Archives for December 2008

Iraqi journalist Muntazir al-Zaidi, who threw the shoes at Bush in Baghdad, shouted “Killer of Iraqis, killer of children.” while security guards piled on him. McClatchy reports that he had covered the US bombing of Sadr City last spring, in support of PM Nuri al-Maliki’s incursion into this stronghold of the Sadr Movement and its […]

A journalist, Muntazir al-Zaidi of Baghdadiya Television, aimed two shoes at W. during a news conference in Baghdad during which Bush attempted to justify his invasion of Iraq. Baghdadiya, based in Cairo, Egypt, supports the Sunni Arab insurgents fighting the US and the al-Maliki government. Al-Zaidi shouted “This is a farewell kiss!” as he launched […]

Gen. Ray Odierno said Saturday in Baghdad that non-combat US troops would remain inside Iraqi cities after June 30, 2009, in a training and mentoring capacity. The security agreement concluded between Washington and the Iraqi government appears to call for all US troops to be deployed to bases outside the cities by the end of […]

You know how the Republicans in the Senate refused to spend $30 billion to bring the US auto industry back from the brink? It turns out that they were prefectly happy to waste $50 billion in taxpayer money on reconstruction boondoggles in Iraq on explicity partisan grounds. A veteran Republican lobbyist, says the NYT, explicitly […]

Iraqi government spokesman Ali Dabbagh, who is visiting Washington, DC, said Friday that “We do understand that the Iraqi military is not going to get built out in the three years. We do need many more years. It might be 10 years.” Critics took him to be saying that the US military might be needed […]

A massive suicide bombing at a restaurant just north of Kirkuk killed 55 persons and wounded 120 on Thursday. The restaurant was the site of parleys between Arab tribal shaikhs and officials of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan seeking a political solution to the disposition of the oil city of Kirkuk, which is claimed by […]

It is official. According to a bipartisan Senate report, then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush bear responsibility for the torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo and the tossing aside of the Geneva Conventions, which are part of US law. It mystifies me as to why […]

My column is out at Salon.com: “Does Obama understand his biggest foreign-policy challenge? The president-elect wants to work with the Pakistani government to “stamp out” terror. It’s not nearly that simple.” excerpt: ‘ To some extent, then, Pakistan’s powerful national-security apparatus has been divided against itself for much of the past decade. The contradictory agendas […]

McClatchy has gained access to a confidential United Nations document on the Lashkar-e Tayiba, the Pakistan-based terrorist group suspected of being behind the attack on Mumbai. McClatchy writes: ‘ A U.N. document obtained by McClatchy said that LeT has sent operatives to attack U.S. troops in Iraq, established a branch in Saudi Arabia and been […]