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November 25, 2006
Somewhere in Baghdad
Don't know where this picture was taken or who this woman is. I don't think it matters.
I just don't know what else there is to say.
(The picture was at the front page of CNN's website without captions).
Posted by zeynep at 06:10 PM | Comments (0)
November 24, 2006
Deeper and Deeper into a Civil War
This is just getting worse and worse.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Sunni Muslim insurgents blew up five car bombs and fired mortars into Baghdad's largest Shiite district Thursday, killing at least 161 people and wounding 257 in a dramatic attack that sent the U.S. ambassador racing to meet with Iraqi leaders in an effort to contain the growing sectarian war.Shiite mortar teams quickly retaliated, firing 10 shells at Sunni Islam's most important shrine in Baghdad, badly damaging the Abu Hanifa mosque and killing one person. Eight more rounds slammed down near the offices of the Association of Muslim Scholars, the top Sunni Muslim organization in
Iraq, setting nearby houses on fire.
Here's what I don't buy: that this was inevitable. That this is just ancient deep hatred bubbling up. No doubt there was resentment, hostility and distrust between the Sunni and the Shiite Iraqis. Sure there were tensions and issues. But this was not inevitable.
Posted by zeynep at 12:01 AM | Comments (1)
November 17, 2006
"The president said there was much to be learned from the divisive Vietnam War..."
Really. Bush actually said there was "much to be learned from the divisive Vietnam War." And before you get your hopes up high, here's the fuller quote:
"My first reaction is history has a long march to it, and societies change and relationships can constantly be altered to the good," Bush said after speeding past signs of both poverty and the commerce produced by Asia's fastest-growing economy.The president said there was much to be learned from the divisive Vietnam War -- the longest conflict in U.S. history -- as his administration contemplates new strategies for the increasingly difficult war in Iraq, now in its fourth year. But his critics see parallels with Vietnam -- a determined insurgency and a death toll that has drained public support -- that spell danger for dragging out U.S. involvement in Iraq.
"It's just going to take a long period of time for the ideology that is hopeful -- and that is an ideology of freedom -- to overcome an ideology of hate," Bush said after having lunch at his lakeside hotel with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, one of America's strongest allies in Iraq, Vietnam and other conflicts.
"We'll succeed," Bush added, "unless we quit."
I'm just trying to imagine what one must think happened during the Vietnam War to have learned the lesson that "we'll succeed unless we quit."
Posted by zeynep at 10:12 PM | Comments (6)
November 14, 2006
It's quite remarkable that ...
... a business columnist can write the following without anyone remarking on how remarkable it all is:
Let's consider the pluses and minuses [of the results of the election for the economy of the D.C. region:]The big negative is that the government-contracting gravy train, which the regional economy has been riding for the past four years, just jumped the tracks. It's not only that the war in Iraq will start to wind down, along with all the logistical support and reconstruction work that goes with it. Even more significantly, the Democratic Congress is about to lift the veil on the orgy of contractor waste, fraud and abuse that has gone unchecked at the Pentagon, the intelligence agencies and the Homeland Security Department.
The process of De-Halliburtonization will lead to a cutback in defense and homeland security contracting, a squeeze on contractor profits, a hit to share prices and a noticeable deceleration in wage increases for key employees.
So, one can openly and matter-of-factly say that the contractors live on unchecked "waste, fraud and abuse", that the on-going contractor gravy-train is fed by the Republican-dominated Congress and be considered perfectly respectable... as long as one says it in the business pages.
Posted by zeynep at 08:21 PM | Comments (1)
November 09, 2006
Democrats Gain Control of the House and the Senate
But the big question remains: What will they do in Iraq?
Most things in Iraq are out of American hands, in terms of improving anything. We could certainly make things worse for us and for Iraq, I suppose.
If, however, democrats more or less "stay the course", as they seem intent on doing regardless whatever wordplay they are engaged in at the moment, the consequences could be so horrific that our current times will look like peace.
Iraq's already burning. The current schism being created and emnity being generated by our actions do have the potential to engulf the world in strife and flames for a long time. We must get the Democrats to try to actually change our policies drastically.
Posted by zeynep at 01:17 PM | Comments (2)
November 05, 2006
You Couldn't Make This Up
You could not make this up:
The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the "alternative interrogation methods" that their captors used to get them to talk.The government says in new court filings that those interrogation methods are now among the nation's most sensitive national security secrets and that their release -- even to the detainees' own attorneys -- "could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage." Terrorists could use the information to train in counter-interrogation techniques and foil government efforts to elicit information about their methods and plots, according to government documents submitted to U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton on Oct. 26.
The incredible legal twisting aside, what's the big secret here again? We torture people. The only people that the administration is trying to keep this from are domestic constituencies that still support the administration.
Further down the piece, we learn that we have been kidnapping one-month old babies too:
Another brother, Mahmood Khan, who has lived in the United States since 1989, said in an interview this week that the four were hustled into police vehicles and taken to an undisclosed location, where they were separated and held in windowless rooms. His sister-in-law and her baby remained together, he said.According to Mahmood, Mohammad said they were questioned repeatedly by men who identified themselves as members of Pakistan's intelligence service and others who identified themselves as U.S. officials. Mohammad's wife was released after seven days, and he was released after three months, without charge. He was left on a street corner without explanation, Mahmood said.
Even if one could start to imagine circumstance under which we could start trying to undo some of the damage this administration has done, I fear that it might take a generation or two. That is, of course, there was the means and the will to try to reverse this tide of ill-will that has been unleashed by our actions; a tide surely more dangerous that one Khalid Sheik Mohammed and a few dozen of his murderous, hateful accomplices.
Posted by zeynep at 01:18 PM | Comments (1)