125 QuickLinks

Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Bush's anti-terrorism law upheld
(3 comments) Breaking news: A US court has upheld President George W Bush's new anti-terrorism law, agreeing that Guantanamo Bay inmates cannot challenge their imprisonment.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006
AlGore.com and MoveOn.org Present:See the Truth Movie Party
(3 comments) On Saturday, December 16, 2006 thousands of us are going to get together in living rooms around the country, watch the blockbuster documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," and press Congress to take action to solve our climate crisis.If you haven't seen the movie, you have to. If you have, you can help raise awareness and push Washington to take action on the biggest crisis facing our planet.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Bush's 'new way forward' is into quicksand
(3 comments) BY JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY, McClatchy Newspapers: The power brokers in Washington spent the week carefully arranging fig leaves and tasteful screens to cover the emperor's nakedness while he was busy pretending to listen hard to everyone with an opinion about Iraq while hearing nothing.

Monday, December 11, 2006
CIA is undermining British war effort, say military chiefs
(3 comments) Confidential report speaks of 'serious tensions' in the coalition over strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan

Monday, December 11, 2006
Analysts: U.S. at root of effort to topple Lebanese government
(3 comments) American political leaders watched with alarm during the past week as the Hezbollah militia laid siege to the U.S.-backed Lebanese government, but few would acknowledge publicly what most analysts and politicians here say is obvious: American policy may bear much of the blame.

Saturday, December 9, 2006
This week on the tube
(3 comments) Four video clips highlighting the ISG's findings

Friday, December 8, 2006
Leave Iraq now; don't wait until 2008 election day
(3 comments) After nearly four years of living in what can be charitably described as a state of denial, everyone in Washington, from President Bush to the Baker Commission to incoming defense secretary Robert Gates, to outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to the study group assembled by Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has finally admitted that pretty much nothing is going right in Iraq.

Thursday, December 7, 2006
Panel: U.S. Underreported Iraq Violence
(3 comments) U.S. military and intelligence officials have systematically underreported the violence in Iraq in order to suit the Bush administration's policy goals, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group said.

Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Sorry, but women are dependent on men
(3 comments) We live in an age in which women have earned complete independence. So do they need men at all? According to Dr NICK NEAVE, an evolutionary psychologist from Northumbria University, not only do they need men, they are fundamentally programmed to depend on them. Here, Dr Neave, 41, explains his provocative thesis:

Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Richest 2% own 'half the wealth'
(4 comments) The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute. The report, from the World Institute for Development Economics Research at the UN University, says that the poorer half of the world's population own barely 1% of global wealth.

Monday, December 4, 2006
Democrats Who Opposed War Move Into Key Positions
(3 comments) Given little public credit at the time, or since, many of the 126 House Democrats who spoke out and voted against the October 2002 resolution that gave Bush authority to wage war against Iraq have turned out to be correct in their warnings about the problems a war would create.With the Democrats taking over control of the House, the views that some voiced during two days of debate four years ago are worth recalling...

Sunday, December 3, 2006
The House of Death
(4 comments) it is becoming clear that the Luis Padilla murder, along with at least 11 further brutal killings, at the Juarez 'House of Death', is part of a gruesome scandal, a web of connivance and cover-up stretching from the wild Texas borderland to top Washington officials close to President Bush. [Ed note: DEA and ICE at work with your money.]

Saturday, December 2, 2006
Meteorite yields life origin clue
(3 comments) Hollow spheres found in a primordial meteorite could yield clues to the origin of life on Earth. Scientists say that "bubbles" like those in the Tagish Lake meteorite may have helped along chemical processes important for the emergence of life. The globules could also be older than our Solar System

Saturday, December 2, 2006
Is President Bush Sane?
(6 comments) Tens of millions of Americans want President George W. Bush to be impeached for the lies and deceit he used to launch an illegal war and for violating his oath of office to uphold the US Constitution. Millions of other Americans want Bush turned over to the war crimes tribunal at the Hague. The true fate that awaits Bush is psychiatric incarceration.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006
US starts to pin blame on Iraqis
(5 comments) The fact that President Bush is having to meet the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki in Jordan is a sign of how desperate things have become in Iraq. It's just too dangerous for him to go there. Nouri al-Maliki Iraq's prime minister is under attack in a US government memo.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Saudis Will Fill Vacuum Left by US in Iraq and Challenge Iran's Pretensions
(3 comments) What Obaid has articulated here is not offered as a threat if the US leaves Iraq. This is the first robust declaration that the Saudis are willing to fill the vacuum left by the United State in the region and knock back some of the unchecked expansion of Iranian influence in the region.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006
A Conservative for Impeachment
(3 comments) Bruce Fein reminds me of Jerry Lewis as Professor Julius Kelp in the The Nutty Professor. Intellectually astute and quick-witted, Fein, like Lewis as Kelp, is underestimated because of his peculiar style. But the stakes are too high to dismiss Fein simply for being didactic or eccentric. In fact, he's breaking conservative rank to defend our Constitution. Why is he for censuring the President and even, perhaps, impeaching him?

Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Ten Fallacies About the Violence in Iraq
(3 comments) The distortions about the violence in Iraq persist even as the mayhem increases. Here are ten of the worst myths being spread in the media.

Monday, November 13, 2006
George Bush has slunk back to Dad for help. It's Shakespeare meets Freud
(3 comments) After his election humiliation George Bush has slunk back to Dad for help. It's Shakespeare meets Freud, says Andrew Sullivan. The events of last week in America have an almost Shakespearean quality to them. It's like some ghastly conflation of Richard II's doom-laden "Down, down, I come" and Richard III's "winter of our discontent". [Editor's note: An excellent, in depth piece on the father-son relationship of GWB and GHWB.]

Monday, November 13, 2006
Olbermann taps a well of discontent as the anti-O'Reilly
(3 comments) Keith Olbermann just needed to find his voice. He'd been a droll sportscaster, a serious news anchor and a bickering critic of Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. But none of those personas really clicked. Then he found one. A little over a year ago, as the White House fumbled and botched the Hurricane Katrina recovery, Olbermann finally blew up.

Sunday, November 12, 2006
US 'must send inquest witnesses'
(3 comments) The US military's refusal to send witnesses to inquests of British troops killed in Iraq has been criticised by the constitutional affairs minister.

Sunday, November 12, 2006
US vetoes UN motion on Gaza attack
(3 comments) The US has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning an Israeli attack in Gaza that killed 18 civilians, including women and children.

Sunday, November 12, 2006
MNSBC online poll: 87 percent say 'plenty to justify' Bush impeachment
(3 comments) An MSNBC online poll shows that the overwhelming majority of its participating voters believe President Bush should be impeached.

Sunday, November 12, 2006
Feeling Blue?
(3 comments) After the Democratic sweep of Congress, President Bush's approval reaches a new low. But voters want Democrats to chart a moderate course.

Sunday, November 12, 2006
Outrage at London sting by US spies
(3 comments) Undercover American agents are staging secret 'sting' operations in Britain against criminal and terrorist suspects they want to extradite to the US. ... The case has provoked a huge row because the agents used tactics banned in Britain.

Saturday, November 11, 2006
Were Bush and Rove "The Producers" of an intentional flop?
(3 comments) The exit polls that leaked out in the late afternoon ended up matching the final results almost exactly -- nothing like what happened in those other Bush-era elections. The razor-close races all broke late for the Democrats, unlike Florida in 2000 or Ohio in 2004...and when that happened, there were no major charges of fraud, no "Brooks Brothers Riot," and no demand for a recount.

Saturday, November 11, 2006
The culture of corruption loses
(3 comments) The "culture of corruption" was real. That phrase was a much-contested talking point during the past two years, with Democrats touting it as an accurate description of the degraded ethical state of the congressional GOP and Republicans dismissing it as a smear. Democrats were much closer to the truth. Voters took a good whiff of the odor emanating from Washington and some of their Republican representatives, and recoiled.

Friday, November 10, 2006
Huge 'hurricane' rages on Saturn
(3 comments) A hurricane-like storm, two-thirds the diameter of Earth, is raging at Saturn's south pole, new images from Nasa's Cassini space probe reveal. Measuring 5,000 miles (8,000km) across, the storm is the first hurricane ever detected on a planet other than Earth.

Friday, November 10, 2006
Vietnam court jails US citizens
(3 comments) Three US citizens and four Vietnamese have been sentenced to 15 months jail for terrorism, a Hanoi court has ruled. Taking into account time already served the seven could be freed in a month, when the US citizens face expulsion. The seven were accused of trying to set up illegal radio transmitters to make anti-communist broadcasts.

Friday, November 10, 2006
'Aliens could attack at any time' warns former MoD chief
(10 comments) UFO sightings and alien visitors tend to be solely the reserve of sci-fi movies. So when a former MoD chief warns that the country could be attacked by extraterrestrials at any time, you may be forgiven for feeling a little alarmed. [It appears this article is for real]

Friday, November 10, 2006
Charges Sought Against Rumsfeld Over Prison Abuse
(3 comments) A lawsuit in Germany will seek a criminal prosecution of the outgoing Defense Secretary and other U.S. officials for their alleged role in abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo

Thursday, November 9, 2006
Oil Prices Climb on Falling Gas Supplies
(3 comments) Oil prices rose slightly Thursday in reaction to figures showing lower U.S. gasoline and diesel fuel inventories and to leadership changes in the U.S. Congress following midterm elections. While prices were holding in the $58-$60 range, they will likely rise as the Northern Hemisphere begins winter and heating fuel demands rise, analysts said.

Thursday, November 9, 2006
French nearly fired at Israelis
(3 comments) French troops serving in Lebanon have been only seconds away from firing on Israeli aircraft, the French defence minister says. Michele Alliot-Marie told parliament the jets dived towards UN positions in October and were perceived as a threat. "Two seconds later there would have been a shot against the aircraft which were directly menacing our forces," the defence minister said

Thursday, November 9, 2006
International court in first case
(3 comments) The only permanent international war crimes court has opened its first hearing, in the case of a Democratic Republic of Congo militia leader. Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) are to decide whether Thomas Lubanga should stand trial for allegedly recruiting child soldiers. The four-year DR Congo conflict led to an estimated four million deaths.

Thursday, November 9, 2006
Iraq corruption 'costs billions'
(4 comments) Corruption within the Iraqi government is costing the country billions of dollars, the US official monitoring reconstruction in Iraq has said.

Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Democrat win may shift focus to U.S. middle class
(3 comments) The election victory by U.S. Democrats has been hailed as a repudiation of Republican President George W. Bush and the war in Iraq, but Democratic Sen.-elect Sherrod Brown believes economic populism and pocketbook pain is what put him in power.

Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Rumsfeld's exit greeted abroad
(3 comments) The mid-term election results that heralded a massive power shift in the American political landscape, including the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, have been greeted with jubilation around the world.

Tuesday, November 7, 2006
Lower pump prices fuel political conspiracy theories
(4 comments) Many Americans think the recent drop is tied to the Bush administration and GOP election hopes.

Monday, November 6, 2006
SENATE: Control 'hanging by a thread' -- analysts think Dems could win majority
(3 comments) Democrats are nearly giddy at their prospects for retaking majority control of the Senate. "This is the harbinger of a wave," predicted Sen. Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat who heads his party's effort to retake the Senate, pointing to Democratic gains among independents in Arizona. Recapturing the Senate was a wild Democratic dream as recently as August.

Sunday, November 5, 2006
Far from healing Iraqi divisions, Saddam's trial has deepened them
(3 comments) THIS is victor's justice. There is a tiny chance that it will calm Iraq's turmoil, but much more likely, it will have the opposite effect. The verdict is no surprise. One hundred per cent of Iraqis anticipated it; 80 per cent with a sense of vindication, 20 per cent with fury.

Sunday, November 5, 2006
Conservative magazine pillories Bush, calls for Democrat win
(3 comments) The American Conservative, a magazine started by Pat Buchanan to offset the over-representation of neoconservative thought in public debate, has taken a strong anti-Bush position this election. The article states that "[i]t should surprise few readers that we think a vote that is seen-in America and the world at large-as a decisive "No" vote on the Bush presidency" is important for the health of the nation.

Saturday, November 4, 2006
Neo Culpa
(3 comments) As Iraq slips further into chaos, the war's neoconservative boosters have turned sharply on the Bush administration, charging that their grand designs have been undermined by White House incompetence. In a series of exclusive interviews, Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, David Frum, and others play the blame game with shocking frankness. Target No. 1: the president himself.

Friday, November 3, 2006
'Only 50 years left' for sea fish
(3 comments) There will be virtually nothing left to fish from the seas by the middle of the century if current trends continue, according to a major scientific study. Stocks have collapsed in nearly one-third of sea fisheries, and the rate of decline is accelerating.

Thursday, November 2, 2006
State Dept Vetted Speakers for Criticism of Bush Adminstration
(3 comments) An internal State Department review has found that U.S. officials screened the public statements and writings of private citizens for criticism of the Bush administration before deciding whether to send them on foreign speaking assignments. The screenings amounted to "virtual censorship" in the State Department's selection of speakers, said a report by the department's Inspector General's Office.

Thursday, November 2, 2006
Revealed: U.S. Soldier Killed Herself After Objecting to Interrogation Techniques
(3 comments) The true stories of how American troops, killed in Iraq, actually died keep spilling out this week. Now we learn, thanks to a reporter's FOIA request, that one of the first women to die in Iraq shot and killed herself after objecting to harsh "interrogation techniques."

Thursday, November 2, 2006
The rich are getting much richer, much faster than everyone else
(3 comments) Over the past quarter-century, and especially in the last 10 years, America's very rich have grown much richer. No one else fared as well. In 2004, the richest 1 percent of households - 719,910 of them, with an average annual income of $326,720 - had 19.8 percent of the entire nation's pretax income. That's up from 17.8 percent a year earlier, according to a study by University of California-Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez.

Thursday, November 2, 2006
Khatami labels US policy 'a joke'
(3 comments) The former president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, has branded US attempts to impose Western-style democracy in the Middle East as "a great joke". Mr Khatami was critical of the US-led military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, which he said had led to more Muslims supporting al-Qaeda.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Florida ballot terminals favor Republicans
(3 comments) Florida voters using electronic ballot machines are having persistent problems choosing Democrats in early elections, the Miami Herald reports. The touch-screen gizmos seem strangely attracted to Republican candidates. One voter needed assistance from an election official, and even then, needed three tries to convince the machine that he wanted to vote for Democrat Davis in the gubernatorial race, not his Republican opponent.

Monday, October 30, 2006
Blair accused of trying to 'privatise' war in Iraq
(3 comments) The Government has been accused of reneging on pledges to control private security companies operating in Iraq because it wants to "privatise the war" as part of its exit strategy.

Monday, October 30, 2006
The road to delusion
(3 comments) Next week, George W Bush faces his last, critical electoral challenge. Niall Ferguson assesses a failed presidency. Two years ago Karl Rove amused himself and his boss with a battery-powered "Redneck Horn". Today, however, the joke is on them.

Saturday, October 28, 2006
Criticism Mounts of U.S. Generals in Iraq
(3 comments) Top warmakers like Gen. John Abizaid have thus far escaped blame for the failures in Iraq. But that's starting to change

Saturday, October 28, 2006
How Jesus Endorsed Bush's Invasion of Iraq
(3 comments) In the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, Bush needed the approval of religious leaders to shore up his religious base and a group of Catholic theoconservatives were happy to help him do just that.

Friday, October 20, 2006
The courts are starting to accept that the war against Iraq is a crime
(3 comments) In Britain and Ireland, protesters who have deliberately damaged military equipment are walking from the dock

Thursday, October 19, 2006
Texan Friend of Bush Rips Iraq War
(3 comments) A former Department of Homeland Security official who also worked for George W. Bush in Texas says his old friend exaggerated the threat from Saddam Hussein and only made America less safe by attacking Iraq.

Thursday, October 19, 2006
How to Make a Power Grab 'Mundane'
(3 comments) The Washington Post's story today -- "Bush Signs Terrorism Measure" -- looks like just another routine report on the approval of a piece of legislation, accompanied by the usual "he said/ she said" quotes. A typical reader might shrug at this point and shift to the sports section to read the latest autopsy on the Redskins.

Saturday, October 14, 2006
Bush Keeps Revising War Justification
(3 comments) President Bush keeps revising his explanation for why the U.S. is in Iraq, moving from narrow military objectives at first to history-of-civilization stakes now. Initially, the rationale was specific: to stop Saddam Hussein from using what Bush claimed were the Iraqi leader's weapons of mass destruction or from selling them to al-Qaida or other terrorist groups.

Sunday, October 8, 2006
Hidden victims of a brutal conflict: Iraq's women
(3 comments) Abduction, rape and murder are the punishments for any woman who dares to hold a professional job. A month-long investigation by The Observer reveals the terrible reality of life after Saddam

Saturday, October 7, 2006
Study Finds Lack of Balance, Diversity, Public at PBS NewsHour
(3 comments) The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS's flagship news program, touts its "signature style-low-key, evenhanded, inclusive of all perspectives"; Corporation for Public Broadcasting ombud Ken Bode called it "the mother ship of balance." But a new FAIR study finds that the NewsHour fails to provide either balance or diversity of perspectives-or a true public-minded alternative to its corporate competition.

Friday, October 6, 2006
The New Enabling Act
(3 comments) I cannot view the current debate about the Bush Administration's latest attempt to remove all checks on its power without thinking about how my German and Austrian grandparents must have watched with disbelief as Europe sank into the madness of fascism. [This is much more important then the Foley sideshow]

Friday, October 6, 2006
Bush signings called effort to expand power
(3 comments) President Bush's frequent use of signing statements to assert that he has the power to disobey newly enacted laws is ''an integral part" of his ''comprehensive strategy to strengthen and expand executive power" at the expense of the legislative branch, according to a report by the non partisan Congressional Research Service.

Friday, October 6, 2006
Arrogant US Officials Made Mistakes in Iraq, Envoy Says
(3 comments) The US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said yesterday that US officials had been arrogant and made many mistakes during efforts to rebuild Iraq after the 2003 invasion. "It's important to recognize that mistakes have been made over the last few years. There have been times when US officials have behaved arrogantly and were not receptive to advice from local leaders," he told Iraqi officials. "We have made mistakes..."

Friday, October 6, 2006
Marijuana may stave off Alzheimer's
(3 comments) Good news for aging hippies: Smoking pot may stave off Alzheimer's disease. New research shows that the active ingredient in marijuana may prevent the progression of the disease by preserving levels of an important neurotransmitter that allows the brain to function.

Friday, October 6, 2006
Olbermann video: Bush would sell America out to preserve GOP power
(3 comments) Keith Olbermann delivered a 'Special Comment' in his Thursday evening broadcast on the subject of lying, specifically that committed by members of the Administration, up to and including President Bush. Olbermann said. "Rhetorically, it is about an inch short of Mr. Bush accusing Democratic leaders, Democrats, the majority of Americans who disagree with his policies, of treason."

Friday, October 6, 2006
Why the Military Commissions Act Is "Flagrantly Unconstitutional"
(3 comments) Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy On the Military Commissions Act, S. 3930. It is from strength that America should defend our values and our Constitution. It takes commitment to those values to demand accountability from the Government. In standing up for American values and security, I will vote against this bill.

Friday, October 6, 2006
Sawing Off the Judicial Branch
(3 comments) Forget about Mark Foley. Something much more serious is going on. And that's the demise of our democracy. The legislation passed last week allows the President to round up even American citizens, label them enemy combatants, and deny them any day in court. This is not only an assault on our individual rights. It's an attempt to saw off the judicial branch of government. And they keep sawing away.

Friday, October 6, 2006
Why I refused to go back to Iraq
(3 comments) By Camilo E. Mejìa, [I]n 2004, I was sentenced to twelve months in a U.S. Army jail because I refused to go back to Iraq. Even then, I knew that our military presence there was fueling a national resistance, while boosting terrorism across the world. And I knew our commander in chief was not being straight with us.

Friday, October 6, 2006
US Military Redefining Strategies After Iraq Debacle
(3 comments) According to a new counterinsurgency doctrine scheduled for release in November, the US Army and Marines recognize, from hard lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, that their strategy of force is not winning any wars. Instead, the manual underscores the protection of civilians as the bedrock element of new-think military strategy.

Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Colin Powell Claims He Was Fired by President Bush
(3 comments) According to his official biography, which was excerpted in The Washington Post's Sunday magazine.

Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Book Review: I.F. Stone: Iconic Muckracker
(3 comments) The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I.F. Stone by Myra MacPherson. One of the great journalist of all time. He opened the door to investigative journalism. Never the insider, he relied primarily on published government reports for most of his ammunition. From his small office, he could out Woodward Woodward.

Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Torture Bill States Non-Allegiance To Bush Is Terrorism...almost a mirror image of Hitler's 1933 Enabling Act
(3 comments) Buried amongst the untold affronts to the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the very spirit of America, the torture bill contains a definition of "wrongfully aiding the enemy" which labels all American citizens who breach their "allegiance" to President Bush and the actions of his government as terrorists subject to possible arrest, torture and conviction in front of a military tribunal.

Tuesday, October 3, 2006
"Route-Stepping" Our Way to WWIII
(3 comments) If "World War III" sounds hyperbolic and alarmist, that's because it is. Precisely for that reason, it is the prevailing lingua franca of the Bush administration and those on the right who seek to solidify their hold on power by cowing the public.

Tuesday, October 3, 2006
The G.O.P.'s Secret Weapon
(3 comments) You think the Republicans are sure to lose big in November? They aren't. Here's why things don't look so bad to them

Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Conservatives also seek Hastert's resignation
(3 comments) Despite denying today that he had any knowledge of the instant message conversations that resulted in Mark Foley's resignation from Congress, House Speaker Dennis Hastert is being called on to resign by liberals and conservatives alike.

Tuesday, October 3, 2006
The Neocons' Lexicon
(3 comments) The Republicans' deployment of the term "Islamofascism" to define the enemy in the Bush administration's war on terror is clearly an attempt to improve their prospects in the midterm elections. By conflating contemporary terrorist threats with fearsome historical enemies, the GOP seeks to divert attention from the increasingly unpopular occupation of Iraq.

Monday, October 2, 2006
Middle-class families in worse shape than ever, study finds
(3 comments) The typical family is worse off financially than ever, a study released Thursday said, warning that few Americans have saved enough to brace for financial setbacks. Middle-class families are struggling to pay for a home, health insurance, transportation and their children's college with wages that have not kept pace with higher prices, according to the study by a think tank headed by a former top aide to President Bill Clinton

Monday, October 2, 2006
Wave of Party Switchers Hits Republicans
(3 comments) Citing extremism, more GOPers are joining the Democrats A trend of local, below-the-radar party-switches is undercutting Republicans as they face the sternest challenge in a decade to one-party control of Congress and several state legislatures. Such party-switching by elected officials often indicates that the label they are shedding has lost appeal and foreshadows poor performance at the polls.

Saturday, September 30, 2006
Detainee law may not provide total immunity for CIA interrogators
(3 comments) Congress has eased the worries of CIA interrogators and senior administration officials by granting them immunity from U.S. criminal prosecutions for all but "grave" abuses of terrorism detainees. International legal experts said the measure is meaningless overseas, where international courts theoretically could still prosecute alleged violations of anti-torture treaties.

Saturday, September 30, 2006
Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone
(3 comments) Interview with Rajiv Chandrasekaran, auther of a book on life in the Green Zone: Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor and former Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran has written a behind-the-scenes account of the Bush administration appointees who ran Iraq after the US invasion. Invoking the embattled ex-Director of FEMA, Chandrasekaran calls them "Michael Brown x100.

Saturday, September 30, 2006
Straw says US mistakes have made situation in Iraq 'dire'
(3 comments) The current situation in Iraq is "dire" according to Jack Straw, the former Foreign Secretary. In frank comments, Mr Straw - now the Leader of the Commons - blamed "mistakes" made by the US administration in the aftermath of the invasion for the current problems.

Friday, September 29, 2006
Robert Scheer: A War on Intelligence
(3 comments) You would think that a consensus report from all 16 U.S. intelligence services concluding that he has blown the war on terror would be a really big deal to the president. But that assumes that George W. Bush values intelligence. Clearly, he does not.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Army chief tells Bush: there's not enough money for Iraq war
(3 comments) George Bush suffered a serious rebuke of his wartime leadership yesterday when his army chief said he did not have enough money to fight the war in Iraq. Six weeks before midterm elections in which the war is a crucial issue, the protest from the army head, General Peter Schoomaker, exposes concerns within the US military about the strain of the war on Iraq, and growing tensions between uniformed personnel and the Pentagon...

Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Bush's Own Church Has Called For The Withdrawal Of Troops From Iraq
(3 comments) United Methodist Church leaders helped launch a week of protest and civil disobedience against the war in Iraq by signing a declaration of peace in the capital, urging President Bush to pull US troops out of the country.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006
H.R. 2679, The "Christian Supremacy Act", To Hit House Floor
(3 comments) Our job is to reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost. As the vice regents of God, we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors -- in short, over every aspect and institution of human society. - D. James Kennedy

Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Rice Falsely Claims Bush's Pre-9/11 Anti-Terror Efforts Were 'At Least As Aggressive' As Clinton's
(3 comments) This morning, in the Fox-owned New York Post, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reacts angrily to President Clinton's criticisms of how the Bush administration approached the terrorist threat during their first eight months in office. (The Post headlines the article "Rice Boils Over Bubba"). "What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years," Rice added

Saturday, September 16, 2006
Bush's second choice for Vice President to assail GOP over Schiavo, gay rights
(3 comments) Republican shortlisted to be Bush's Vice President to lay out most explicit case for gay rights; Blasts Frist, GOP handling of Schiavo case The former Missouri senator shortlisted to be then-Governor Bush's running mate in the 2000 presidential election--said to have been second choice only to Vice President Cheney--will come out vehemently against administration and Congressional Republican policy in a book to be published.

Friday, September 15, 2006
Most forego buying own U.S. health insurance
(3 comments) Nine out of 10 Americans who tried to buy their own health insurance failed, either because the price was too steep or because they were denied coverage due to a current medical problem, a study said on Thursday. The findings by the nonprofit research group Commonwealth Fund come as more U.S. employers have stopped offering workers health insurance -- with runaway medical costs the most frequently cited reason.

Thursday, September 14, 2006
Roll Call: Google 'eager' to work with Republicans
(3 comments) Google is "eager" to work with the Republican Party and has boosted its presence in Washington, D.C., according to Roll Call. "The company is filing paperwork today to open its first-ever political action committee, and later this month, it will make an endangered GOP incumbent the beneficiary of its first-ever Washington fundraiser."

Thursday, September 14, 2006
IAEA: U.S. report on Iran's nuclear plan 'outrageous and dishonest'
(3 comments) VIENNA - UN inspectors have protested to the U.S. government and a Congressional committee about a report on Iran's nuclear work, calling parts of it "outrageous and dishonest," according to a letter obtained by Reuters. The letter said the errors suggested Iran's nuclear fuel program was much more advanced than a series of IAEA reports and Washington's own intelligence assessments have determined.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006
New York Times Rewrites Iraq War History
(3 comments) In a New York Times article (9/5/06) on George W. Bush's September 5 speech concerning terrorism and Iraq, reporters David Sanger and John O'Neil included a striking revision of Bush's reasoning for going to war: "The possibility that Saddam Hussein might develop 'weapons of mass destruction' and pass them to terrorists was the prime reason Mr. Bush gave in 2003 for ordering the invasion of Iraq." Not exactly what was said.

Sunday, September 10, 2006
62,006 - the number killed in the 'war on terror'
(3 comments) The "war on terror" - and by terrorists - has directly killed a minimum of 62,006 people, created 4.5 million refugees and cost the US more than the sum needed to pay off the debts of every poor nation on earth.

Sunday, September 10, 2006
Cheney: WMD or not, Iraq invasion was correct
(3 comments) President Bush would have ordered an invasion of Iraq even if the CIA had told him that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday. In the build-up to the U.S. invasion in 2003, Bush and other administration leaders argued that Saddam should be removed from power because he had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was actively seeking to build a nuclear weapon.

Friday, September 8, 2006
'War on terror' loses clear direction
(3 comments) In the five years since 9/11, a clear-cut and well-supported "war on terror" declared by President Bush has become confused and divisive. Whereas Le Monde declared the day after 9/11: "We are all Americans now", a placard at a demonstration in London recently read: "We are all Hezbollah now".

Friday, September 8, 2006
Baghdad Burning... Summer of Goodbyes...
(3 comments) Residents of Baghdad are systematically being pushed out of the city. Some families are waking up to find a Klashnikov bullet and a letter in an envelope with the words "Leave your area or else." {The latest from Riverbend (Girl Blog from Iraq). A report from inside Baghdad. [Over the last several months you can see the hope she once had for Iraq vanish.]}

Wednesday, September 6, 2006
A diseased Kansas elephant?
(3 comments) Former Republicans express disillusionment with party policy by switching to the Dems ticket. (I hope these guys are sincere and not Republicans posing as Dems to take advantage of the dissatisfaction with the GOP). I guess I'm a bit cynical.

Wednesday, September 6, 2006
GOP secretly channeled millions to Lieberman
(3 comments) The White House funneled millions of dollars through major Republican Party contributors to Sen. Joseph Lieberman's primary campaign in a failed effort to ensure the support of the former Democrat for the Bush administration. A senior GOP source said the money was part of Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove's strategy to maintain a Republican majority in the Senate in November.

Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Political Islam takes center stage since 9-11
(3 comments) In the five years since the September 11 attacks, U.S. intervention abroad has fed the extremism it seeks to destroy and cemented the rise of political Islam as the ideology of choice for millions in the Middle East, experts say. Today, political Islam has been widely embraced in the Arab world, where many feel alienated by corrupt rule and foreign policies seen as serving the interests of the United States and its ally Israel

Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Europeans See U.S. as Threat to Global Stability
(3 comments) Some adults in five European nations express reservations about the role of the United States in world affairs, according to a poll by Harris Interactive published in the Financial Times. 30 per cent of respondents believe the U.S. is the greatest threat to global stability.

Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Harris Wins Fla. GOP Senate Nomination
(3 comments) U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris overcame a campaign ridiculed even by her own party to easily claim the GOP nomination for the Senate on Tuesday, and Rep. Jim Davis won the Democratic nomination to succeed popular Gov. Jeb Bush. Harris next faces an uphill battle against incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, who had no primary challenger. This has to be good for the Dems!

Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Afghanistan: Campaign against Taliban 'causes misery and hunger'
(3 comments) Two international think-tanks published reports yesterday highlighting failures of US and UK policy in Afghanistan, and warned the security situation in the country was deteriorating. The Senlis Council claimed that the campaign by British forces against the Taliban had inflicted lawlessness, misery and starvation on the Afghan people.

Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Afghanistan's 'Little America' now a Taliban center
(3 comments) According to a report in tomorrow's New York Times (reg. req.), a part of Afghanistan into which the United Starts poured so much building effort that it was called "Little America" has now become the center of a Taliban resurgence that is making Afghanistan almost as dangerous for American soldiers as Iraq.

Tuesday, September 5, 2006
GOP Rep. Schwarz: "Theocracy" Coming to America?
(3 comments) On August 8th, while all attention was on the Lieberman-Lamont race in Connecticut, a tough primary battle ended as McCain-style moderate Congressman Joe Schwarz was defeated for nomination in Michigan's 7th District. His opponent, former State Rep. Tim Walberg, ran a negative campaign claiming Schwarz was a "liberal," largely backed by the Club for Growth, Right to Life, and the Minuteman PAC.

Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Israel Said to Fear War Crimes Charges
(3 comments) Three weeks after a cease-fire ended Israel's monthlong war against Hezbollah guerrillas, Israel is increasingly concerned that government officials and army officers traveling abroad could face war crimes charges, a Foreign Ministry official said Monday.

Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Upcoming National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq Likely to be Ugly
(3 comments) Nearly six weeks ago, six Senate Democrats,including Harry Reid, Joe Biden and Edward Kennedy sent a letter to John Negroponte urging an updated National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq. For starters, this was long overdue, considering the last one was in 2004, and wasn't too pretty, offering three possibilities in Iraq, ranging from "continued instabillity" (or "bad") to civil war ("worst").

Saturday, September 2, 2006
Discord over guitar sites
(3 comments) With the fight against illegal downloading of songs starting to pay off, the music business has set its sights on a new enemy on the internet - websites which transcribe pop songs into musical notation. Music publishers in the US say the guitar "tab" sites illegally infringe songwriters' copyright, and have issued "take down" orders to some of the biggest.

Saturday, September 2, 2006
New ABC Docudrama Blames Clinton For 9/11, Praises Bush
(3 comments) On September 10 and 11, ABC will air a "docudrama" called "The Path to 9/11." Just in time for the mid-terms.

Saturday, September 2, 2006
Row over Bush TV 'assassination'
(3 comments) The Republican Party in Texas has said it is "shocking" and "disturbing" that a TV drama is to depict the assassination of US President Bush.

Friday, September 1, 2006
Let's be Realists, Let's Demand the Impossible!
(3 comments) "Why pragmatic politics are doomed to fail in the Middle East." An indepth article by an excellent writer about the reasons pratical, realistic policies won't work in the Middle East. Slavoj Zizek disccuses some reasons why the situation in the ME is so intractable.

Thursday, August 31, 2006
You wouldn't catch me dead in Iraq
(3 comments) Scores of American troops are deserting - even from the front line in Iraq. But where have they gone? And why isn't the US Army after them? Peter Laufer tracked down four of the deserters They are the US troops in Iraq to whom the American administration prefers not to draw attention. They are the deserters – those who have gone Awol from their units and not returned, risking imprisonment and opprobrium.

Thursday, August 31, 2006
U.S. Policies Hurt War on Terrorism, Say Americans
(3 comments) Many adults in the United States think their federal administration is hindering the global effort against terrorism, according to a poll by SRBI Public Affairs published in Time. 56 per cent of respondents think the U.S. policies in the Middle East are hurting the war on terrorism.

Thursday, August 31, 2006
Has the Bush doctrine failed?
(3 comments) Analysts say conflicts in the Middle East have halted aggressive US policy, and may hint at end of West's military superiority.

Friday, July 28, 2006
Washington risks a wider conflict
(3 comments) Previous eruptions of violence that began in a roughly similar manner, such as the 1996 Grapes of Wrath bombardment, were curtailed at a much lower level than the current paroxysm. One major difference this time is that Israel enjoys an indulgence from Washington far beyond anything previous, essentially giving it a free hand.

Friday, July 28, 2006
UN body criticises US on rights
(3 comments) [Once we were the leaders in this area] The US should immediately shut all secret detention facilities used in its campaign against terror groups, the UN Human Rights Committee has said. The committee called on the US to give the International Red Cross prompt access to those held in such jails. The UN report also covered the domestic human rights situation in the US

Friday, July 28, 2006
Detainee Abuse Charges Feared
(3 comments) An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress in 1996 has made the Bush admin nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts. That law criminalizes violations of the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in war and threatens the death penalty if U.S.-held detainees die in custody from abusive treatment.

Thursday, July 27, 2006
Lebanon damage report
(3 comments) Summary of the main Lebanese infrastructure damaged by Israeli bombing in the two weeks since the conflict began on 12 July, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Social Affairs. {Notice that 5000 homes have been damaged.}

Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Israel troops 'ignored' UN plea
(3 comments) UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon contacted Israeli troops 10 times before an Israeli bomb killed four of them, an initial UN report says.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Iran activist 'snubs White House'
(3 comments) Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji declined to meet White House officials during a visit to the US, he has told the BBC. Mr Ganji said he had been invited to discuss the current situation in Iran. The White House declined to comment. He said he rejected the offer because he believed current US policies could not help promote democracy in Iran

Monday, July 24, 2006
Legal Group Faults Bush for Ignoring Parts of Bills
(3 comments) The American Bar Association said Sunday that President Bush was flouting the Constitution and undermining the rule of law by claiming the power to disregard selected provisions of bills that he signed. [The NYT article is registration restricted]

Sunday, July 23, 2006
A Study of Bias in the Associated Press
(3 comments) A look at how AP handles various new stories. Impeachment, the Israel-Palestine Conflict, the Overthrow of President Aristide, and Cynthia McKinney.

Thursday, July 20, 2006
GOP Lawmakers Edge Away From Optimism on Iraq
(3 comments) Faced with almost daily reports of sectarian carnage in Iraq, congressional Republicans are shifting their message on the war from speaking optimistically of progress to acknowledging the difficulty of the mission and pointing up mistakes in planning and execution. [Could this just be a political move to get reelected?]

Wednesday, July 19, 2006
GOP Rep: Iraq 'worse than I expected'
(3 comments) Republican Congressman Gutknecht (R-MN), a strong supporter of the Iraq adventure, visits Baghdad and now want a troop draw down. "The condition there is worse than I expected," he said. "... I have to be perfectly candid: Baghdad is a serious problem." "That's a far cry from what we were told originally," he said. "... All of the information we receive sometimes from the Pentagon and the State Department isn't always true."

Monday, July 17, 2006
Video: 50 year study says conservatives 'followers'
(3 comments) In an interview with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, former Nixon counsel John Dean explained a largely unknown 50 year academic study. The data shows that conservatives are much more likely to follow authoritarian leaders.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Oldy but goody! George Bush Resume
(3 comments) The résumé of George W. Bush. Or why things are as they are. A somewhat humorous, but factual, look at the accomplishments and failures of our beloved president. From his earliest days to the recent past, GWB has proved he is not what his backers say he is.

Wednesday, July 5, 2006
The bikini: Not a brief affair
(3 comments) The bikini as we know it turns 60 on 5 July.

Monday, May 29, 2006
Amnesty to target net repression and corporations that aid and abet
(3 comments) Amnesty International has set up a site dealing with Internet censorship and repression of dissent by governments and the corporations that are helping them. This BBC article describes the site and has a link to Amnesty's site

Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Now Is the Time for a Left-Right Alliance
(3 comments) A rebel alliance already exists that could stop Bush administration attacks on the Constitution