Jan
12
“Adding up the damages” by Bob Herbert
Filed Under Latest News & Scandals, Latest posts | Leave a Comment
With President Bush leaving office next week, there is a natural tendency in the media to soften some of the criticism directed toward his policies. But many of the Bush era decisions, including the decisions to invade Iraq, to finance the entire war by borrowing, and to shortchange veterans when they returned — were serious mistakes that merit continued attention. Bob Herbert of the New York Times recently wrote an excellent column making this point.
Does anyone know where George W. Bush is?
Readers’ Comments
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
You don’t hear much from him anymore. The last image most of us remember is of the president ducking a pair of size 10s that were hurled at him in Baghdad.
We’re still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel is thrashing the Palestinians in Gaza. And the U.S. economy is about as vibrant as the 0-16 Detroit Lions.
But hardly a peep have we heard from George, the 43rd.
When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/opinion/30herbert.html
Dec
4
Economist Magazine picks “Three Trillion Dollar” War as one of best books of 2008
Filed Under Latest posts, Recent Press | Leave a Comment
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12719711
The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict.
By Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes.
Norton; 311 pages; $22.95. Allen Lane; £20
With the patience of auditors and the passion of polemicists, two academics, one a Nobel prize-winning economist and the other a public-finance expert at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, take an unflinching look at the hidden cost of invading Iraq.
Nov
26
Galbraith: SOFA is ’stunning and humiliating’ for Bush
Filed Under Latest News & Scandals, Latest posts | Leave a Comment
We have not yet blogged on the the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) — because it was still being debated and hammered out. (Iraq was supposed to vote on it today, but yet again this has been delayed. ) Reading the document, it is striking how much the US has given up. We are being shown the door.
Peter Galbraith, a top Iraq expert and former ambassador to Croatia, and senior diplomatic fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, put it best in a statement he issued today on the SOFA,
“The agreement represents a stunning and humiliating reversal of course by the Bush administration, which had vehemently opposed any timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. For the last two years, President Bush has pretended that Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki is a democrat and an American ally. In fact, Maliki is a sectarian Shiite politician who heads a government dominated by pro-Iranian religious parties. The U.S. presence now no longer serves the interests of Iraq’s ruling Shiite religious parties or their Iranian allies, so we are now being asked to leave. While U.S. withdrawal is made easier by the fact that both the Iraqi government and the new U.S. administration want American troops out, the confluence of events leading to the agreement underscores the folly of President Bush’s lost Iraq war.”
http://theiraqinsider.blogspot.com/2008/11/galbraith-sofa-is-stunning-and.html
Sep
13
We keep being told that the level of violence in Iraq is decreasing, but there are still daily bombings and suicide attacks across the country. In the past 24 hours: On Friday September 12th, at least 30 people were killed and 45 wounded in a suicide bombing in the town of Dujail – where as usual, the bomber targeted innocent people in a market attempting to buy food for their evening meal.
Six more people were killed and 50 wounded in Tal Afar on Saturday, September 13th where a suicide car bomber apparently staged a traffic accident in order to draw more innocent bystanders into the explosion. This is the same city where suicide bombers have attacked the market during the past month.
Also on Saturday, attackers set off bombs near two major shrines in the holy city of Karbala, killing at least three people and wounding 15 others. The bombs went off near the Imam Hussein and Imam Abbas mosques — two of the holiest shrines for Shiite Muslims. The people killed and wounded included women and children making pilgrimages to the shrines.
Sep
9
Female Suicide Bombers increasing in Iraq
Filed Under Latest News & Scandals, Latest posts | Leave a Comment
The number of female suicide bombers has more than tripled in Iraq — from 8 in 2007 to 29 so far this year — according to US military officials. This alarming increase is noticeable in northern Iraq, where violence continues at high levels.
Just this week, a female suicide bomber killed six people and wounded 54 in an attack on an outdoor market in Tal Afar, in Turkomen province. This is the second suicide bomb in that market in a month — the first one killed 28 people and injured 72. It goes without saying that most of the people shopping in a market are innocent women trying to buy food ingredients to cook supper.
Meanwhile in Baghdad yesterday, another suicide bomber struck a convoy carrying former deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, The bomber missed Chalabi but killed his 6 bodyguards. Before the war, Chalabi was one of the voices who insisted that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, an argument that precipitated the US invasion.
According to the Iraqi police, one of the difficulties they face in maintaining security is the growing number of women who are carrying out suicide missions. Some of these are almost children — Kurdish authorities captured a 17-year old girl wearing an explosives vest in Irbil province. They are being hideously exploited by cowardly extremists.