Commentary By Ron Beasley
I have said for years that the best way to end foreign misadventures like Iraq and Afghanistan was to make the millionaire pundits and neocons pay for them. Let's see how enthusiastic Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes are when their wars are being paid for by them. [...]
Iraq according to a redneck? From an email to K-Lo at The Corner:By Steve Hynd
It's become fairly conventional wisdom that the regional winner of the Iraq war was Iran, which now has its pensioners in control of the Iraqi central government and - theoretically - all that oil. Kurds and Sunnis may have something to say about that, however, especially [...]
By Dave Anderson:
What happens when the money that that Iraqi government has been spreading around runs out? The New York Times Op-ed page raises this question:
As much as 51 percent of the Iraqi labor force is either unemployed or underemployed; the number is even higher for young workers...
Iraq’s private [...]
By Steve Hynd
Peter Galbraith, who was recently in the news in a good way for slamming UN complicity in Afghan election corruption, is back in the news in a bad way. Galbraith, who was a signator of the PNAC letter calling for the invasion of Iraq and a major influence [...]
By Dave Anderson:
What was the Dean campaign critique of the Democratic pro-Iraq invasion position --- If you offer people Republican and Republican lite, they'll take the Republicans as they know they believe their crazy instead of mealy mouthing it.
Ian Welsh notes the Democratic Party elite has not' [...]
At the O, Jeff Mapes reports that Governor Ted Kulongoski arrived in Iraq yesterday to visit with Oregon troops. Despite being in a combat zone, Kulongoski told reporters that the troops are concerned with how things will go when they arrive home:
Kulongoski said in a conference call with reporters [...]An interesting article about one of the other unintended consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq; the coming out of Turkey from behind America’s shadow and its rise as major player in the Middle East and beyond.
Turkey is extending its influence by diplomacy rather than force. It [...]
Faith and Family Film Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats
By Catholic Office of Film and Broadcasting
The Men Who Stare at Goats—Fact-based satire, set during the early stages of the Iraq War, in which an eccentric military veteran (George Clooney) regales a reporter [...]
By Dave Anderson:
Earlier this week, the New York Times reported on the grand and glorious Iraqi Army that is the model of national unity and non-sectarian allegiance. Whoops, I'm drinking at lunch time again:
Both the military and the police remain heavily politicized. The police and border officials, for example, are' [...]
By John Ballard
This is not today's news but today's NPR interview is a must-listen. Captain Matthew Hoh speaks with reason, authority and the calm confidence of a man who has done the right thing at great risk. A card-carrying hero, he spent enough time in Iraq to become a [...]
From an NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll:
- 81% say we are a part of a longer-term economic decline
- 27% think the country is headed in the right direction
- 65% say they feel less confident that life for their children’s generation
- 60% doubt the Iraq war will come to [...]
By Steve Hynd
According to The Guardian (h/t Gregg Carlstrom)
Iraq has started lobbying for approval to again become a nuclear player, almost 19 years after British and American war planes destroyed Saddam Hussein's last two reactors, the Guardian has learned.
The Iraqi government has approached the French nuclear industry about [...]
By Steve Hynd
Over the past two days, there have been contradictory statements from the White House and Pentagon on whether events in Iraq might affect the speed of American drawdown there. First, on Tuesday morning, the London Times reported that General Odierno, the commander in Iraq, was having second thoughts about the [...]
By Dave Anderson:
As Steve noted earlier today, this was a "quiet" week in Iraq:
Meanwhile, in Iraq, a week of "reduced" violence that doesn't even merit much Western press coverage any more, plus a high-profile attack on a Sunni mosque at Tal Afar today, has cost 81 lives.' [...]
