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The 7-page memo seen by the NYT and signed by CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus authorizes US troops to engage in clandestine intelligence-gathering in the greater Middle East. The article implies that the memo also authorizes more military teams to go into unconventional conflict situations in both unfriendly and friendly countries. Critics worry that the […]

Iranian member of parliament Mohammad Reza Bahonar warned Thursday that “If (the West) issues a new resolution against Iran, we will not be committed to Tehran’s statement and dispatching fuel outside Iran will be canceled.” Turkey and Brazil, with full backing from Washington DC and in close cooperation with the Obama administration, had apparently succeeded […]

The juvenile “draw Muhammad” day has generally been avoided by professional editorial cartoonists. One Islamophobic theme apparent in the writing on it is that Muslims are peculiar in their thin-skinned responses to such assaults on their religious sensibilities and that members of other religions never riot or protest. This assertion is not only bigoted but […]

Just to enter an objection to the increasing tendency of the mainstream media to equate the Tea Party on the American right wing with supposedly “angry” activists on the left wing of the Democratic Party. And moreover to point out that the Corporate Media pet narrative of the Rise of the New New Right and […]

Veteran Iran observer Borzou Daragahi reports on the agreement just announced by Iran and Turkey on the disposition of Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium. Under the deal, according to the Iranian spokesman, “After a final agreement is signed between Iran and the Vienna group, our fuel will be shipped to Turkey under the supervision of […]

Afghanistan is already beginning to defeat Barack Obama. He came into office last year clearly hoping to find a way to move Hamid Karzai, the mercurial and ineffectual president of Afghanistan who only controls some 30 percent of the country, out of office in favor of someone more capable as a leader. Perhaps he had […]

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 […]