Uncategorized

Boycott Statement of Iraqi National Constituent Assembly The intrepid Alissa Rubin of the LA Times reported last week on the meeting of political organizations in Iraq calling for a boycott of the forthcoming election. Their formal statement has just become available to me in English, and I’m reprinting below. “In the name of God, the […]

MEMRI Funding I have received several emails from people who looked up the funding for MEMRI in the internet guide to charitable organizations, and found that it reported income of a little less than $2 million a year. But that is only the United States. MEMRI is an international organization. It has, for instance, a […]

Another campaign against Sunnis A major military campaign was launched by US and British troops in Iraq on Tuesday, targetting Babil province or what is called “the triangle of death.” This is the area south of Baghdad where cities such as Mahmudiyah, Latifiyah and Iskandariyah lie.

MEMRI and Bias Many thanks to all the readers who have written in response to my posting about the attempt of the Israel-linked MEMRI “translation service” to intimidate me with the threat of a lawsuit. Many of the letters have been eye-opening, and I give an example, which seems to me especially instructive, below. Dear […]

Persian Gulf Flap As if we did not have enough life and death issues to deal with, the Iranian state is now keeping National Geographic out because it identifies the Persian Gulf as also the Arab Gulf. As with most disputes about what to call something, this argument is silly. The Persian Gulf was called […]

Deliberate Murder of 10-year-old Girl by Israeli Military A tape recording has surfaced showing that Israeli soldiers deliberately killed a frightened 10-year-old little girl in Gaza, who had been identified to them as such. If the tape is as described, this seems a clear case of a crime against humanity.

Intimidation by Israeli-Linked Organization Aimed at US Academic MEMRI tries a SLAPP I just checked my campus mail and found a letter in it from Colonel Yigal Carmon, late of Israeli military intelligence, now an official at the Middle East Media Research Organization, or MEMRI. He threatened me with a lawsuit over blog comments I […]

Massing on Iraq Press Coverage The way in which so much of the US press neglected to exercise their faculties of critical reasoning in the face of Bush administration claims about Iraq has generated remarkably little writing or self-reflection. It is in fact quite striking that talking heads and journalists who were completely wrong about […]

Turkish Role Neighboring Turks take a dim view of the “Iraqi resistance” in the Sunni Arab heartland of Iraq, given that it has slaughtered 64 Turkish truck drivers. The Turkish Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul, is clearly petrified with fear that US tensions with Iran will spin out of control. The region, he says, cannot bear […]