Iraq Rationales Getting Weaker (If That Is Possible) No WMDs? Read two articles lately on Antiwar.com about the unloading of old materials in Iraq that could be used as "proof." ~ KR Alan Bock replies: The key issue is whether what Saddam had, if he had anything, constituted anything remotely resembling an imminent threat [...]
Staying the Media Course in Iraq
On his way to confirmation as U.S. ambassador to Iraq, the current U.N. envoy John Negroponte was busily twisting language like a pretzel at a Senate hearing the other day. The new Baghdad regime, to be installed on June 30, will have sovereignty. Well, sort of. Negroponte explained: “That is why I use the term [...]
Heavy-Handed Baghdad Raid Backfires
The 26 April explosions at a chemical warehouse being raided by the U.S. military constitute yet another example of heavy-handed tactics gone awry. US officials say they had reason to believe the facility was being used to manufacture chemical munitions. Rather than use other means to investigate, such as better human intelligence or a more [...]
How Wars Subvert Freedom
Even though I still think it could be a turning point, and one that just might lead to a relatively large-scale rethinking of what we might term the imperial imperative, I’m reluctant to write about Fallujah just now because I really have little or no idea what’s going on there. It’s not that I haven’t [...]
Iraqis Say: ‘US Out Now!’
From March 22 to April 2, 60 trained Iraqi pollsters interviewed 3,444 randomly selected Iraqis for USA Today. This is one of the first polls in Iraq that seems to me well weighted statistically, though to be sure we’d have to know more than USA Today told us. The numbers are negative [...]
Annan: Never a UN Force in Iraq
As violence continues to escalate in Iraq, killing dozens of soldiers and hundreds of civilians, the United Nations remains ambivalent about its own ability to help salvage a country on the brink of disaster. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been dragging his feet over the appointment of a new special representative for Iraq to [...]
US, Iraqi Views of Occupation Converging
One year after President George W Bush declared an end to “major hostilities” in Iraq, public opinion there and in the United States is beginning to converge, as people in both countries increasingly agree that the US invasion and occupation might not have been such a good idea after all. That is one conclusion [...]
Depravity as ‘Liberation’
The Abu Ghraib prison was a symbol of Saddam’s horrific tyranny: electrodes hanging out of the walls, floors stained with the blood of god-knows-how-many victims, bodies dangling from meat-hooks, like in some cheap Grade-B horror flick. So when the Americans came and “liberated” the place, the long-suffering Iraqi people were supposed to be grateful. After [...]
Balkans and the EU
In a day or two, the European Union is set to accept 10 new member countries, many of which were once dominated by another Union – Soviet. One of the ten is the former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia. On the occasion, the London-based supporter of Empire (and EU, unsurprisingly) IWPR published a series of [...]
US May be Fighting on Two Fronts Too Many
When U.S. troops backed by helicopter gunships attacked the Mehdi Army of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the holy Shia city of Najaf, it is not clear who they killed. The US military says 64 Iraqi fighters were killed, but hospital officials in Najaf told the Arab satellite network al-Jazeera that several casualties appeared [...]
