Saturday, July 14, 2007

July 14, 2003: A Day of Infamy

By Ray McGovern
July 14, 2007

For those tracking the long train of abuses and usurpations of a modern-day George who would be King and his eminence grise behind the throne, July 14 has a resonance far beyond the fireworks of Bastille Day.

Four loosely related events on this day four years ago throw revealing light on key ingredients of the debacle in Iraq.

Read on.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Misreading Iraq, Again

By Robert Parry
July 13, 2007

George W. Bush and his neoconservative supporters are hailing some signs of cooperation between Iraqi Sunni tribal leaders and U.S. forces in rooting out al-Qaeda extremists in Anbar Province as proof that Bush’s military occupation of Iraq is finally working and should not be ended by Congress.

“Finally,” wrote neoconservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer on July 13, “after four terribly long years, we know what works.” He, like Bush, cited the Anbar example as reason to reject growing public and congressional demands for a prompt U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq.

But the Anbar evidence could be read almost exactly the opposite way: that it is the growing belief among Sunnis that the American occupation is nearing its end that has caused some of them to view the U.S. military as a lesser evil and position themselves for what they perceive as the next phase of the conflict.

Read on.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Overstating Iraq Pullout Worries

By Ivan Eland
July 11, 2007

As Congress begins to consider the Iraq War funding bill, defections by important Republican senators have caused a White House debate on whether to try to get ahead of the onrushing train to leave Iraq.

In the Bush administration’s surreal parallel universe, this “post surge redeployment”—normal people would call this a withdrawal after a failed attempt at escalation—would consist of halving the number of U.S. combat forces policing dangerous areas in Iraq and letting the remainder conduct the less dangerous missions of guarding Iraq’s borders, training Iraqi security forces, and keeping al Qaeda off balance in the country.

Read on.

Monday, July 09, 2007

Novak's Limited Plame-gate Hang-out

By Robert Parry
July 10, 2007

Right-wing columnist Robert Novak has played a complex game in advancing the Bush administration’s “Plame-gate” cover-up. Novak was the one who first published the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame; he then answered a few questions before going silent; now, he is making a series of misleading arguments via his columns.

Novak’s deceptions and the complicity of major news organization that publish his column without demanding clarifications may be unprecedented in the history of U.S. journalism. Theoretically at least, news organizations are expected to ferret out government wrongdoing, not act as accomplices in the crime and then abettors of the cover-up.

Read on.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

NYT on Iraq: Better Late Than Never?

By Robert Parry
July 8, 2007

In an extraordinary full-length editorial, the New York Times has called for an end to the U.S. military occupation of Iraq, a step that some anti-war Americans may praise as a turning-point while others will be left wondering why it took the nation’s leading newspaper more than four years – and scores of thousands of dead – to figure this out.

To its credit, the Times does acknowledge that its previous pro-occupation positions – favoring rebuilding what the U.S. invasion had destroyed and worrying about the dire consequences that might result from a U.S. withdrawal – were faulty.

Read on.