty bodies found in mass grave. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Psyops or true? U.S. Says It Found Suspected Chem Facility . (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

[In the era of test of microscopic samples:] However, the military cautioned that ongoing testing at the facility was "insufficient to determine what the insurgents had been producing."

Sadr group 'frees Iraq hostages'. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Saturday: 9 Killed In Iraq Attacks. And: Bodies found near Baghdad . (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

This is guerilla war, after all: Towns left vulnerable after being secured. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

General says attacks on US convoys in Iraq doubled in the past year. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Aug. Death Toll for Reserves in Iraq Soars. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Intelligence official assassinated in Basra, two Iranians kidnapped. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

unmen kidnap senior Iraqi official; five U.S. soldiers killed. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

The Shia death squads: Basrah murders implicate some police. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

10 doctors killed in Iraq . (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Unidentified gunmen ambushed a group of doctors on their way to help at hospitals, west of Baghdad, killing 10 of them, said medical sources on Wednesday....

Despite armor, more Iraq troops dying in Humvees. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Wednesday: Rebels kill six US soldiers. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

In 48 hours: Nine U.S. troops die in separate incidents in Iraq. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Washington Post has al-Zarqawi puff piece: The Web as Weapon: Zarqawi Intertwines Acts on Ground in Iraq With Propaganda Campaign on the Internet. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Insurgents kill 28 people in Iraq as constitution meeting begins. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Fallouja May Be in Rebel Sights. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Fake body counts, again: Analysis: Iraq statistics tell grim story. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Defending their towns from invaders: Insurgents prove to be elusive enemy. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

In the Shia south: Insurgents attack police as unrest grips Iraq town. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Sunday: Car bomb explodes south of Baghdad while the US military reports five soldiers died yesterday. (POSTED: July 31, 2005)

Saturday: Bomb kills British guards near Basra. (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

Iraqi petroleum-laden train blown up. (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

Anti-occupation and religious hatred: In Jordanian Case, Hints of Iraq Jihad Networks. (POSTED: June , 2005)

Mr. Horani's mother and three of his friends indicated in interviews that he and his ring were motivated by little more than the deep opposition to the American occupation of Iraq that pervades society here. Two of the friends interviewed were arrested as part of the same investigation and later released. Mr. Horani's mother, Hesmat Abdul Rahman, recalled that her son had become angrier and angrier as he watched television images of the American invasion. Under such circumstances, "it is almost a must to do jihad," his mother said, defending her son. "This is our religion." Those images showed the toppling of a Sunni Arab-led government, ultimately in favor of the majority Shiites. Like nearly all Jordanian Arabs, Mr. Horani and his family are Sunni. "He hates the Shiites," Mrs. Rahman said.

US claim: Cash couriers supplying Iraq militants -US official. (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

Friday: Two marines killed in Iraq. And: At least 26 dead in Iraq suicide attack. (POSTED: June , 2005)

Thursday: Three US soldiers killed, six injured in Iraq. And: Suspected bomb hits oil train near Baghdad. (POSTED: June 29, 2005)

Overflowing morgue testament to Iraq's mayhem. (POSTED: July 28, 2005)

Another bloody day: 5 dead, 15 injured in Iraq violence; Insurgents Kill 12 Iraqi Workers; Water plant attack kills seven Iraqi soldiers; Algeria confirms 2 diplomats in Iraq have been killed; and: Five Soldiers [US] Killed, Five Wounded in Two Incidents in Iraq. (POSTED: June 28, 2005)

A German view from Der Spiegel: Is the Country Heading for Civil War? (POSTED: July 27, 2005)

From the outside, it seems like chaotic violence. But it's worse than that. In Iraq, Sunni Muslim suicide commandos are launching bloodbaths among the Shiites, gradually edging the country toward civil war. Instead of becoming a democratic beacon for the entire region, Iraq is on the verge of disintegrating.

In Baghdad quarter, killers don't hide their faces. (POSTED: July 27, 2005)

Alarm on fire engine thefts. (POSTED: July 27, 2005)

Beware the protectors: "Who's the enemy?" distraught Iraqis wonder. And: Iraqi police recruits often poor-quality. (POSTED: July 26, 2005)

Six more US troops killed in two days: Four 48th soldiers killed in bomb attack; Task Force Liberty Soldier Killed in Samarra; and: One Task Force Liberty Soldier Killed and Two Wounded by Indirect Fire. (POSTED: June 26, 2005)

Sunday: Suicide truck bomber kills up to 40 in Baghdad. (POSTED: July 24, 2005)

The New York Times: Defying US Efforts, Guerrillas in Iraq Refocus and Strengthen. (POSTED: June , 2005)

Despite months of assurances that their forces were on the wane, the guerrillas and terrorists battling the American-backed enterprise here appear to be growing more violent, more resilient and more sophisticated than ever.

US Gen.: Iraq Forces Need More Training before they'll fight to defend US imperial interests. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

Friday: Attacks kill 16 in Iraq. Bride killed in Iraq. And: Iraq Bombing Kills U.S. Marine Outside Fallujah, Military Says. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

Thursday: Sailor killed in Iraq. And: Two Algeria Diplomats Kidnapped in Iraq. (POSTED: July 22, 2005)

Thursday, at least 15 dead so far: Death count rising from another day of attacks in Iraq. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

The Guardian's Ghaith Abdul-Ahad spent weeks with an "elite" Iraqi army unit and wasn't impressed: New blood. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

One Iraqi officer also speaks of the influence of the Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the biggest Shia political party which now controls the National Assembly and the ministry of the interior. "The Badr Brigade is the biggest terrorist group and they run the interior ministry. The Kurds are running the MoD [Ministry of Defense]. The first thing they ask you when you want to become an officer is, 'Are you an Arab or a Kurd?' " Most Arab applicants, he maintains, are now being turned down for officer status....

On the American side of the base the soldiers mock the Iraqis when they speak about them; a kind of apartheid prevails. On the US side, a sign on a shower door reads: "Iraqis are prohibited from using showers designated for Americans." A young officer tells me: "We keep talking about partnership and we want them to fight with us, but we can't share showers with them."

Neighborhood Militias Proposed in Iraq. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

One town, besieged from all sides: Luckless town in Iraq dazed. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

Tuesday: Three Sunni members of the constitution drafting committee were killed today: Iraq early constitution hopes fade. another account says the killed were two members and an aide: Two Sunnis on Iraq's constitutional panel killed. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

Tuesday: 13 killed in Iraq ambush. (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

The disintegration of Iraq: Frustrated Iraqis ready to take law into own hands. (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

Cut off flow of recruits, he says [how?] Iraq Official Advises on Ending Insurgency (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

The BBC's John Simpson: Iraq's descent into bombing quagmire. (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

I have been here eleven times. Each time the security situation has been markedly worse than the time before.

Monday: Gunmen Kill at Least 24 in Iraq. Six policemen, government worker killed in Iraq. (POSTED: July 18, 2005)

Sunday: Two US soldiers killed, two wounded in Iraq. And: 22 Die in New Attacks. (POSTED: July 18, 2005)

Death toll now at 98 in Saturday's horror: Iraq fuel truck bomb devastates town, kills 98. (POSTED: July 17, 2005)

"After the bomb I went over there and found my son's head. I could not find his body," said Mohsen Jassim of his 18-year-old son....

"The plans of the interior and defence ministries to impose security in Iraq have failed to stop the terrorists. We need to bring back popular militias," senior parliamentarian Khudair al-Khuzai told the chamber.

More Saturday carnage: Suicide bomber truck kills 55 in Iraq. Bombers hit Iraqi Shia mosque with at lest 8 killed. And: Iraq foils assassination attempt on the Interior Minister. (POSTED: June , 2005)

Filling the gulags: 217 suspects arrested in Iraq within 24 hours. (POSTED: July 17, 2005)

Friday night: Blast Targets Iraqi President's Home. (POSTED: July 17, 2005)

Saturday: 3 British soldiers killed in Iraq. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

Day after day they continue as the civil war creeps ever closer: Five Iraqi men 'executed'. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

Friday: Suicide bomb spree kills 20 across Baghdad. Three of Iraqi President's Guards Killed. And: Two U.S. Marines killed near Jordanian border. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

No "progress": General: Iraq Insurgency Static in Size. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

Michael Georgy: Iraq suicide attacks raise tough questions. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

An al-Qaeda claim on Friday that Iraqis carried out a triple suicide bomb attack in Baghdad raises troubling questions over whether more locals are joining a deadly campaign dominated by foreign militants....

Three Iraqi militants interviewed by Reuters said that they had opposed al-Qaeda in the past because of its "extreme" views but were ready to join ranks with it to end the US occupation. "We did not agree with al-Qaeda before. But now I am ready to blow myself up because the Americans killed my brother," said Abdullah, 25, an Iraqi militant from Falluja.

Corpes are found by the dozen as police join death spree. (POSTED: July 15, 2005)

Journalists attacked again: Gunman attacks an Iraqi television crew. (POSTED: July 15, 2005)

Thursday: Iraq Suicide Bombers Strike Green Zone. (POSTED: July 15, 2005)

Threats driving Shiites out of homes, government seen powerless to protect them. (POSTED: July 15, 2005)

Wednesday's horror: 27 killed in Baghdad suicide blast. Police: Most of dead were children getting treats from U.S. troop. And: Suicide bomb attack kills 2 near mosque in Iraq. The mosque was Sunni. (POSTED: July 14, 2005)

Al-Zarqawi criticized by clerical mentor: Al-Zarqawi Blasts Mentor For Remarks. (POSTED: July 13, 2005)

Al-Barqawi, known in militant circles as Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi, said in an interview with Al-Jazeera from Jordan last week that militants in Iraq should revise their tactics, saying "the number of Iraqis killed in suicide operations has become a tragedy."

Two US soldiers killed in western Baghdad. (POSTED: July 12, 2005)

Eleven Iraqi soldiers killed as diplomats promised more protection. (POSTED: July 12, 2005)

Many dead in Iraq suicide blast. (POSTED: July 11, 2005)

Iraq karate official kidnapped. (POSTED: July 11, 2005)

Sunday: Suicide bombers kill 30 in Iraq: 70 left wounded in three Iraqi cities. And: 8 Members of Shiite Family Slain in Iraq. (POSTED: July 10, 2005)

Huge fire at Iraq refinery after mortar attack. (POSTED: July 10, 2005)

Wednesday: Car bombs kill many in Iraq. (POSTED: July 8, 2005)

Patrick Cockburn: Zarqawi's pledge to target Shia militia fuels tension. (POSTED: July 7, 2005)

Another step in civil war: Al-Qaeda boss Zarqawi forms 'Omar Brigade' to fight Badr Brigade. Then: Badr commander killed in Baghdad. (POSTED: July 7, 2005)

The brutality game continues: Qaeda says will kill Egypt's Iraq envoy. (POSTED: July 7, 2005)

US delight as Iraqi rebels turn their guns on al-Qa'eda. They won't delight if the Iraqi nationalists win, leading to greater opposition unity against occupation. (POSTED: July 7, 2005)

Islamic diplomats forced out: Bahrain's top diplomat shot in Baghdad. And: Pakistani Envoy Leaving Iraq After Attack. (POSTED: July 5, 2005)

Russian diplomats also attacked: Russian Embassy cars fired on in Iraq. (POSTED: July 6, 2005)

Analysis, Commentary, & Domestic Reaction

Occupation

Resistance

Analysis

The Peaceful Occupation of Crawford . (POSTED: August 19, 2005)

Must Read! Norman Solomon: The Iraq War and MoveOn. (POSTED: August 19, 2005)

Must Read! Bob Herbert hits the nail on the head. Like Cindy Sheehan, the antiwar movement should hammer this point every day and every night. It is the essence of this war: A game played by the rich and powerful, using working class young men and women as their pawns: Blood Runs Red, Not Blue. (POSTED: August , 2005)

You have to wonder whether reality ever comes knocking on George W. Bush's door. If it did, would the president with the unsettling demeanor of a boy king even bother to answer? Mr. Bush is the commander in chief who launched a savage war in Iraq and now spends his days happily riding his bicycle in Texas....

If only the war were more entertaining. Less of a downer. Perhaps then we could meet the people who are suffering and dying in it. For all the talk of supporting the troops, they are a low priority for most Americans. If the nation really cared, the president would not be frolicking at his ranch for the entire month of August. He'd be back in Washington burning the midnight oil, trying to figure out how to get the troops out of the terrible fix he put them in....

"For the second time since the Iraq war began, the Pentagon is struggling to replace body armor that is failing to protect American troops from the most lethal attacks by insurgents." Scandalous incompetence? Appalling indifference? Try both. Who cares? This is a war fought mostly by other people's children. The loudest of the hawks are the least likely to send their sons or daughters off to Iraq....

If the war in Iraq is worth fighting - if it's a noble venture, as the hawks insist it is - then it's worth fighting with the children of the privileged classes. They should be added to the combat mix. If it's not worth their blood, then we should bring the other troops home.

In the New York Times, Thomas Lynch gets to the essence of Bush: Left Behind.. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

And maybe this is the part I find most distancing about my president, not his fanatic heart - the unassailable sense he projects that God is on his side - we all have that. But that he seems to lack anything like real remorse, here in the third August of Iraq, in the fourth August of Afghanistan, in the fifth August of his presidency - for all of the intemperate speech, for the weapons of mass destruction that were not there, the "Mission Accomplished" that really wasn't, for the funerals he will not attend, the mothers of the dead he will not speak to, the bodies of the dead we are not allowed to see and all of the soldiers and civilians whose lives have been irretrievably lost or irreparably changed by his (and our) "Bring it On" bravado in a world made more perilous by such pronouncements.

I was there. Were you? US vigils support anti-war mother. Hundreds of thousands of Americans were out tonight. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Another Gold Star Mom Speaks Out: Will Celebrity-Addicted America Miss the Point? (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Oregon Mothers Head to Crawford Vigil. And: Tracy Mom Journeys to Texas in Support of Anti-War Protest. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Senator John Edwards, D-NC, asks for support for Cindy Sheehan: 'Listen to Cindy'. Sign her Petition. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Patrick Buchanan: Cindy Sheehan: Anti-war catalyst. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

What is remarkable is that no Democrat has stepped forward, as Gene McCarthy did, to lead an anti-war crusade and call for a date certain for withdrawal of U.S. troops. Cindy Sheehan is filling that vacuum.

Alison Neumer Lara: Deep in the heart of Texas, a mother waits, hoping to get `as close to the truth' as she can. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

For the humor value: O'Reilly Desperate To Destroy Sheehan But Fails. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Sen. Russ Feingold: Wisconsin senator calling for Iraq pullout by end of 2006. Run for President, Russ!' we need an antiwar candidate. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

David Chandler: A step back for democracy in Iraq. In all the wrangling about the constitution, the one group nobody is consulting is the Iraqi people. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

[T]he problem in Iraq is the lack of democratic involvement in the political process. Even the constitutional question is driven from above. The sectarian debate is the result of political elites negotiating with international administrators, not arguing with each other, or galvanising and broadening their constituencies.

Wayne White, who previously served as a top intelligence official in the U.S. State Department, on the constitution: Another rush job in Iraq. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Aaron Glantz says the US has no respect for what Iraqis want: Iraq: A Constitution Without Freedom. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

The issue here is respect. Until the Bush Administration learns to respect the will of the Iraqi people, it won’t matter what they write in their Constitution. What matters is respect on the ground.

Jihad Khazen: An Iranian Style Islamic Republic. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Martin Schram: The new bottom line in Iraq. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Eileen McNamara on veteran PTSD: Don't forget them now. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Robert Jensen: America's Good Germans? A Mercenary Society. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Right now there is incredible tension in U.S. culture. Many continue to hold on tightly to the idea that the service personnel are being killed and maimed in Iraq for a noble cause, which is hardly surprising; acknowledging that a loved one was killed in the pursuit not of liberty and justice, but instead for elite domination, can intensify the already deep pain of the loss. Others are abandoning illusions and recognizing the motivations of the powerful. Obituaries of dead soldiers talk of their "great pride in serving their country, while a collective sense that the Iraq War is nothing to be proud of deepens every day. No one wants to demonize the front-line troops -- those with the least power to change policy -- but the reality of why the U.S. military fights, along with the brutal way in which the wars are fought, become increasingly hard to ignore.

The Cowboy-In-Chief thought he could ignore reality on the path to glory: Bush Ignored the Truth About Iraq. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Iraq news unsettling Bush party . (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

President Bush Job Approval tumbles "five points over the past week to the lowest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports." (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Linda Milazzo: A Challenge to Reporters: It's Time to Hawk the Chickens. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

'Who in YOUR family is fighting in this war?' If this question were mandatory for those who tout the war, then its most vocal defenders would be silenced.

Richard Bradley: Are the Bush Twins AWOL? (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

So here's a question I think a White House reporter should ask the president: " President Bush, if your own two daughters won't enlist, how can you expect anyone else's children to join the military?"

Ted Rall: Sacrifice? Count Me Out: If You Supported the War, Pay For It. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

If you voted for Bush, here's your chance to plant your butt where your ridiculous car magnet is, smack dab in the middle of the Sunni Triangle. Good luck.

Mike Whitney: The Washington Post and the Decline of the Superpower. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Joseph L. Galloway: Congress has earned its share of the blame for war mistakes. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

So when the time comes to point a finger don't forget those who people the marble halls of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives whose first duty seemed to be to protect the Republican Party and their president. When they should have roared with anger they instead whimpered and whined and rolled over like puppies to have their bellies scratched.

Attacks on those opposing imperial war are nothing new: Blaming the Antiwar Messengers: Blaming the Antiwar Messengers. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

Right wing pundits on why dissent against war is patriotic and supports the troopd: Ahh, the good ol' days. (POSTED: August 18, 2005)

"You can support the troops but not the president." -- Rep Tom Delay (R-TX)

Cindy Sheehan: Day 10 The Peaceful Occupation of Iraq - Putting out Fires. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

[W]e are doing it FOR the people of Iraq and the other soldiers who are in harm's way right now. Right after we heard about the crosses last night, a Camp Casey volunteer found out that a pen pal she had in Iraq was KIA on August 12th. This has to stop, now. We will stop it.

As we face nation-wide Vigils for Cindy tonight, here's pictures from last Saturday's vigil in Boston: Aug 13, 2005, Cindy Sheehan asks Bush: "Why?" (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

The Right sharpens the knives: Sheehan Feeling the Glare of the Spotlight: Some Are Focusing Anger on Protester. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Justin Raimondo: In Defense of Cindy Sheehan: Antiwar Mom Gets Slimed. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

More evidence that 911 panel was a cover-up, not an investigation: Fears of backlash kept pre-9/11 data from FBI. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Maureen Dowd: Biking Toward Nowhere. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Niagra Falls Reporter: Bush a Coward. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

New campaign starting: People's Petition for a Way Out of Iraq. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Tom Hayden: An exit strategy for Iraq now. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

It is the right moment for the peace movement to turn its slogan into a strategy.

Danny Schechter the News Dissector: What's the Best Way to 'Support Our Troops'? Questioning the slogan du jour of demagogues. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

The true American heroes: More Gold Star and Military Families Join Cindy Sheehan in Crawford. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Former FBI whistleblower Rowley to join protest at Bush ranch. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

The exodus of grief and anger to Crawford. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Relative of man who shot in the air at Camp Casey offers land closer to Bush: Antiwar protester Sheehan to move campsite. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

The source said Fred Mattlage made the offer saying "I'm a veteran, I support what you all are doing and I want to offer you my land."

Must Watch! Cindy Sheehan and The Daily Show: Crawford, Texas: The Daily Show Way [watch] (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Cartoon: Tea with Cindy. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Wife of US propagandist pretends to be Iraqi woman to attack Cindy Sheehan: Bush brings in an Iraqi ringer. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Don't let the bastards win! US right targets anti-war mother. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

First it was gunshots, now a truck drives over the crosses commemorating dead soldiers at Camp Casey. the fascist right is just getting going: Anti-American Asshat Mows Down Crosses at Camp Casey. Here is information of the alleged perpetrator, who has been arrested Larry Northern, Cross Mower. And a brief phone conversation with Cindy Sheehan about the incident. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Celeste Zappala and Dante Zappala, mother and brother of Sgt. Sherwood Baker, who was killed in Iraq in 2004: Cindy Sheehan's Fellowship Of Grief. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

FED UP! Parents of fallen Marine make plea to Bush: 'Fight this war right or get out'. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Palmer accused the president of refusing to make changes in a war gone bad. ``Whether he leads them out by putting more troops on the ground or pulling them out he can't just let it continue,'' she said.

Hell No! We Won't Pay! US anti-war group won't pay Iraq sanctions fine. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Peggy Gish of Christian Peacemaker Teams: What's Happening in Iraq? (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

A few Editorials. Rutland Herald: Cauldron of chaos; Palm Beach Post: Bush's answers on Iraq aren't those he's giving; and Keene Sentinel Source: Handling the war. (POSTED: August , 2005)

A sample from the Commentariat. John Farmer: In Iraq and at home, Bush is losing the war; Dave Zweifel: Around US, Iraq Mess Finally Sinks In; and Thomas Oliphant: Deceptive talk about Iraq. (POSTED: August , 2005)

James Zogby: The Quandary Called Iraq. (POSTED: August 17, 2005)

Amy Branham, " Mother of fallen hero Jeremy R. Smith": Camp Casey Revisited. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

Missy Comley Beattie , "aunt of Marine Lance Cpl. Chase J. Comley of Lexington who was killed in Iraq last weekend": Iraq war: tragedy of errors: Honorable Marine died in dishonorable war. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

And think of someone who says, "We will not cut and run," but who did just that years ago when he was called.

Think about a man who speaks about a culture of life when the words fit a wedge issue such as abortion or the right to die when medical effort has failed. Then think about this war, Bush's not-so-intelligently designed culture of death....

So think of my family's grief -- grief that will never end. Think of all the families. Think of the wounded, the maimed, the psychologically scarred. And then consider: The preservation of our freedom rests not on U.S. imperialism but on actively changing foreign policies that are conquest-oriented and that dehumanize our own young who become fodder for endless war as well as people in other countries who are so geographically distant that they become abstract.

Luther Keith: Like Bush, we're on break, too. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

Is George W. Bush the wartime president or the vacation president?

Justin Raimondo: Bush Against the Generals: Iran, the White House, and the purge of the military. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

It's the night of the long knives in the Pentagon, as the War Party cleans out suspected dissidents from the top ranks of the military and prepares for the next move on the Middle Eastern chessboard....

In Bizarro America, after all, anything might happen – including uniformed generals leading the antiwar movement.

Khaleej Times: Keep Iraq united. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

Doug Bandow: of the Cato Institute: All-Volunteer Military Imperiled by Call for a Draft. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

Clarence Page: Mr. President, can we talk about the war too? Cindy Sheehan's vigil raises uncomfortable questions for Bush. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

Australian Bruce Grant: It's now about getting out of the Iraq mess. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

Lt. Gen. William E. Odom: Let's get out of Iraq (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

If I were a journalist, I would list all the arguments that you hear against pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, the horrible things that people say would happen, and then ask: Aren't they happening already? Would a pullout really make things worse? Maybe it would make things better....

The invasion of Iraq only serves the interest of:

Osama bin Laden. It made Iraq safe for al-Qaida, positioned U.S. military personnel in places where al-Qaida operatives can kill them occasionally, helps radicalize youth throughout the Arab and Muslim world, alienates America's most important and strongest allies - the Europeans - and squanders U.S. military resources that otherwise might be finishing off al-Qaida in Pakistan.

The Iranians, who were invaded by Saddam and who suffered massive casualties in an eight-year war with Iraq.

And the extremists in both Palestinian and Israeli political circles. Those extremists don't really want a peace settlement without the utter destruction of the other side. They probably believe that bogging the United States down in a war in Iraq that will surely become a war between the United States and most of the rest of Arab world gives them the time and cover to wipe out the other side.

The wisest course for journalists might be to begin sustained investigations of why leading Democrats have failed so miserably to challenge the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The first step, of course, is to establish as conventional wisdom the fact that the war was never in the U.S. interest and has not become so. It is such an obvious case to make that I find it difficult to believe many pundits and political leaders have not already made it repeatedly.

Even Bush administration-paid commentator Armstrong Williams says:: Time to Get Out of Iraq. I guess they forgot to send his check this month. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

Paul Starr: Letting Go of Iraq. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

Even if the United States were to remain in Iraq for years providing its defense, the news might still come, once we finally left, that some strongman had seized power and was waving his fist at us. We cannot control the destiny of Iraq. The sooner we face up to that fact, the clearer the road home will be.

Ehsan Ahrari : Three-way pull in Iraq. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

[T]he chances are high that before democracy is firmly placed in Iraq, it might take a detour and become such an explosive society that it will bring about the ejection of the US from its borders. There are no guarantees for success. George W Bush is in for even more surprises in the new Iraq.

At Camp Casey: Shots fired near Bush protesters. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

Washington Post employees protest paper's support for pro-war propaganda rally: 'Wash Post' Guild Leaders Want Paper Out Of Sept. 11 'Freedom Walk' . (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

Norman Solomon: Someone Tell Frank Rich the War Is Not Over. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

John Bolton visits Judy Miller. How sweet! The Judy File: Miller’s UN-likely Visitor. (POSTED: August 16, 2005)

A return to the fun of Plamegate, watching the Rove squirm: What Now, Karl? Rove and Ashcroft face new allegations in the Valerie Plame affair. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

Joseph Biden and John McCain, portraits in infamy: U.S. lawmakers call for more American troops in Iraq. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

Tom Engelhardt: Cindy, Don, and George: On Being in a Ditch at the Side of the Road. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

Time indicates the Bush folks are waiting for the opportunity to pounce and destroy Cindy Sheehan. They've done it so many times: A Mother And the President. See also from Time: A Bereaved Mother's Crawford Vigil. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

Cindy Sheehan or Tweedledee? The Democrats willingly embrace irelevance: Democrats embrace tough military stance. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

Jerry Fresia: Sheehan Strategy. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

Meanwhile, in Kentucky... (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

But on Friday, Comley's grandmother, 80-year-old Geraldine Comley of Versailles, described herself in an interview as a former Republican stalwart who is "on a rampage" against the president and the war. She said she would like nothing better than to join Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier who has been holding a peace vigil outside President Bush's ranch in Texas. "When someone gets up and says 'My son died for our freedom,' or I get a sympathy card that says that, I can hardly bear it," Geraldine Comley said.

Shrub doesn't want life upset by meeting someone who disagrees with him: Bush will `go on with life': Defends refusal to meet protester. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

"But," he added, "I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life."

Unvarnished view, but generally not antiwar: The New Ernie Pyles: Sgtlizzie and 67cshdocs: On Internet Blogs, Soldiers in Iraq Offer Up Inside Story on the War. (POSTED: August 15, 2005)

Frank Rich: Someone Tell the President the War Is Over. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Like the Japanese soldier marooned on an island for years after V-J Day, President Bush may be the last person in the country to learn that for Americans, if not Iraqis, the war in Iraq is over. "We will stay the course," he insistently tells us from his Texas ranch. What do you mean we, white man?...

The country has already made the decision for Mr. Bush. We're outta there.

Across the country: Doubt on war grows in U.S.: Even supporters say the effort isn't worth loss of American lives (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Naomi Klein: Terror's Greatest Recruitment Tool. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Michael Zweig Director of the Center for Study of Working Class Life at Stony Brook University In Iraq, hope should spring internal. Labor leaders in war-torn nation are right to urge an end to U.S. occupation and seek a rise of unions. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

The unions, representing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi workers in transportation, agriculture, construction and the oil industry, are eager to build a democratic society with equality for women and without discrimination on the basis of religion.

Arabic: Press alarm over Iraq federalism. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Karen Kwiatkowski: The Rise of the Stupid. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

The "America, love it and have someone else die for it" crowd shows up: More war protesters, Bush supporters rally in Crawford. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Watch the new: Cindy Sheehan TX Ad [Quicktime]. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Not just Cindy: N.J. mom on front lines of Bush ranch protest. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

The last time Niederer and the first lady met - last November - Niederer, then a lone protester at a central New Jersey campaign rally, was led away in handcuffs. This time, she was left alone, along with hundreds of others who had joined Cindy Sheehan in a makeshift camp in ditches off a lonely road leading to the Bush home....

"She said she would stay there until [Bush] meets with her," said David Cline, a Jersey City resident and national president of Veterans for Peace. Members from his group have come from all over the country, said Cline, a Vietnam veteran who arrived on Thursday, along with Niederer. "Some people think she's a saint," he said of Sheehan, with a chuckle. "She's quite spiritual, determined and very friendly."

Washington Post page A1, above the fold! Cindy Sheehan's Pitched Battle: In a Tent Near Bush's Ranch, Antiwar Mother of Dead Soldier Gains Visibility. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Cindy Sheehan: Camp Casey Day 7- We Don’t Have to Be Angry Anymore. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

We had a very interesting day. We had Bush drive by really, really fast twice. I caught a glimpse of Laura. I was hoping after she saw me that she would come down to Camp Casey with some brownies and lemonade. I waited for her, but she never came....

[Shades of Vietnam GI resistance:] Three active duty soldiers from Ft. Hood came to visit me and tell me that they really appreciated what I was doing and that if they were killed in the war, their moms would be doing the same thing.

Farhad Manjoo interviews Cindy Sheehan: Smearing Cindy Sheehan. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

George Henson: Cindy Sheehan and the Madres de La Plaza de Mayo. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Measuring the Cindy Web Phenomenon. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Cindy Sheehan is the most searched for term on www.technorati.com/

David Krieger: Fable of the Emperor and the Grieving Mother. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

The Coward-In-Chief: Bush uses Radio Address to talk to Cindy Sheehan. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

When CNN skewers Shrub, he's in trouble: CNN wants to know if Bush should take less time off? [or more? Quicktime]. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Cindy Sheehan "changed her story on Bush"? Tracking a lie through the conservative media. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

It Takes a Village to Smear Cindy Sheehan. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Republicans Chant "We Don't Care" At Cindy Sheehan . (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Norman Solomon Cindy Sheehan's Message Repudiates George Bush -- and Howard Dean. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Ari Berman: The Strategic Class. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

The continued high standing of the hawks has been made possible by their enablers in the strategic class--the foreign policy advisers, think-tank specialists and pundits. Their presumed expertise gives the strategic class a unique license to speak for the party on national security issues.... It's more than a little ironic that the people who got Iraq so wrong continue to tell the Democrats how to get it right.

Baltimore Sun puts oil-for-food scandal in perspective: Lucrative Iraq. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

But since 2003, the disbursement of aid and reconstruction funds in Iraq has not been in the hands of the United Nations, and if anything the record is even more dismal. The interim government of Ayad Allawi, installed by the United States, has been accused of widespread corruption; an illustrative if not particularly imaginative example concerns the contract for garbage-hauling in Baghdad, which increased fivefold.

But crooked Americans weren't idly standing by. More than $7 million in cash went missing from a small American aid office in the city of Hilla, and there has been no explanation. The special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction issued his latest report in July; he said he has found millions of dollars worth of fraud by U.S. officials and contractors. Members of Congress are still trying to find out more about $200 million in questionable Halliburton invoices from work in Iraq in 2003, but the Pentagon has been stonewalling.

This starts to add up to a lot of money. And the inspector general says almost $9 billion has been dispensed to Iraqi ministries with insufficient oversight or control over the money. A putrid picture is emerging. Of course the United Nations needs a thorough reform, both structural and moral - but the work can't stop there.

While some of the sentiments are reasonable, since when does the New York Times get to tell people in another country what their constitution must include: An Iraqi Constitution. (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Humor Ahead! Katherine Harris Shakes her Booty (POSTED: August 14, 2005)

Edward P. Joseph and Michael O'Hanlon: Iraqi constitution must deliver oil to Sunnis, or it won't deliver stability. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Joseph L. Galloway: Americans get mixed signals on future of war in Iraq. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Don't tell me we are going to stay the course. We are on the wrong course and it only leads deeper into the quicksand. Tell me how we are going to change course. Tell me how we are going to do everything we can, spend whatever it takes, to give our sons and daughters what they need to fight and survive and prevail even in a war that makes no sense.

War criminal Henry Kissinger: Messier than Vietnam and more dangerous. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Jane Wells: Reflections on Robin Cook and Cindy Sheehan. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

On Sgt. Kevin Benderman: War objector simply put conscience first. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Arianna Huffington: At Rummy's Bizarro Pentagon, Torture is Rewarded While Sex is a Firing Offense. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

My only question is: was Rummy given photos of Gen. Byrnes en flagrante delicto? Must have been. If you’ll recall, Rumsfeld told Congress that it took him months to look into the reports of abuse at Abu Ghraib because, even though he’d been alerted that U.S. soldiers were humiliating and torturing naked Iraqi prisoners, “It is the photographs that give one the vivid realization of what actually took place. Words don’t do it.”...

The message is clear: overseeing a system that led to prisoners being buggered with chemical lights and having electrodes attached to their genitals will get you a leg up in Bush’s military; giving the high, hard one to someone other than your wife will get you booted out the door.

Alvaro De Vasconcelos, Director of the Portuguese Institute for Strategic and International Studies: ighting terrorism democratically. The response to terrorism should be to reaffirm the value of the rule of law over arbitrary repression, and of the diversity that is the hallmark of Europe’s cities. We cannot cede to terror by building walls around and within our societies. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Don't believe our spin, says Shrub: Talk of troop cuts in Iraq 'speculation,' Bush says. [After all, the generals know that the military will start collapsing if current troop levels in Iraq are not reduced before soldiers go on a third one year deployment. But, perhaps, no one dares tell Shrub this. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

A little life still left in the corpse? Progressives Get Iraq Resolutions Ratified By Young Democrats of America. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

White Republican bomb making just fine: OU Student Goes to Court on Bomb Accusations. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Becoming local news around the country: Arkansas Woman Part of Anti-War Protest at Bush's Ranch. And: Jane Prewitt of Burmingham, Ala. and Dante Zappala, of Philadelphia, Pa., comfort each other after an emotional prayer at Camp Casey near Crawford, Texas. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Cindy Sheehan ad airs: Anti-war protester speaks out in T-V ad . (POSTED: August , 2005)

No stoping. He might learn something: Bush Motorcdse Passes War Protesters (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

A conservative takes on the right wing smear machine: The conservative elite versus Cindy. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Arianna Huffington: Cindy Sheehan Steps Into the Leadership Void. (POSTED: August 13, 2005)

Video of MSNBC interview: Cindy Sheehan reponds to right-wing slime attacks. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

In Plamegate, the AP asks "What did the President know and when did he know it?" Probe Accents Issue of What Rove Told Bush. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

"What we really don't know factually is whether Rove lied to the president or whether the president knew something about Rove's role and dissembled," said Rozell.

Parents support the military, but... Parent-trap snares recruiters: The tune changes at some homes when they hear 'sign here'. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

"I want you to know we support you," she gushed. Rivera soon reached the limits of her support. "Military service isn't for our son. It isn't for our kind of people," she told him.

The Vanity Fair article on Sibel Edmonds, revealing why she's been gagged: An Inconvenient Patriot. It seems that the "national security" being protected by silencing her is knowledge of Turkish bribes paid to House Speaker Dennis Hastert. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Calling it right: 'Vanity Fair' Rips Media 'Conspiracy' in Covering Up Role in Plame Scandal. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

In an article in the September issue of Vanity Fair (not yet online), Michael Wolff, in probing the Plame/CIA leak scandal, rips those in the news media -- principally Time magazine and The New York Times -- who knew that Karl Rove was one of the leakers but refused to expose what would have been “one of the biggest stories of the Bush years.” Not only that, “they helped cover it up.” You might say, he adds, they “became part of a conspiracy.”

If they had burned this unworthy source and exposed his “crime,” he adds, it would have been “of such consequences that it might, reasonably, have presaged the defeat of the president, might have even -- to be slightly melodramatic -- altered the course of the war in Iraq.” In doing so they showed they owed their greatest allegiance to the source, not their readers. And their source was no Deep Throat, not someone with dirt on the government -- the source “was the government....”

So in the end, he concludes, “the greatest news organizations in the land had a story about a potential crime that reached as close as you can get to the president himself and they punted, they swallowed it, they self-dealt.” And why did they do it? Well, “a source is a source who, unrevealed, will continue to be a source.”

Clinton says buckle up and support war: 'Mistake or not,' time to move forward on Iraq: Clinton. Hard to tell any difference from Bush. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Elizabeth de la Vega and Tom Engelhardt: How to Prosecute the Plame Case. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Signs of the times: American Graffiti: Signs of the times. President Bush used to enjoy healthy support for his Iraq policy. But now freeway 'bloggers' are speaking out,. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Next to an old sign bearing the message "Support our troops", a freeway blogger has added his suggestion as to how this might be best achieved: "Impeach the murdering bastards who sent them to die for a pack of les."

Mother's Protest at Bush's Doorstep Raises the Stakes. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Video: Cindy Sheehan - Freedom and Faith. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Cindy Sheehan: This is George Bush’s Accountability Moment. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

People have asked what it is I want to say to President Bush. Well, my message is a simple one. He’s said that my son -- and the other children we’ve lost -- died for a noble cause. I want to find out what that noble cause is. And I want to ask him: “If it’s such a noble cause, have you asked your daughters to enlist? Have you encouraged them to go take the place of soldiers who are on their third tour of duty?” I also want him to stop using my son’s name to justify the war. The idea that we have to “complete the mission” in Iraq to honor Casey’s sacrifice is, to me, a sacrilege to my son’s name. Besides, does the president any longer even know what “the mission” really is over there?

In Indianapolis: Local Military Wife Supports Cindy Sheehan. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Ray McGovern: Letter to Cindy Sheehan. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Gold Star & Military Families Arrive in Crawford, Texas. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Shrub finally got acting lessons: Bush to mother who lost son in Iraq: 'I grieve'. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Ignacio Ramonet: London, twinned with Baghdad. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Jim Talib, a US soldier who took part in the attack on Falluja, describes his experience: "On one of my trips to drop off a detainee at the jail, the senior interrogator told us not to bring them in any more. ‘Just shoot them,’ he said. I was stunned, I couldn’t believe he ­actually said it. He was not joking around, he was giving us a directive. A few days later a group of Humvees from ­another unit passed by one of our machine gun positions, and they had the bodies of two dead Iraqis strapped to their hoods like a couple of deer. One of the bodies had exposed brain matter that had ­begun to cook on the hood of the vehicle, it was a gruesome, medieval display. So much of what I ­experienced seemed out of control, I saw so little respect for the living and almost none for the dead, and there was almost no ­accountability"

Walter Pincus in the Washington Post: Side Issue in the Plame Case: Who Sent Her Spouse to Africa? (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Terrorism in vogue on right-wing TV: Tucker Carlson accused of supporting terrorism on MSNBC. (POSTED: August 12, 2005)

Mom finding support outside Bush ranch. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

A Soldier Speaks: Joseph R. Newbrough. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

While the Democratic "leadership" have nothing to say: An Open Letter from Ralph Nader to Cindy Sheehan. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Authenticity, bereft of contrivances, is what must confront this White House Misleader. And authenticity is what you are and what drives you as you demand to see this resistant President.

Georgie Anne Geyer: Iran Took Advantage of Time in the Shadows to Build Power. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

To put it simply, the "Iran crisis" of August 2005 is really about how, with American power mired in the quicksand of Iraq, Iran has been moving to become an aggressive, and perhaps the major, power in the Middle East. The unspeakable ignorance of this administration about the history and culture of the region has finally caught up with it.

Norman Solomon: Rage Against the Killing of the Light. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Mid-August 2005 may be remembered as a moment in U.S. history when the president could no longer get away with the media trick of solemnly patting death on its head.

54%, up 8% since July: For Most Americans, Iraq War Was a Mistake. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

How stupid do they think we are? Pentagon Conducts Bogus Poll to Distort Iraq Opinion. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Emilie Rutledge, an economist who is currently based at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai: Is Iraq war fueling the GCC's economic boom? (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Abbas J. Ali: The triumph of neoconservatives in Iraq. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Fragmenting Iraq and kindling sectarian/ethnic discords are weapons of cultural and national destruction, a menace to civilisation. They represent a threat to American interests and to regional stability. More importantly, they evidence a purposeful activation of the clash of civilisations.

Talking Wounded: Terry Rodgers Came Back From Iraq a Changed Man, and Not Just Because of the Bomb. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

"They see it on TV, but they can only guess what it feels like over there," he says. "To actually be there and feel it and hear it -- I don't think many people have a clue what it's like."

Arianna Huffington: Support Our Troops: Call a Truce in America’s Drug War. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Michael Schwartz and Tom Engelhardt: The Ironies of Conquest: The Bush Administration's Iranian Nightmare. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Donald Kaul: Struggling to Find the Reasons for War. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

(Hint: it wasn’t weapons of mass destruction.)

Martin Woollacott: We miscalculated and now history has us by the throat: The west profoundly misunderstood how the Middle East works . (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Carol Marin: Americans join mom in waiting for Iraq answers. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Retired FBI agent Coleen Rowley: Get past Bush's war rhetoric to see what has or has not worked. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Nick Coleman: It's time to discuss this war as adults. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

If no one has the guts to talk frankly about these things, who wins elections won't matter.

Video of Cindy Sheehan [Quicktime] (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Direct action: Air Force Colonel Accused of Defacing Cars Bearing Pro-Bush Bumper Stickers. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Lt. Col. Alexis Fecteau, director of operations for reserve forces at the National Security Space Institute in Colorado Springs, is believed responsible for defacing at least 10 parked vehicles between December and June.

Maureen Dowd on Shrub and Cindy Sheehan: Why No Tea and Sympathy? (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Two by William O. Beeman: Understanding an 'Islamic' state of Iraq. [Not aa bad as we fear, he argues.] And: Why Middle Eastern Terrorists Hate the United States. (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

[Understanding:] It is somewhat odd that many in the West find it difficult to accept the desire to preserve a small number of religious structures in the laws of the state. Many religious-minded people in the U.S. would find such laws welcome and regularly lobby for them. The opposition to same-sex marriage on religious grounds is a reality in American politics today, having resulted in legal prohibitions.

Feisal M. Chowdhury: Where is Iraq after two years of invasion? (POSTED: August 11, 2005)

Howard Zinn: Occupied zones. There are killings every day in Iraq. Occupying troops, diplomats, aid workers and media people are killed, as are Iraqis, in far greater numbers. But President George Bush’s war is not only against opponents in Iraq and the Middle East: it is a war against his fellow Americans. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Amy Branham, Gold Star Families for Peace, Mother of Sgt. Jeremy R. Smith: King George and National Security: Why is Cindy Sheehan a Threat to George on Thursday, but Not Today? (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Rachel Bilson slams Bush in Iraq. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Action Alert! Austin Press Conf. for Sheehan Wednesday at Noon and Call for Support! Send contributions to: Crwaford Peace House. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Cindy Sheehan's diary: Day 3 of the Peace Occupation of Crawford (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Cindy and GSFP take it to the Ranch with pictures. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Steve Bradenton: The Cindy Sheehan Problem. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Cindy Sheehan's challenge to the bully-in-chief's "frame": Cindy's Frame. And: (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

16 Democrats call on Bush to meet mother of fallen soldier. [16 out of how many?] (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

W Joseph Stroupe believes that the Bush policy (if you can call it that) is digging us into a larger quagmire with Iran: Weapons of self-destruction. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

The political detonation described here, in which Iraq's enriched, fissionable sectarian factions or elements are rammed together forcefully by the current US-driven political process, finally reach critical mass and then detonate to cause Iraq's violent disintegration, is imminent....

As the August 15 deadline approaches Iraq is nearing the threshold, the point of no return, when a political chain reaction starts under rapidly building US pressure and moves quickly to a full-blown detonation. The US has removed all the safety mechanisms and is going for broke, as it were, with respect to Iraq's political process. Iraq is therefore like a nuclear weapon that is already fully armed, and the countdown to detonation begins when parliament receives word on the state of the draft constitution. Iraq, as a nation, cannot survive the coming detonation

Larry Diamond Replies to Critics. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute and the right wing, pro-Israel faction sees the writing on the Iraq wall: (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

As a majority of Americans turns against the war, the Democrats demand more troops! Not enough U.S. troops to fight insurgents: senator. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

A new participatory democratic media? Beyond an Encyclopedia: What's Next for Wikimania? (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Lawrence Korb says the US will have to pull out: Saving U.S. Army can help save Iraq. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

[E]ven if we wanted to keep about 140,000 ground troops in Iraq through 2006, we cannot do so without breaking the all-volunteer Army....

[T]he Army does not want to order a soldier to be sent back a third time. By the end of this year, nearly every active-duty soldier will have spent at least two tours in Iraq.

Joseph L. Galloway: Soul of Republican Party at stake in prison-abuse scandal debate. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

This is not about who they are. This is about who we are. We are Americans and we hold ourselves to a higher standard of conduct. And, no, the end does not justify the means. Not now. Not ever, when the means include torturing prisoners.

Ghassan Charbel: A Duel on the Iraqi Stage. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Marie Cocco: Oil will pay for rebuilding Iraq? No, wrong again. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

How did an administration overflowing with oilmen get it all so wrong?... The president’s men saw what they wished to see — the 115 billion barrels of oil reserves beneath the desert. They were blind to what was really there: An oil industry decimated by more than a decade of economic sanctions, with technological decay and even geological deterioration of the fields already gnawing at it.

Matthew Rothschild: Oil Addiction and Saudi Dependence. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

On Monday, Bush signed the energy bill. Also on Monday, the price of crude hit a record $64 a barrel.

Habib Siddiqui: Judith Miller of The New York Times: You Did The Crime, Now Serve The Time. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

The role of a good reporter is like that of an intelligence analyst who digs for the truth, and not of a stenographer who simply reports what he/she hears without verification. Regrettably, Miller has been nothing but an eavesdropper, and if I may add, a terrible one in that.

Latest Gallop poll: Majority of Americans Maintain Negative Views on Iraq: Believe war has made the United States "less safe" from terrorism. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Good news for the world, bad for Bush. E. J. Dionne Jr.: It's No Holiday for Bush. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Typical of the polls was a Newsweek survey released over the weekend. It showed Bush with a 42 percent approval rating, matching the lowest of his presidency. Only 34 percent approved of his handling of the war in Iraq. A remarkable 61 percent disapproved.

Robert Dreyfuss on the US-Israel espionage case: Bigger Than AIPAC. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

[T]he FBI and the Justice Department might just unravel that larger story, which is beginning to look more and more like it involves the same nexus of Pentagon civilians, White House functionaries, and American Enterprise Institute officials who thumped the drums for war in Iraq in 2001-2003 and who are now trying to whip up an anti-Iranian frenzy as well. Needless to say, all of this got short shrift from the mainstream media when it was revealed last week....

So far, at least, the media frenzy attending to the Plame affair is matched by nearly total silence about the Franklin-AIPAC affair? Can it be true that reporters are more courageous about pursuing a story that involves the White House than they are about plunging into a scandal that involves Israel, our No. 1 Middle East ally?

The Charleston Gazette: Who pays? Tragic price of war. (POSTED: August 10, 2005)

Movement, take heart: "Energy's on the Anti-Iraq Side", but the money is on the other side. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

One mother's resistance: Of the Many Deaths in Iraq, One Mother's Loss Becomes a Problem for the President. So they may arrest her: Report: Mother who lost son in Iraq says she may be arrested. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Public Can Force Iraq Troop Withdrawal, Lawmakers and Critics Say. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Ohio soldier killed in Iraq questioned U.S. role there. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Tom Engelhardt and Chris Christensen: A Young Man's Death in Iraq. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Arun Gupta claims: Bush's Exit Plan: Fomenting Civil War in Iraq? (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

The full transcript of Robin Cook's devastating resignation speech on the eve of war with Iraq: "Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction". And commentary: Iraq, the immense blunder. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Ironically, it is only because Iraq's military forces are so weak that we can even contemplate its invasion. Some advocates of conflict claim that Saddam's forces are so weak, so demoralised and so badly equipped that the war will be over in a few days. We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat.

Officers and Veterans Defy Bush's Neocons. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

The “implementation of questionable techniques will very likely establish a new baseline for acceptable practice in this area,” wrote Army Gen. Michael Romig, “putting our service personnel at far greater risk and vitiating many of the POW/detainee safeguards the U.S. has worked hard to establish over the past five decades....”

More broadly, the J.A.G. officers were troubled by the implications for the military and the nation of the high-handed attitude exemplified by the Bush advisors. What kind of country would the United States become if we allowed our military officers to behave like criminals? What kind of country would we become if we accepted the dangerous theory, promoted by the Pentagon civilians, that in wartime a President can issue whatever orders he may choose, regardless of U.S. and international law?

Because the "War on terrorism" is the defining moment for this administration: CIA Commander: U.S. Let bin Laden Slip Away. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Financial Times: Iraq's slow slide into civil war. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Among the many victims: Support the Drug-Addicted Troops. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Terrorism 'radiating' from Iraq - German spy chief. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

Jihad el-Khazen: 60 Years After Hiroshima. (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

This is the plain, unvarnished “papal” truth, and I won’t ask readers to determine which side is more honest: the Pope of Rome or the White House. But I will say that if the US administration had taken a decisive stance against Israel’s crimes, terrorism around the world would have declined and not risen since America declared war against this phenomenon.

Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy at The Independent Institute: Global Struggle against Violent Extremism: Marketing Gimmick or Ominous Turn? (POSTED: August 9, 2005)

.S. policy makers want to pursue a policy of global hegemony and to impress it with special force on the areas of the world located atop great deposits of petroleum or astride pipeline routes for transporting oil and gas to world markets. They want to prop up tyrannical but cooperative governments in places such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. They want to take Israel’s side every time in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They want to position their armed forces in more than a hundred foreign countries and, in all too many cases, to employ those forces against politically aggrieved locals who might upset the status quo. Yet U.S. policy makers pretend to believe that in the midst of all their provocations of Muslims and other people far and wide, they can either kill or hoodwink those who resist and who fight back sometimes by terrorist means morally reprehensible in their own right, to be sure, yet nonetheless comprehensible. In sum, U.S. leaders seek to achieve the impossible.

Former President: Carter: Guantanamo Detentions Disgraceful. (POSTED: July 31, 2005)

Lowest of his Presidency: Bush Approval at 44%: Lowest measurement of his presidency. (POSTED: July 31, 2005)

The British medical journal, the Lancet says it is unethical for the Coalition to not count Iraqi civilian casualties: Iraq's citizens have a right to know. (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

The US-led Coalition that instigated the war claims to have acted on behalf of the Iraqi people. At the very least, Iraq's beleaguered citizens deserve to be told the true price—in numbers of lost human lives—they have paid for a conflict undertaken in their names.

Voices UK provides useful Talking Points: Arguing Against The Occupation. (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

The Baltimore Sun on the Iraqi Constitution: The wreck ahead. (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

[T]here's a very real danger that the document that finally emerges will do more to clarify differences than resolve them....

The likelihood, in other words, that U.S. troops will start coming home next spring, as predicted Wednesday by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., is small. He himself acknowledged that if the security situation does not improve, all bets are off. Similarly, Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said he wants American troops out as soon as possible - but that was chiefly rhetorical. His government would be lost without U.S. firepower.

It could happen that Iraqis of every description decide to give the constitution a try. It seems likely that Washington, which tried to influence the last elections under the table (but failed), will try again. At best, Iraqis will be at each other's throats but not killing each other. That's the rosy view. The American invasion of Iraq let loose an avalanche, or set up a train wreck, or started a chain reaction - choose your metaphor - and the danger is that it will end with a bitter and intractable sectarian bloodletting.

The South Jeresey Courier-Post: Iraq going in wrong direction. (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

If we are over there to spread liberty, this constitutional draft should be stopped.

Andrew Greeley: Neck deep in the Big Muddy. (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

Stephen Zunes on the Iranian elections: Democracy, Terrorism, and Nuclear Weapons . (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice challenges the legitimacy of the Iranian elections, because female candidates were barred from the presidential race, but she praises the far more restrictive local council elections in Saudi Arabia, where women, unlike in Iran, were not even allowed to vote.

Asheesh Kapur Siddique: Rough Draft: Liberals think calling for conscription makes them sound tough, but all it does is strengthen President Bush. (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

Charles V. Pena of the Cato Institute says the US and Britain aren't going anywhere: It's a case of 'no way out' in Iraq. (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

But Fred Kaplan has a plan [implausible tjough it seems to me]: We Can Leave Iraq by 2007: Here's how. (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

Either way, some of [General] Petraeus' aides, if not the general himself, have recently learned of rumors that Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari doesn't want his army to be well-trained. A leading Shiite, Jaafari reportedly fears that if the U.S. troops leave Iraq, the insurgents will crush all resistance and hoist the Sunnis back to power. Since the Americans have said they will leave once the Iraqi security forces are self-sufficient, Jaafari figures it's best to keep that day at bay. This could explain why many Iraqi units lack such basic materials as reliable weapons, ammunition, and sufficient food and bedding gear.

The Modern World: Karl Rove Talking Points. (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

Doonesbuty on Rove: July 27; July 28; July 29; and: July 30. (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

Donald Kaul: The truth lies between the lies. (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

President Bush gave his celebrated imitation of Winston Churchill a couple of weeks ago, rallying the country around his war policies.... Well, I listened to your speech, Mr. President, and I have this to say: I remember Winston Churchill, sir; Winston Churchill was a hero of mine. Mr. President, you're no Winston Churchill.

Gareth Porter interviewed by Dori Smith on TalkNation Radio: How To End the Real War. (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

The key to promotion in the Bush administration, committing one of the seven deadly sins, in this case, lying: W.House gives strong signal on Bolton appointment. (POSTED: July 30, 2005)

Paul Craig Roberts: Departing Iraq (POSTED: July 29, 2005)

Open Letter from Nader to President Bush on Iraq. (POSTED: July 29, 2005)

Richard Cohen: Primo Levi On Guantanamo. (POSTED: July 29, 2005)

The ambassador's own scorecard, a checklist for the United States when it undertakes nation-building after a conflict.. (POSTED: July 29, 2005)

Michael Savage joins the antiwar forces: The Savage Nation vs. the Bushbots. (POSTED: July 28, 2005)

"Hush Bimbo" and "Sean Vanity" are the names Savage has pinned on Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity of WABC. In doing so, he has sparked a war between the members of his "Savage Nation" (slogan: "Borders, language, culture") and the so-called "Bushbots," that sizable number of gullible Americans who can be convinced that whatever policy Bush adopts is a conservative policy.

Chickehawks attack Iraq Vet Congressional candidate as the Republican steal-the-election machine revs up: OH-2: Swift Boating of Hackett Into High Gear. (POSTED: July 28, 2005)

Over the past two days, Republicans have been calling into talk radio across the district saying things like, "Paul wasn't really a Marine Corps Major in Iraq." It's a coordinated effort, as I am hearing from people that similar lines are being repeated and repeated by radio callers in and out of the district.

Establishment panel with two former National Security Advisers, Samuel R. Berger and Brent Scowcroft: Panel: Bush Was Unready for Postwar Iraq. Here war criminals Berger and Scowcroft put forward their own ideas for world control: The Right Tools To Build Nations. (POSTED: July 28, 2005)

Nassir Shirkhan thinks: Caution is the key to rapprochement between Iran and Iraq. (POSTED: July 28, 2005)

Roger Morris, former NSC staffer: Condoleezza Rice at the Center of the Plame Scandal: The Source Beyond Rove. (POSTED: July 28, 2005)

Aaron Glantz: Mr. President, Please Give This Speech . (POSTED: July 28, 2005)

The Sacramento Bee: Casualties of war: Terror and anti-terror tactics escalate. (POSTED: July 28, 2005)

Brattleboro Reformer: Rural sacrifice. (POSTED: July 28, 2005)

Jeffrey Page: Insurgents haven't heard that this war is almost over. (POSTED: July 28, 2005)

Andrew Murray, chair of the Stop the War Coalition: Cause and consequence . (POSTED: July 28, 2005)

Tony Blair appears to be on the brink of a Brechtian moment, in which he will need to dissolve the people who have lost his confidence and elect another.

John M. Peters defends the oil motivation theory: A Crude Approach. (POSTED: July 28, 2005)

Whether the motive was primarily to secure petroleum for American consumption at controlled prices or as future leverage over growing global competitor China, the role of oil in the occupation of Iraq is a crude reality.

Norman Solomon: 'This Guy is a Modern-Day Hitler'. For more than 40 years, comparing an administration's enemies to Hitler has been a reliable way to convince a pliant media and unquestioning public to go to war. (POSTED: July 28, 2005)

Judge, in sentencing terrorist, makes a stirring defense of the need to follow the law in handling terrorism: The sunlight of a public trial. (POSTED: July 28, 2005)

Antiwar Democratic veteran Paul L. Hackett just might pull off upset in staunchly Republican district: Veteran of Iraq, Running in Ohio, Is Harsh on Bush. He even call Bush a "chicken hawk!" (POSTED: June 28, 2005)

Mr. Hackett has been bluntly dismissive of Mr. Bush, saying the United States should have focused on capturing Osama bin Laden instead of invading Iraq so quickly. In a public forum, he called Mr. Bush the biggest threat facing the United States, a remark that has infuriated voters, Republicans say. Yet Mr. Hackett has also tried to exploit Mr. Bush's popularity here, opening his lone television commercial with Mr. Bush saying, "There is no higher calling than service in our armed forces."

Despite split, history is made: AFL-CIO Convention Calls For Troop Withdrawal From Iraq. See the statement from U.S. Labor Against War (USLAW): AFL-CIO Calls for Rapid Return of U.S. Troops. (POSTED: July 27, 2005)

Speaker after speaker rose to condemn the war and occupation, and to demand the return of the troops. No one dared defend a policy that has caused revulsion throughout US unions....

The resolution marks a watershed moment in modern US labor history. It is the product of grassroots action at the bottom of the US labor movement, not a directive from top leaders. The call for bringing the troops home echoes the sentiments of thousands of ordinary workers and rank-and-file union members, whose children and family have been called on to fight the war.

A majority believe Bush lied, recent poll finds. And a large majority believes the US won't win in Iraq. But a majority still believe the war wasn't a mistake: Poll: USA doubts Iraq success, but not ready to give up. (POSTED: July 27, 2005)

A review of recent books on the motivations of terrorists: Killer instincts: What inspires young men and women to become suicide bombers? Religious fanaticism? Nationalism? Alienation? Or some toxic mix of all three? (POSTED: July 27, 2005)

Jihad El Khazen: Bush … Admit the Truth. And: The Fiction of “They Hate our Lifestyle”. (POSTED: July 27, 2005)

Bush: Did President Bush know when he declared war against Iraq (for definitely false reasons) that he would be setting up an Islamic republic allied with Iran, a member of the Axis of Evil? Did he know that he was launching a destructive terrorist war whose leaders cannot win, while the Iraqi people would pay the price with their lives and their future?

John Brown, a former Foreign Service officer who resigned from the State Department over the war in Iraq: Defending The Neocon War. (POSTED: July 27, 2005)

Oh my god! they've finally figured out, occasionally, that the "War on Terrorism" isn't a war: Washington recasts terror war as 'struggle'. (POSTED: July 27, 2005)

General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the National Press Club on Monday that he had "objected to the use of the term 'war on terrorism' before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution."

Stan Goff: Dialectics on Meth: The Southwest Asian Debacle. (POSTED: July 27, 2005)

The Boston Globe says don't rush the constitution. Unfortunately, they seem to view the content of the constitution as up to the US: No deadline in Iraq. (POSTED: July 27, 2005)

Congress to intimidate Plamegate prosecutor: Congress plans to scrutinize Plame-related issues. [Note last paragraph.] The same committe chair, Sen. Pat Roberts, refused a Congressional investigation of the origins of the fake Niger documents because he didn't want to interfere with an "open" [but phantom] FBI investigation: Late-Breaking Pat Roberts Egregious Hackery Update! (POSTED: July 27, 2005)

Jim Lobe: Civil War Specter Spurs New Iraq Exit Plans . (POSTED: July 27, 2005)

Ruth Conniff: House Demagoguery on Iraq. (POSTED: July 27, 2005)

Patrick Doherty is another "progressive" who somehow believes that the country that has rained death and destruction on Iraq for two years can somehow bring it a beautiful democratic future. He, like others, appears to have no understanding that the US is pursuing its (perceived) national interests, which have nothing to do with the interests of Iraqis: Withdraw...And Then What? (POSTED: July 26, 2005)

John Roberts and the National Security State . (POSTED: July 26, 2005)

Does a woman have a right to choose? Of course. Only now, Bush loyalists are feverishly dismantling everything in their path from supervised elections to the separation of powers while liberal groups focus all their energy on one issue. What good is Roe if the rest of the Constitution is in tatters?

British politicians fight over Iraq link to London bombings: Straw backs down on denial of Iraq link. And: Invasion of Iraq ‘boosted’ terrorism threat, claims Cook. (POSTED: June , 2005)

"We Need the Truth": Downing Street Anniversary Sparks Demand for Investigation. (POSTED: July 26, 2005)

Stanley Reed: Iraq: The Deadly Cost Of Excluding The Sunnis. (POSTED: July 26, 2005)

Robert Dreyfuss writes of possible compromise with nationalist insurgents: A Way Out Of Iraq? (POSTED: July 26, 2005)

Tom Regan: Can US, Britain 'win' in Iraq? (POSTED: July 26, 2005)

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: War on terror can't be won by steel alone. (POSTED: July 26, 2005)

John Chuckman presents an interesting comparison of arrogance in Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union and Bush's invasion of Iraq: Hitler's Shadow and the Coming Storm. (POSTED: July 26, 2005)

Oh my God! What does this mean? Understanding these results would provide an amazing insight into American attitudes today: Poll Shows Americans, For First Time, Divided on Use of A-Bombs in 1945. (POSTED: July 25, 2005)

David Cortright: Iraq: The Human Toll. (POSTED: July 25, 2005)

A reminder. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was intimately involved in covering up the Plamegate scandal, by potentially facilitating the shredding of sensitive documents: Atty. Gen. Gonzales Responds to Frank Rich's '12-Hour Gap' Charge. Also: Gonzales Says He Told Card About CIA Probe. (POSTED: July 25, 2005)

Why don't they try and do something to prevent it? Poll: Americans Say World War III Likely. (POSTED: July 25, 2005)

Salt Lake Tribune: Iraq's Army: If Iraqis aren't committed, training is useless. (POSTED: July 24, 2005)

his raises the question of whether the continued presence of U.S. forces is doing more to fan the flames of the insurgency and anti-American sentiment than it is to quell them.

Interview with Mia Bloom, author of Dying to Kill -- the Allure of Suicide Terror: 'Dying To Kill' -- Expert on Suicide Bombers Looks at London and Iraq. (POSTED: July 24, 2005)

Fox, the murder and torture network, news anchor praises killing of innocent by British police: Five in the Noggin. (POSTED: July 25, 2005)

Interview with John R. Bradley, author of Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis: A kingdom exposed. (POSTED: July 24, 2005)

Rand Corporation issues new report on how empires should control their newly acquired colonies after invading them: Long-term fixes sought for Iraq, Afghanistan. See Establishing Law and Order After Conflict -- Full Report [pdf] or: Summary [pdf]. (POSTED: June 24, 2005)

Gordon Adams: Hubris Makes an Encore Appearance in Iraq. (POSTED: July 24, 2005)

Gregory Clark: Selling evil without a cause. (POSTED: July 24, 2005)

Two new polls place disapproval of Bush's Iraq policy at 57% and 55%: Pew Research Center for the People & the Press survey. And: Poll: Majority of people in U.S., Japan disapprove of how their own governments are handling Iraq. (POSTED: July 24, 2005)

Jeffrey Sachs: Make politics, not war, in Iraq. (POSTED: July 24, 2005)

The Iraqis sense all of this. Bush’s refusal to set a deadline for withdrawing troops is not taken as a sign of resolve, but as a statement of America’s intent to remain in Iraq, establish a puppet regime, control the country’s oil and set up permanent military bases.

Butchery for entertainment? Hill Street Blues strays into the Iraq war zone. (POSTED: July 24, 2005)

Noam Chomsky points out that the : Resort To Fear is hardly new in American history. (POSTED: July 24, 2005)

Artist Renderings of Abuse of 8 Year Old Girl at Abu Ghraib. (POSTED: July 24, 2005)

The social origins of Britain's alienated Pakistanis: Britain's amazing disconnect. (POSTED: July 24, 2005)

Arrested for trying to enlist: 'Raging Grannies' trying to enlist in Army, fight in Iraq. (POSTED: July 24, 2005)

In Vermont: GOP candidate calls for impeachment. (POSTED: July 24, 2005)

Frank Rich: Eight Days in July. (POSTED: June 24, 2005)

According to Rep. Waxman there were: 11 Security Breaches in Plame Case (POSTED: July 24, 2005)

Democrats spotlight CIA leak in radio address. (POSTED: July 24, 2005)

Latest polls: Bush Approval Rating on Iraq Fell Since April, Harris Poll Says; Poll: Many Fear Iraq Hurting Terror Fight, and 66% say he doesn't know his ass from his elbow: Bush Has No Iraq Exit Plan, Say Americans. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

Republican Opposition to Iraq War Growing. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

Max Rodenbeck reviews some of the latest books on terrorism: The Truth About Jihad. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

LLuis Bassets in El Pais: Evil exists. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

Shaun Carney: The terror game. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

Even if Iraq didn't make us a target, what we're doing there is a dangerous distraction.

Rep. Lee Seeking the truth: Resolution of Inquiry Introduced Surrounding Bush’s Iraq War Policy. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

Saturday: 300 Events to Call for Bush's Impeachment over 'Downing Street' Allegations. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Editorial: Feeding the insurgency. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

The Daily Mail discusses the British War Party: Shouldn't THEY be put in the dock? (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

Shouldn't they be joined in the dock by Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, who prostituted his office for political ends? None of them has uttered a word of genuine contrition for dragging Britain into this disastrous war. Instead, they betray the forces they so blithely send to fight on our behalf in a foreign field.

Larry Diamond and Dan Senor: Has America Failed in Iraq? It's not the U.S. presence that bothers the insurgents, it's the prospect of democracy (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

Paul Reynolds: Allies' mixed messages on Iraq. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

Sean Gonsalves: Winning hearts and minds: Conventional wisdom misunderstands dynamics of true power. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

Frank Scott: Operation Wake Up. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

There is hope in the growing demand for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, as well as in calls for impeachment. But we will not end terror or stop the empire simply by impeaching Bush, since his loyal opposition is almost as bad. And even those two desires will need to be joined with a further, most important demand: that policy towards Israel change radically, to not only observe the rights of the Palestinians, but to confront and end the power of the Israeli lobby over the U.S. government. To some, that may seem a tall order, but to those who truly want peace and social justice, it is an absolute necessity.

Lila Rajiva: America's Downing Syndrome, or Why the Not-So-Secret Air War Stayed “Secret”. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

Latest Plamegate rumors: CIA Leak Investigation Turns to Possible Perjury, Obstruction. And: Testimony By Rove and Libby Examined: Leak Prosecutor Seeks Discrepancies. (POSTED: June 23, 2005)

Ex-CIA Officers Rip Bush Over Rove Leak. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

Plamegate commentary by Dan Froomkin: Conflicting Stories. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

They committed perjury to establish the "he said -- she said" defense: Rove, Libby Accounts in CIA Case Differ With Those of Reporters. (POSTED: July 23, 2005)

New York Times reports more Rove "leaks" as fact, in their imitation on reporting: For Two Aides in Leak Case, 2nd Issue Rises. (POSTED: June 22, 2005)

Italians Steadfast on Troop Withdrawal. (POSTED: July 22, 2005)

In the heartland: In Iowa town, uncertainty grows over Iraq war. (POSTED: July 22, 2005)

Emily White: Help Wanted As the War in Iraq Grinds On, Military Recruiters Are Finding New Soldiers Increasingly Hard to Come By. Will the Promise of Dinette Sets Make a Difference? (POSTED: July 22, 2005)

Rashid Khashana: Arab Hiroshima. (POSTED: July 22, 2005)

Jihad El Khazen: Darkness in August. (POSTED: July 22, 2005)

Republican Rep. Gilchrest supports '06 start to Iraq pullout. (POSTED: July 22, 2005)

Helena Cobban rebuts the objections to withdrawal: Next step in helping Iraqis: Set a withdrawal date. (POSTED: July 212 2005)

Arianna Huffington: Iraq: The War We Are Not Being Shown. The one where the Iraqi PM makes nice in Iran, and the one where Iraqis get shot up at US checkpoints, and where many more Iraqis are killed by the US than by insurgents. (POSTED: July 22, 2005)

Sidney Blumenthal: Tunnel vision. For Bush, it's always either the day after 9/11 or the day before the Iraq invasion. He needs to rethink his war on terror. (POSTED: July 22, 2005)

Donald Collins: Bush's 'religious war'. (POSTED: July 22, 2005)

The US House voted to stay in Iraq forever, or a close approximation. They also voted to support lawless American detention: Congress Opposes Early Withdrawal From Iraq. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

The measure, approved 291-137, says the United States should leave Iraq only when national security and foreign policy goals related to a free and stable Iraq have been achieved....

The GOP-controlled House also voted 304-124 resolving that the detention and lawful interrogation of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is essential to the war on terrorism.

On Washington Post page A1: Plame's Identity Marked As Secret: Memo Central to Probe Of Leak Was Written By State Dept. Analyst. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

The corporate press obscures US war crimes, as usual: General Westmoreland's Incomplete Obit. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

Intelligence report forces Blair on to defensive. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

Some in Britain dare speak up: Blair: Mayor wrong on terror link. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

Byron Williams: Sadly, the United States has lost its prestige abroad: War in Iraq signals the end of American carte blanche. Some of us, who doubt the benevolence of most US policy, don't necessarily find constraints on US ability to dominate "sad". (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

Why can't we afford to lose? American safety?

J. Alexander Thier of the Project on Failed States at Stanford University: Iraq's defining moment. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

The purpose of any constitution is to channel conflict and competition into politics. A constitutional process is supposed to translate the political will of a nation into a concrete agreement. But this seems unlikely to occur given the current timetable — the Iraqi government has until August 15 to pass a new constitution and until October 15 to hold a public referendum on it. If the nascent government is able to devise a constitution by the middle of next month, then they're probably missing the point. A constitution cannot be written in a few weeks by a handful of politicians at a conference table; creating a founding document requires the long ordeal of reaching political compromise and building trust. Given the intensity of conflict in Iraq, it is unlikely that broad political consensus can be achieved any time soon.

David Corn reviews Robert Merry's new book, Sands of Empire: Missionary Zeal, American Foreign Policy, and the Hazards of Global Ambition: The Anti-Neocon. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

Instead of offering a solution to the knotty dilemmas of the post-9/11 threat, the Iraq war has worsened the problem. This war, Merry maintains, can only "enflame anti-Western passions in the world of Islam." That will mean "more jihadists directed against the United States." The war also increases the odds of destabilization in other lands—such as Saudi Arabia (which has oil we need) and Pakistan (which has nukes we don't want to see used or transferred). Merry sums up:

"In taking his military into the heart of Islam and planting his country's flag into the soil of a foreign culture based on flimsy perceptions of a national threat, George W. Bush has brought his country and the world closer to that kind of Armageddon than it faced before. He did so on the basis of a world outlook and political idealism that are alluring, comforting, and widely embraced throughout American intellectual circles. They are also false and highly dangerous."

Another interview, this one with Australian TV, with Robert Pape regarding suicide bombers: US 'misread motivation' of suicide bombers. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

There's a faulty premise in the current strategy on the war on terrorism. That faulty premise is that suicide terrorism and Al Qaeda suicide terrorism in particular is mainly driven by an evil ideology Islamic fundamentalism independent of other circumstances. However, the facts are that since 1980, suicide terrorist attacks from around the world over half have been secular. What over 95 per cent of suicide attacks around the world [are about] is not religion, but a specific strategic purpose - to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland or prize greatly and this is in fact a centrepiece of Al Qaeda's strategic logic, which is to compel the United States and Western countries to abandon military commitments on the Arabian Peninsula.

Minneapolis Star Tribune: Terror in Iraq/Bombers bred by war itself. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

The optimists tend to be soldiers and civilian officials corralled inside the heavily fortified "green zone" in the center of Baghdad. One Knight-Ridder reporter recently described the problem. When she went to lunch with a friend in the military, he "picked me up in his air-conditioned Explorer, took me to Burger King for lunch and showed me photos of the family he misses so terribly." It's "not politics that blind him from seeing the real Iraq," she said. "The [Green Zone's] maze of tall blast walls and miles of concertina wire obscure the view, too."

Palm Beach Post Editorial: Why Rove is like Iraq. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

Only when caught in the most embarrassing misstatements did the White House admit that it should have had higher standards for the intelligence used to justify the war. How much more embarrassment must Karl Rove cause before Mr. Bush admits that he needs higher standards for advisers?

Justin Raimondo: Patrick J. 'Bulldog' Fitzgerald, American Insurgent: Occupied Washington under siege. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

Mark Morford: The dark lord will reign even if overthrown. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

Besides, you just know that if Rove is forced out (or if he and Bush agree that he should step down, as a matter of clever strategy), he'll merely go underground, move his big pink nail-encrusted throne to a different bunker where he will continue interviewing GOP presidential hopefuls for 2008 in an attempt to gauge whose body he can most easily invade, who has the least amount of humanity and the greatest malleability and the maximum capacity for having their soul sucked through the eye of a needle. Meetings ongoing. BYO sacrificial blood.

Rove Entirely Dependent on Novak for Top-Secret Government Information, Says Super-Secret White House Source. Further: White House Cannot Confirm Ever Having Met Karl Rove. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

Eric Mink: Karl Rove: He has betrayed the nation. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

They [Rove and others] think they work for President George W. Bush. They don't. They work for America.

So many mistakes; so little punishment, says David Ignatius: Summer Stonewall. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

In Rove's famous June 22 speech to the New York Conservative Party, he evoked the qualities the administration wants to be remembered for. "We are seizing the mantle of idealism," Rove said, referring to the president's campaign for democracy in Iraq and the Middle East. Conservatives are "agents of reform," he said, referring to Bush's drive to restructure Social Security. But what made headlines was Rove's outrageous claim that after Sept. 11 liberals wanted to "offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." What made his comment truly reckless was that it ripped at the cohesion America needs in wartime.

Garrison Keillor: Karl Rove: the real story. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

Joe Conason: Miller crusade diminishes the press: Right to protect sources wasn't designed to protect corrupt officials. (POSTED: July 21, 2005)

Or as the poet once sang, "To live outside the law, you must be honest." Unfortunately, the martyr of the moment doesn't inspire that kind of confidence.

Robert Kuttner on the creeping authoritarianism of America: Orwell meets Kafka. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

Peter W. Galbraith: Iraq: Bush's Islamic Republic. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

Jayati Ghosh: Debt-forgiveness as imperialism. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

The US protects Iran's best friend: Iraq's dangerous new friend. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

Jesse Jackson: Bush lacks credibility on Iraq. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

Helen Thomas calls a spade a spade: Biden echoes Bush on Iraq. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., wants to run for president, but right now he sounds like an echo chamber for President Bush's failed policies on Iraq. After reading his recent remarks to the Brookings Institution following his return from his fifth fact-finding trip to Baghdad last month, I'd tell Biden: "Forget it."

Martin Samuel: Terror: the parable of the builder's bathroom. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

Thomas Riggins: Iraq: Failure in Falluja. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

William Greider: America's Truth Deficit. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

Rove hid his conversation with Matthew Cooper from the FBI, meaning he knew he had something to hide: An Unlikely Story. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

Alexander Cockburn provides a little context to outing a CIA agent: Don't You Dare Call It Treason. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

Ted Rall, for one, speaks the "traitor" language: Republicans Must Choose: Bush or America? (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

Jim Lobe: ”PlameGate” Is Hardly a Summer Squall. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

For its humor value: Transcript: McClellan Defends President On Failure to Fire Rove. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

James Boyne: Where is Barney??----the Presidential Dog. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

Christian Christensen: "Why Can't Foreign Lefties Learn to Be Objective Like Us?" (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

One of those ignored stories it's hard to interpret. BTW, it was NOT withdrawn, as some claim: Netanyahu Changed Plans Due to Warning of London bombing. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

British police told the Israeli Embassy in London minutes before Thursday's explosions that they had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the city, a senior Israeli official said.

Lee Wolfe: Swatting hornets with bunker-busters. (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

Barbara Quirk: Images: No end to Iraq lies? (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

Interview with Salam Ali of the Iraqi Communist Party: Iraq: The Existing Timetable and the Struggle for Democracy . (POSTED: July 20, 2005)

Carl Conetta of the Project on Defense Alternatives has a new report: 400 days and out: A strategy for resolving the Iraq impasse. It is a follow up to his May report: Vicious Circle: The Dynamics of Occupation and Resistance in Iraq (POSTED: June 19, 2005)

Juan Cole: Christian Terrorist Rudolph Sentenced: What the Rightwing Press Will not Say. (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

Other things you won't see in the American press about this story:

Thomas Friedman will not write an op-ed for the New York Times about what is wrong with white southern Christian males that they keep producing these terrorists. He will also not ask why Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are not denouncing Eric Rudolph every day at the top of their lungs.

o reporter will interview frightened Iraqis about their fears at hearing that there are 138,000 armed Christians in their country belonging to the same faith as the bomber, Rudolph, some of them from his stomping grounds of Florida and North Carolina.

Wakeup call? Poll: Many Doubt White House Cooperation in Leak Probe. (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

Australian defense analyst Gary Brown: Iraq war a strategic blunder. (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

For Australia, which faces a terrorist threat similar to that confronting the US and Britain, the choice should be simple, and would be if we had a less ideologically driven government ourselves. It is to get out of Iraq and commit on a larger scale to Afghanistan.

Another Australian view: Voices of restraint give way to Bush hawks beating war drums ever louder. (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

"A lot of people who support the President are really not interested in the facts on the ground," Campbell says. "There really is a faith-based belief in the President as a person and in his ability to remake reality."

Gilbert Cranberg: When government deceives on the way to war. (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

The Miami Herald: Guantánamo's legacy. (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

Sandy Shanks discusses the absurdity of the US refusing to talk to willing Iraqi "resistance fighters": The diplomatic front: There isn't any. (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

Experts debate roles of politics and religion: West stymied by terrorists' increased use of suicide bombings. (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

Mike Whitney: The Straight Line Between Falluja and King's Cross Station: Bush and Blair's Orgy of Carnage. (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

MP George Galloway summarized the feelings of many of us when he said, "Members of Parliament find it easy to feel empathy with people killed in explosions by razor-sharp red-hot steel and splintering flying glass when they are in London, but they can blank out of their mind entirely the fact that a person killed in exactly the same way in Falluja died exactly the same death...."

Listen to Bush's comments following the London attack: "And the contrast couldn't be clearer between the intentions of those who care deeply about human rights, and those who kill, those who've got such evil in their hearts that they will take the lives of innocent folks...."

Bin Laden doesn't care a whit about "our freedoms"; his message has been consistent throughout; "Get out of our countries, stop training our brutal secret police, stop propping up our corrupt regimes, and stop stealing our resources." When the imperialism stops, so, too, will the terrorism.

Plamegate continues: Top Aides Reportedly Set Sights on Wilson: Rove and Cheney chief of staff were intent on discrediting CIA agent's husband, prosecutors have been told. (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

Karl Rove, and Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were especially intent on undercutting Wilson's credibility, according to people familiar with the inquiry.... Rove's interest was so strong that it prompted questions in the White House. When asked at one point why he was pursuing the diplomat so aggressively, Rove reportedly responded: "He's a Democrat." [And they hadn't a clue he was the leaker?]

Prosecutors' intense questioning of witnesses about Rove and Libby casts doubt on assertions that the president's longtime political guru was not — at least at some point — in Fitzgerald's sights.

Ambassador Joe Wilson's Letter to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee in "response to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee's "conclusions" about his efforts to expose the truth about the phony Niger claims, and how he came to investigate them.". (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

Hedging on the lack of an indictment, and going back on his word: Bush: CIA leaker would be fired if crime committed. (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

Rob Kall Rovegate and Downing Street—Inseparable. (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

Francis Wheen: Why Marx is Man of the Moment: He had globalization sussed 150 years ago. (POSTED: July 19, 2005)

FBI has massive file on that noted terrorist organization, the ACLU: Large Volume of F.B.I. Files Alarms U.S. Activist Groups. (POSTED: June 18, 2005)

The F.B.I. has in its files 1,173 pages of internal documents on the American Civil Liberties Union, the leading critic of the Bush administration's antiterrorism policies, and 2,383 pages on Greenpeace.... The Justice Department is opposing the A.C.L.U.'s request to expedite the review of material it is seeking under the Freedom of Information Act, saying it does not involve a matter of urgent public interest, and department lawyers say the sheer volume of material, in the thousands of pages, will take them 8 to 11 months to process for Greenpeace and the A.C.L.U alone.

Judith Coburn on the Unnamed Dead of Iraq. (POSTED: July 18, 2005)

Frank Rich reminds us that Plamegate is about Iraq, not, who said what to whom: Follow the Uranium. (POSTED: June 18, 2005)

Why is the Republican National Committee leading the defense of the Deputy Chief of Staff in Charge of Policy, John Nichols: Rove Defense Team. (POSTED: July 18, 2005)

Caught in another lie: Top Cheney Aide Among Sources. (POSTED: July 18, 2005)

First they lied about the war. Then they lied about the lying: Karl Rove Controversy. (POSTED: July 18, 2005)

In America: War protester pulled from Oswego County parade, arrested. (POSTED: July 18, 2005)

Jim Lobe provides a guide to the latest arguments of the "say anything" crowd: Welcome to RightWorld. And Mariano Aguirre provides a guide to the world of Michael Ignatieff: Exporting Democracy, Revising Torture: The Complex Missions of Michael Ignatieff . In his fatal attraction to the style of instant journalism, Michael Ignatieff frivolously mixes history and propaganda. (POSTED: July 18, 2005)

There is no limit to what they'll say: [GOP] Congressman Apologizes for Hitler Remark. (POSTED: July 18, 2005)

Chatham House says: London attack 'linked to Iraq'. (POSTED: July 18, 2005)

Two major analytical pieces from Le Monde Diplomatique. Philip S Golub on the decline of globalization and the revival of American national imperialism: United States: the slide to disorder . And Walid Charara: Constructive instability (POSTED: June 18, 2005)

Also from Le Monde Diplomatique: A short guide to the Shias. (POSTED: July 17, 2005)

Muslim World Rejecting Violence, Says Poll. (POSTED: July 17, 2005)

Labour MP calls for Iraq troops withdrawal. (POSTED: July 17, 2005)

In America: Tenn. Teen Jailed for Burning U.S. Flag. And an 11 year old Hispanic girl is jailed and is being prosecuted for throwing a rock at a gang of boys who were taunting her and throwing water balloons at her [were they white?]: US police pursue girl over rock. (POSTED: June , 2005)

Gilbert Achcar in e Monde Diplomatique: Arab spring: late and cold. The Arab world is in a social, economic and political crisis. Authoritarian regimes are monopolising power while their peoples dream of democracy. And military interventions will not help. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

Minneapolis Star Tribune: Editorial: Karl Rove/Real issue is the case for war. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

The right has been all over the news saying that Ambassador Wilson said his wife wasn't a covert agent when she was outed. Another lie: AP Makes Key Addition to Rove Story on Wilson 'Clandestine' Quote. The PlameGate affair is important because it reveals the workings of the big lie machine in exquisite detail, despite my lack of affection for the despised CIA. While a distraction from the war, if the War Party can spin this one, all attempts to penetrate the fog of lies will be set back immeasurably. (POSTED: July 17, 2005)

AP added to the original story, by John Solomon, the following: "In an interview Friday, Wilson said his comment was meant to reflect that his wife lost her ability to be a covert agent because of the leak, not that she had stopped working for the CIA beforehand. "His wife's `'ability to do the job she's been doing for close to 20 years ceased from the minute Novak's article appeared; she ceased being a clandestine officer,' he said."

Wilson' report may not have been shared with VP Cheney's office: because that wasn't what he wanted to hear. (POSTED: July 17, 2005)

Justin Raimondo believes the claims that Rove isn't a target of the investigation, the War Party is: Rove-gate: Who Leaked to the Leakers? This isn't about Karl Rove. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

Also supporting the case that Rove may not be the target: Reporter may face criminal charge: Miller may be pressured more to discuss source (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

Frank, Conyers Inquire Into Impeachment of 'Senior White House Officials'! (POSTED: July 17, 2005)

Who knew and what did he/she/it know? State Dept. Memo Gets Scrutiny in Leak Inquiry on C.I.A. Officer. (POSTED: July 17, 2005)

Rep. Waxman has released Karl Rove's Nondisclosure Agreement. Guess what? Even negligent release of classified information or confirming classified information is a serious offense. And the sanctions are obligatory, not optional: Karl Rove's Nondisclosure Agreement. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

Tom Hayden: A strategy for ending the Iraq War. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

Kevin Zeese: Iraq Exit Strategy Within Reach? (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

Mundher al-Adhami: Not hate, vengeance . (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

Don't give me the nonsense about why do they hate us. They don't....

Attacks there, as those in London, are not about hating anybody's way of life, but straightforward revenge: revenge for Falluja and al-Qaim - and for Palestine and Afghanistan, which have been subsumed in them.

Erich Marquardt: ''U.S. Faces Pressure to Pull Troops from Iraq''. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

The Bush administration finds itself in a difficult position since both courses of action -- enduring the insurgency or withdrawing from it -- have clear negative consequences. Yet, if operations in Iraq continue along their current progression, Washington will be forced to pull its troops out. The United States does not have the troop strength or the political will to conduct its current scope of operations for years to come. Only two years into the intervention, calls from the American people and from lawmakers to withdraw U.S. troops are growing in force. More importantly, unlike Vietnam, the United States has not resorted to conscription, a decision that has resulted in the overextension of the military. It took the United States four years of fighting until it began to extricate its forces from the conflict in Vietnam; in Iraq, expect that time frame to be shorter.

Interview, by the American Conservative of Robert Pape, author of American ConservativeDying to Win, has a subtitle: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism:It’s the occupation, not the fundamentalism. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

TAC: What do you think the chances are of a weapon of mass destruction being used in an American city?

RP: I think it depends not exclusively, but heavily, on how long our combat forces remain in the Persian Gulf. The central motive for anti-American terrorism, suicide terrorism, and catastrophic terrorism is response to foreign occupation, the presence of our troops. The longer our forces stay on the ground in the Arabian Peninsula, the greater the risk of the next 9/11, whether that is a suicide attack, a nuclear attack, or a biological attack.

Lifelong Republican Cenk Uygur: Put Your Country Above Your Party. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

When our top priority should have been protecting and spreading our way of life, our culture, our idea of America, we sullied the good name of America instead. And I was supposed to stand with my party through all that? I’m far too much of a patriot to do that.

New Rove editorials. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Dump Rove / The investigation moves closer to the president. Michigan times-Herald: White House owes nation an explanation. (POSTED: June 16, 2005)

Novak's own statement contradicts story that HE told Rove about Plame, and not vice versa. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

Eric Baerren: Rove's defense bad, but it's not like it matters. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

Media repeated false GOP talking point on authorization for Wilson trip to Niger. See also: David Brooks repeated false GOP spin that Wilson claimed Cheney sent him to Niger. And: Spock With a Beard. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

Bulldog Fitzgerald Indicts Reporters on Treason Charges for Revealing Classified Information to the White House, the CIA and the OSP. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

Cheney says he's ashamed of being so gullible, and knew all along not to trust theAm media, but running both Halliburton and Bush left him with little time on his hands to verify the classified documents the media kept giving him.

John Dean raises new legal issues: It Appears That Karl Rove Is In Serious Trouble. (POSTED: July 16, 2005)

Previous Month Archive: July, 2005

Occupation

Resistance

Analysis

Soldz Writing & Talks

Complied by Stephen Soldz

Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis
1581 Beacon St.
Brookline, MA 02446
http://soldzresearch.com/stephensoldz

Also check out our other web sites:

Iraq Antiwar Resources
Psychoanalysts for Peace and Justice
Background on the Haitian Crisis
Anti-Bush Fun!
No Stolen Election!
Where is the US Headed?

If you find this information useful,
or if you have other ideas for what should be included,
please let us know by sending us email