Helena Cobban, proprietor of the JustWorldNews web site, has been covering global issues as a professional journalist for 35 years, most recently for the Christian Science Monitor. She writes: ‘Five years into the still unfolding tragedy of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, it is clearer than ever that this intervention has inflicted significant […]
Afghanistan: Civilians Caught in the Middle of US & Taliban
Afghanistan has become the Forgotten War on the screens of corporate media. Yet the US has 33,000 troops fighting there and NATO forces amount to 60,000 there altogether. {Sorry for the wrong numbers in the first draft.) Barnett Rubin is live-blogging the renewed violence in Afghanistan from the ground in that country. Also don’t miss […]
Thousands of Sadrists Protest Security Pact With US; Sistani Aide Demands Parliament Vote
Thousands of followers of Shiite leader Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr peacefully protested across southern Iraq on Friday, according to McClatchy. They prayed and then stood silently in solidarity against the security agreement being negotiated by PM Nuri al-Maliki with George W. Bush. Sadrists Demonstrate in Kufa. Courtesy Amara.net, a Sadrist site. (On both the Iraqi and […]
Suicide Bombers Kill 20, Wound Dozens in North; Firefight with Jihadis in Tikrit; VP Abdul Mahdi Praises IranP
At least 35 persons died in political violence in northern Iraq on Thursday. Suicide bombers killed 20 persons and wounded dozens in three attacks on police and recruits, with the largest attack at Sinjar. In Tikrit, Awakening Council tribesmen armed and paid by the US shot to death 15 jihadis in a tanker headed for […]
Haeri Fatwa Against Security Agreement; Al-Alam: Basra Pols Oppose Security Agreement with US
The USG Open Source Center translates the fatwa of Ayatollah Kadhim al-Ha’iri (Haeri) condemning any security agreement between Iraq and the United States (Via BBC Monitoring). Haeri, an Iraqi, lives in Qom because he refuses to reside under foreign military occupation. He is sometimes called Iraq’s ‘fifth grand ayatollah.’ The other four live in Najaf […]
Sadr demands Referendum on SOFA; Sistani said to Support Referendum
CNN is reporting that Shiite leader Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr is demanding that any US-Iraqi security agreement be submitted to a national referendum. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that he is in good company: ‘ Sources close to the office of the Shiite Supreme Exemplar, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, told al-Hayat that he called on the Iraqi prime […]
Sunni Arabs Pull out of Talks with al-Maliki; Bush Benchmark in Doubt; Marines Proselytize Sunnis with Gospel
On Wednesday, the Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front (IAF, Tawafuq) withdrew from talks on rejoining the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of the Shiite fundamentalist Islamic Mission Party (Da’wa). Despite the confidence of Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni, that his bloc would eventually rejoin the government, the development was a blow to […]
Halliburton and Iran
The moral of the below: If you can’t join them, beat them. Reddit readers have dug up an article by Jason Leopold alleging that Halliburton, of which Dick Cheney was CEO in 1995-2000, and which did business in Iran until 2007, supplied Iran with equipment that could have been useful to its nuclear program. Among […]
McClellan: Bush in Permanent Campaign Mode, Less than Forthright on Iraq
Former White House press spokesman Scott McClellan has come to the realization that Bush’s presidency veered badly off course and that the Bush White House was in “permanent campaign mode”– by which he appears to mean that the honesty and transparency necessary to govern were foregone in favor of constant propaganda of the sort it […]
© 2025 All Rights Reserved