Bush's Free-Fire Zones

By Robert Parry
October 25, 2007

Determined to gain the upper hand in Iraq and Afghanistan, George W. Bush has turned large portions of the two countries into near free-fire zones where any resistance, even in populated areas, is met with aggressive tactics that often kill civilians.

Though more attention has been focused on trigger-happy Blackwater “security contractors,” Bush’s military strategy has employed its own indiscriminate firepower – from loose "rules of engagement" for U.S. troops, to helicopter gun ships firing on crowds, to jet air strikes, to missiles launched from Predator drones.

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U.S. Double Standards for Friend/Foe

By Ivan Eland
October 24, 2007

The Bush administration is attempting to soothe the Turkish government’s apoplectic reaction to the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s label of “genocide” on Turkey’s slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians, which occurred almost a century ago.

The administration fears that an enraged Turkish ally, already threatening to invade northern Iraq in order to suppress armed Turkish Kurd rebels seeking refuge there, will also cut off U.S. access to Turkish air bases and roads used to re-supply U.S. forces in Iraq.

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Bush's Heated 'World War III' Rhetoric

By Brent Budowsky
October 23, 2007

The president speaks of World War III and potential war with Iran with fevered rhetoric, in a near hysterical atmosphere, at a moment of great danger in the world.

The Congress, which has surrendered much of its constitutional responsibility on war and peace while the president aggressively seizes it, treats discussion of World War III as business as usual in Washington.

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Why Is CIA Suppressing JFK Files?

By Lisa Pease
October 23, 2007

The CIA is withholding key documents in the JFK assassination case.

As Jefferson Morley reports in the Huffington Post:

"Lawyers for the Central Intelligence Agency faced pointed questions in a federal court hearing Monday morning about the agency's efforts to block disclosure of long-secret records about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy."

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How Best to Partition Iraq

By Ivan Eland
October 22, 2007

In an otherwise divisive, partisan debate on the Iraq war, the 75-23 bipartisan Senate vote to divide Iraq into autonomous regions was astounding. People who disagree on everything else about Iraq, such as conservative Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and liberal Democrat Barbara Boxer of California, voted in favor of the non-binding measure.

The Bush administration and the international community, made up of many states that have their own restive minority populations, have been reluctant to reconcile themselves to the pragmatic Senate admission that Iraq is unlikely to have a unified democratic government.

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