Category: Iraq

One of the best ways to follow Saddam Hussein’s trial may just be Case School of Law’s new Grotian Moment Blog. (via TalkLeft)

I’m not sure Rove is prepared for the way these liberal soldiers and veterans are pissed at his divisive comments about how different Americans responded to 9/11: Take it to Karl

I realize the military is hard-up for recruits but I have nothing but respect for the Marines, so I was dismayed to read this article: When Marine recruiters go way beyond the call. Do we really need to take advantage of the young and unworldy to fill our ranks? If so, we’re in more trouble…

Quoting from Attytood: W.’s “runaway bride” and the ‘gotcha’ story that wasn’t gotten: Laura Bush telling a scripted joke isn’t news anymore than is a troubled woman walking out on a wedding and panicking. There’s one striking thing we didn’t see on all the First Lady video overkill, and that was any of the guffawing…

“Admiral Church concluded that the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan had been the result primarily of a breakdown of discipline, not flawed policies or misguided direction” NYT That old “Do your own thing” military! Got me thinking: Maybe they could have policies and direction that involved beakdowns of discipline, that discouraged them. I…

According to this report (Ex-Marine Says Public Version of Saddam Capture Fiction), the much-vaunted capture of Saddam in his spiderhole was fictitious. If true, it might be time to add your sense of what’s real to the list of collateral damage from the propaganda war.

Hit this quote today in Pynchon’s amazing Gravity’s Rainbow that summed up our current political situation way too perfectly: Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers. Which leads back to the query my brain just can’t shake: Prince Charles and his flowering…

Take 2… Cecil was wondering whether we have just created “the perfect opening for an oil-rich anti-western Iran-Iraq alliance”. I happen to think the two countries will become very tight, and posted a line about the Anschluss of the Mullahs on my blog. My friend Mark Lew, who knows more about world politics and history…

…without diving into conspiracy (already got that covered — thanks…) why it might be that the election results in Iraq are getting close to zero media attention? A week ago this was the election of the century. Anybody remember purple fingers? I get that they must still be counting the votes, but in this 24-hour…

I read the news today and got a cold feeling inside. Have we just spent all this blood and treasure to create the perfect opening for an oil-rich anti-western Iran-Iraq alliance, complete with US-trained and armed troops? And will Bush’s great purple-stained success this week turn out to be yet another naive move by wide-eyed,…

That should go without saying. Opposing the war, thinking the opportunity costs weren’t weighed properly, despairing of U.S. leadership – none of that constitutes opposition to democratic elections. While I may have my doubts and pessimism about the entire operation and I may worry about how it will all come out, I don’t see any…

Good discussion in the comment thread for a recent post at Max Sawicky’s weblog (MaxSpeak, You Listen!): That Hussein and the Ba’athist government of Iraq no longer seek a nuclear weapon is good, but if one had given me $200 billion and authorization to get up to 1400 Americans killed and ten thousand wounded to…

According to the State Department report, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq assisted Saddam in “suppressing opposition within Iraq, and performed internal security for the Iraqi regime.”

In Ungrateful Californians, the author the Iraqi Letter to America blog posits a hypothetical fairy tale in which it isn’t the medfly but Californians themselves, in their flowered shirts, who are targeted for “help.”

According to this Newsweek option, The Salvador Option, “we” are considering arming and training death squads to help quell the insurgency in Iraq and to improve our image in the Muslim world. Well, maybe not that latter part. Yes, I know this has been the talk of the left blogsophere for over a week. Many…