Archives for February 2006

Muslim Protests Against Anti-Muhammad Caricatures Several readers have asked what I think about the protests among Muslims against the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published by a Danish newspaper. Of course people are upset when their sacred figures are attacked! But the hurt is magnified many times when the party doing the injuring is first-world, […]

George “Gen. Jack Ripper” Bush Another leaked British memo (“everywhere you dig you find a body”) reveals that Bush and Blair sat around on January 31, 2003, thinking up crazy schemes to provoke a war with Saddam since they didn’t have any real casus belli. What is worse, the memo confirms that our genius president […]

Shiite control of Interior a Red Line Al-Zaman reports [Ar.] that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq is still determined to try to obtain for his faction of the Shiite religious coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, the prime ministership. His candidate is Adil Abdul Mahdi, who is running against […]

Guerrillas Kill 37 Iraqis wound 90; 5 GIs Killed Muqtada Threatens “The Most Violent Response” to US Attack Guerrillas set off two bombs in the al-Amin quarter of Baghdad on Thursday, killing 16 persons and wounding 90 others at a market and near a gas station. Al-Hayat [Ar.] reports that violence killed altogether 37 Iraqis […]

Sunni Arab Politicians threaten Civil Disobedience At least 14 were killed in bombings and violence in Iraq on Wednesday. One bomb targeting Shiites killed 8 in Baghdad. Two Iraqi television journalists were kidnapped. Sunni Arab politicians in Iraq demanded on Wednesday that the Shiite minister of interior be sacked, and threatened to mount a campaign […]

Arguing with Bush The Middle East portion of Bush’s State of the Union address was a real disappointment. Here is some of the text, with my comments. ‘ In 1945, there were about two dozen lonely democracies in the world. Today there are 122. And we are writing a new chapter in the story of […]

How to Tell if Bush is Serious about Ending US Dependence on Foreign Petroleum Bush said last night he wanted to end the dependence of the United States on foreign petroleum. That is not the right goal, since if we just burned coal and ran electric cars we could be independent. But we’d accelerate global […]

14 Bodies in Baghdad US Talks with Guerrillas Halted Altogether 14 dead bodies showed up in the capital of Baghdad on Tuesday, all shot in what were probably sectarian reprisals. Four Iraqi troops were killed in a clash with guerrillas. A British soldier was killed. A new poll shows that nearly half of Iraqis approve […]