The Afghan capital was struck by three suicide bombings early Friday morning, beginning at 6:30 am local time. Radio Azadi reports that there were five attackers, who struck in the area near the entrance of the Hotel Safi Landmark. The first bomb damaged the hotel. Two of these bombings, Aljazeera Arabic says, targeted guest houses […]
Al-Maliki’s Polling Shows His Party Getting Nearly 1/3 of Seats in Parliament, with Allawi’s Iraqiya at 1/5
Al-Hayat [Life] reports via AFP Arabic on the poll just released by the National Media Center, which reports to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s office. According to this sounding, the major coalitions will perform thusly in the March 7 parliamentary elections (rounding up to the nearest whole number): State of Law (Nuri al-Maliki): 30%Iraqi National Movement […]
Gates wants Europe to beggar itself on War Expenditures the Way the US Has
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates decries Europe for general anti-war sentiment, unwillingness to beggar itself with expenditures on war. But as far as I can tell, Europe is the world’s largest economy and got there without any recent substantial wars except those the US dragged it into. Moreover, the fastest-growing economy for the past […]
Afghan Senators demand Execution of Foreign Troops; Karzai Usurps Control of Election Watchdog; BlackwaterTraining Scandal
Pajhwok News Agency reports that on Tuesday, the Afghanistan senate deplored the foreign airstrikes that killed 21 innocent civilians in the province of Daikundi on Sunday, and demanded that NATO avoid any repetition of this sort of error. But some senators went farther, demanding that NATO or US military men responsible for the deaths be […]
Harvard Professor’s Modest Proposal: Starve the Gazans into Having Fewer Babies
Martin Kramer revealed his true colors at the Herzliya Conference, wherein he blamed political violence in the Muslim world on population growth, called for that growth to be restrained, and praised the illegal and unconscionable Israeli blockade of civilian Gazans for its effect on reducing the number of Gazans. M. J. Rosenberg argued that Kramer’s […]
Bombing in Lashkar Gah Kills 7; Karzai Cabinet Denounces NATO over Civilian Deaths; Russia wants Heroin Industry Destroyed
Operation Enduring Freedom is now responsible for the deaths of 1,000 US troops, the bulk of them in Afghanistan. It has now also gone on longer than the Revolutionary War. You have to wonder how many of those troops would be alive if the Bush-Cheney administration had not taken its eye off the ball and […]
Facebook Fan Page
Facebook keeps promising to lift the 5000-friend limit, but has not done it. So my account over there is more or less full. Just to let readers who are interested know that the Facebook Informed Comment fan page works nearly as well, and that I’ve been trying to spend some time there, making a few […]
Five Questions for the Afghan Surge; Or, Getting Past the Hype
Gen. David Petraeus, a straight shooter, admitted on Meet the Press Sunday that the Afghanistan War will take years and incur high casualties.. His implicit defense of President Obama from Dick Cheney on the issues of torture and closing Guantanamo will make bigger headlines, but sooner or later the American public will notice the admission. […]
Sunni Party to Boycott Iraq Elections
The LAT reports that the National Dialogue Front, a secular party led by Salih Mutlak, is calling for a boycott of the March 7 parliamentary elections in Iraq. The NDF has 11 seats in parliament, but Mutlak and another prominent party member were among over 500 candidates (out of over 6000) for parliament disqualified as […]
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