The Bush administration announced wideranging new sanctions on Iran on Thursday, which target three Iranian banks, nine companies associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, and several individuals, as well as the IRGC (roughly analogous to the National Guard in the US, i.e. a populist adjunct to the formal Iranian army). These unilateral sanctions clearly […]
Iraqi Delegation Pleads with Turkey not to Invade; Turkish Shelling of Iraqi Villages KRG: No PKK Offices in Iraq
The USG Open Source Center translates television news concerning the crisis between Turkey and Iraq over the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) guerrilla actions against Turks; the PKK fighters are given safe haven inside Iraq by the Kurdistan Regional Authority, led by Massoud Barzani. In a second item, OSC translates a Kurdish t.v. report on the […]
2 US GIs Killed, 8 Wounded; Turkish Air Strikes against Kurds; Bombs in Baghdad Kill 8; Basra Police Chief Escapes Attempt on his Life
Turkish war planes and helicopter gunships attacked Kurdish guerrillas in eastern Anatolia on Wednesday, making at least one raid into Iraq according to wire services. An Iraqi delegation is going to Ankara to try to resolve the crisis, which may eventuate in a Turkish incursion into Iraqi territory. A bombing of the Shiite Diyala Bridge […]
Cole on Amy Goodman’s "Democracy Now", Oct. 23
My appearance on Amy Goodman’s ‘Democracy Now’ is now available online. I am also giving the YouTube links below, which are clickable. But do help support DN at their web site. I discuss developments in Iraq and Iraq, and in no. 3 below discuss the resonances of Bonaparte’s invasion of Egypt to contemporary affairs. 1. […]
US Troop Deaths up over 2006 Air Strikes Rise Four Times Iraqi Cities under Curfew
At Salon.com, my column on the collapse of Bush’s Middle East police, with the troubles on the Turkish/Iraq border and the huge bomb that greeted Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan. Edward Luce of FT argues that Iraq has faded as a campaign issue in the 08 presidential election. He attributes this lower profile for the issue […]
US Pressures Turkey not to Attack Mahdi Army attacks Police in Karbala Rubin on Cheney’s Roll-out of Iran War
The Bush administration made a diplomatic ‘full court press’ with Turkish leaders to dissuade them from attacking the Kurdish Workers Party [PKK] guerrillas hiding out in Iraq after the killing of 17 Turkish troops and the capture of 8 others by the PKK on Sunday. Turkish Prime Minister Rejeb Tayyip Erdogan is alleged to have […]
Morning News on Napoleon’s Egypt
From the Morning News Book section: ‘Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East by Juan Cole Book Digest: As the bibliography of the disaster known as the Bush administration grows, a useful early distinction will be chronicle versus analysis and context. Cole, a thoughtful and imaginative scholar, offers the latter with his account of an earlier, […]
US Air Strike kills 49 in Sadr City PKK Kills 17 Turkish Soldiers Turkey Shells Iraq
Ferit Demir reports (via The Scotsman): ‘ Kurdish rebels [of the PKK/ Kurdish Workers Party] killed at least 17 Turkish soldiers, wounded 16 others and took several hostage in an ambush near the Iraqi border yesterday . . . Turkey’s military general staff said 32 rebels were killed in continuing clashes. Its artillery also shelled […]
The Sadism of the Israeli Occupation
The Guardian reports on a building scandal in Israel over the extreme brutality of its occupation of the Palestinians in the West Bank. Excerpt: ‘ According to Yishai Karin: ‘At one point or another of their service, the majority of the interviewees enjoyed violence. They enjoyed the violence because it broke the routine and they […]
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