110230793430480876

Four more interesting developments in Iraq deserve commentary. First, NBC News is reporting that “the US military is now planning to increase the number of American troops in Iraq by 10,000 to 11,000 to provide additional security. That’s twice the number of reinforcements first anticipated and would bring the total number of American troops in [...]

Read Full Post »

110230807118768047

Today’s NYT fronts a classified International Red Cross report which alleges the U.S. tactics at Guantánamo Bay to be “tantamount to torture.” The report, which was based on a visit in June, also says some doctors were helping plan interrogations, “a flagrant violation of medical ethics.” The interrogation techniques included “solitary confinement, temperature extremes, [...]

Read Full Post »

110230818908086892

A revealing article from Dahr Jamail about the suppression of “those” Iraqi media stories that don’t echo the American-interim-government version of events.
A telling passage:
“The media commission sent out an order recently asking news organizations to “stick to the government line on the U.S.-led offensive in Fallujah or face legal action.” The warning was sent on [...]

Read Full Post »

110230830322685935

Allegations of voter fraud and manipulation in the 2004 Presidential election are still spinning throughout alternative media. The mainstream press has almost single-handedly ignored the story. (You can read my column on voter fraud here).
On Sunday, Rev. Jesse Jackson, along with the Greens and the Libertarians endorsed a presidential recount of Ohio while GAO [...]

Read Full Post »

110230844970328624

More on the Iraqi forces point. The InterPress Service news agency is reporting that the US military used poison gas during the Fallujah attacks. According to one witness, “Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah. They used everything– tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground.”
In Mosul the bodies of 20 [...]

Read Full Post »

110230856155908011

David Corn examines Bush’s ‘evolution in rhetoric’ as far as the Iraqi security forces are concerned. He points to this recent Washington Post piece which ‘reveals’ (what we had already known) that the forces are extremely unreliable and tend to be sympathetic to the insurgency.
From the Post piece: “As insurgents intensify attacks on members of [...]

Read Full Post »

110230865762970439

The Washington Post asks the soul-searching-meaning of the election question that has haunted political scientists for weeks– Was 2004 a realignment election?
The repercussions: “If Republicans have indeed seized the upper hand in national politics in a fundamental way, the implication for Democrats is that radical changes in their electoral strategies, and even issue positions, are [...]

Read Full Post »

110230875121722983

A great piece in today’s New York Times about Bush’s Social Security privatization-personal accounts plan. The question: How much money would the government need to borrow to finance the soon-to-be-announced proposal?
“Borrowing by the government could be necessary to establish the personal accounts because of the way Social Security pays for benefits. Under the current system, [...]

Read Full Post »

110230883073479161

According to the Washington Post, House speaker Dennis Hastert is now operating under the “majority of the majority” rule. That is, he will only allow a vote on those bills that have enough votes to pass with a Republican majority. Take the recent 9/11 legislation that Hastert refused to bring to a House vote because [...]

Read Full Post »

110230893634362795

The situation in Iraq has only been deteriorating. Last week, during the Fallujah offensive, the Red Cross reported that 800 Iraqi civilians had been killed. Incidentally, that number was only a conservative estimate since it did not include those still lying under the rubble.
Not surprisingly this figure received little coverage in the mainstream press. In [...]

Read Full Post »