The newest new US plan for Iraq involves political negotiations, selectively assassinating uncooperative Iraqi government and security officials and strengthening the Iraqi army, which is described in the Washington Post story on the plan as “one of the more reliable institutions in the country.”
This would be the same army that U.S officials said only a […]

More than 100 Washington Post readers have responded to a Washington Post op-ed piece by new U.S. intelligence director Mike McConnell calling for changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. At last count, only five comments could be interpreted as favorable, and only one of those was genuinely coherent. A number of readers point out […]

Let no one say that the Bush administration’s Middle East policy, such as it is, has been an unqualified failure. Sure, Iran and Osama bin Laden may be the primary beneficiaries of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Yes, the unqualified US support for Israel’s disastrous assault on Lebanon helped precipitate yet another political […]

The website of Alhurra, the Virginia-based Arabic language satellite broadcaster, acknowledges that the channel is funded by the U.S. government but says that the channel’s parent company, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc., “receives this funding from the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), an independent and autonomous federal agency. The BBG serves as a firewall […]

It’s perfect: the man nominated by George Bush to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission received a $150,0o0 payoff from the organization representing the businesses he would be in charge of regulating.
But Michael Baroody is probably telling the truth when he says that the money won’t have any impact on the way he does […]

Arizona senator John McCain disappointed the audience at Tuesday’s GOP presidential candidates debate when he refused to support the use of torture against terrorism suspects, but he may have repaired some of the damage when he promised to personally take the fight to terrorists in Iraq.
McCain became the first of the GOP presidential hopefuls to […]

Among the less subtle hints about US long-term plans for Iraq are the massive, permanent military bases there and the Brobdignagian new US embassy in the Green Zone. No one, including congressional Democrats, ever talks about the bases, but Al Kamen has some details about the embassy in today’s Washington Post.
For all those who keep […]

The Washington Post reported Sunday on a Pentagon official in Iraq who has drawn the ire of other government officials by unilaterally reconstituting some of that country’s state-owned industries.
Paul Brinkley, a deputy undersecretary of defense, has been called a Stalinist by U.S. diplomats in Iraq. One has accused him of helping insurgents build better […]

It’s the most brilliant political stratagem since Pat Buchanan kidnapped and murdered the Reform party in 2000: “Gridlock in a Can.”
Unity ‘08 wants to run a bipartisan ticket in the next presidential election, mix-and-matching candidates from the two major parties with candidates from the other party or with independents. Among the names bandied about […]

Two British men suffer for Bush’s sins…