Archives for April 2006

20,000 Kidnapped? Parliament to Open Amid Continued Violence Guerrilla violence killed at least 19 persons on Wednesday in Iraq. Some reports say that among the victims were two school teachers in a Shiite district, who had their throats slit in front of their students, by terrorists. There are reports that local police are denying the […]

James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism 2005 I kept meaning to blog the nice award ceremony held April 12 in New York at Hunter College, at which the 2005 James Aronson Awards for Social Justice Journalism were handed out. The unsinkable Molly Ivins was given a lifetime achievement award. She couldn’t be there in […]

A Golden Oldie: Character Assassination You really only have to write the reply once; the smears don’t change over time. From December 2004: Yes, I’m aware that Daniel Pipes of the so-called Middle East Forum sent some puppy out to slime me over at David Horowitz’s Frontpagerag. So this is the way it goes with […]

Political Crisis Worsens as Sectarian War Threatens The Financial Times reports further on the fighting in Adhamiyah on Monday and Tuesday, asking whether the incident suggests greater Sunni Arab backing for the guerrillas. But I am told, and the Baghdad press also reports, that the real significance here was that the Shiite death squads in […]

Shiites Stick with Jaafari 26 Dead, with clashes in Adhamiyah, Ramadi 26 Iraqis died in guerrilla violence on Monday. 17 corpses surfaced in Baghdad, and another 9 persons died in violence around the country. American sources say that in the northern Baghdad district of Adhamiyah, a neighborhood militia fought a 9-hour-long pitched battle with Iraqi […]

Americana in Arabic Library There has been a wonderful public response to my plea for contributions to the Global Americana Institute and our hopes to get the works of Ben Franklin, Thomas jefferson, and others into Arabic. The interest has been so great that I thought I would tip readers to two important web sites […]

A Canadian Fix for the Iran Crisis? Can do, or CANDU? Guest Editorial by Jim Borynec ‘ Iran and the USA are involved in a major diplomatic tussle over nuclear technology. USA claims that Iran is building a bomb while IRAN claims that peaceful nuclear power is their right under article IV of the Non-Proliferation […]

Salon.com on Mearsheimer and Walt My article on the Mearsheimer and Walt piece, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” is out in Salon.com. Actually, my discussion focuses on the noise around the article, not its substance. The substance seems to me unobjectionable. A congressman told me not so long ago, “Juan, I’m glad you’re […]

Americana in Arabic A Challenge to Philadelphia Long-time readers know that as a result of the September 11, 2001, attacks and subsequent events, I decided a couple of years ago that something had to be done about the woeful lack of understanding between the United States and the Muslim world. There will always be differences, […]