Iran is a threat because Washington says so. Certainly, WaPo accepts the charge at face value: Iran’s ambitions, which have cast a long shadow over the greater Middle East, may serve as a common bond keeping a frail peace process intact despite threats that have arisen even before the negotiations open Thursday at the State [...]

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The story of U.S. counterinsurgency “success” and military withdrawal is a bed-time tale told to put the American public to sleep. So argues Hannah Gurman in a Salon piece that punctures several propaganda balloons floated by the ObamAdmin, GOP and Dem hawks, and the usual right-thinkers among the commentariat. Here is one to keep in [...]

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If you watched Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show last night, you probably caught this segment, Richard Engel’s sunny assessment of Iraqi election results. In Maddow’s words, the Allawi victory could be a “recipe for more stability” as it draws in a diverse coalition of Sunni, Shiite, Kurd and secular interests. Engel adds that “it is much [...]

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…but I know you didn’t. Still, it’s helpful that Frank Rich put together in three paragraphs a litany of the intelligence and national security madness pursued by the previous White House: Obama may well make — or is already making — his own mistakes. And he will bear responsibility for them. But they must be [...]

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Karl Rove has learned his lesson: Mr. Rove adamantly rejects allegations that the administration deliberately lied about the presence of weapons in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. But he acknowledges that the failure to find them badly damaged Mr. Bush’s presidency, and he blames himself for not countering the narrative that “Bush lied,” calling it “one of [...]

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Click the cartoon to read it full size. Unrelated thoughts…. Today I watched several hours of MSNBC and CNN. Don’t ask me why. It might be some masochistic streak in my personality. Or I am secretly addicted to non-stop updates on all things Michael Jackson, Sarah Palin, and the endless speculation about the impact of [...]

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Dick Cheney (who pronounces his last name “Chee Knee,” because he’s as dumb as “So-to-may-er“) denies he ever said that thing that he said so many times that a majority of the U.S. public believed that it was true  — long after it was unquestionably NOT true — and that gave his government cover to [...]

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Where have all the flowers gone? Abu Ghraib, of course! Yes, I’ve posted on this before. Even did a cartoon. But I couldn’t resist linking to a photo gallery.

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Baghdad Central Prison, formerly known as Abu Ghraib, is open for business! The newly minted Baghdad prison has modern medical and dental facilities, a computer chatroom and a courtyard for visiting families that contains a children’s playground and a water fountain.Inmates will be able to sew their own clothes in a small sewing factory. The [...]

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Dahr Jamail from IPS News reports that Iraqi gravediggers are at “100% full employment.” They are so busy, in fact, that they have had little time to keep accurate records of the dead. “Most of the dead were never logged by anyone,” Ali said, “because we didn’t check death certificates, we just tried to get [...]

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