Over at Tom Dispatch, Tom Engelhardt runs through 12 Answers To Questions No One Is Bothering To Ask About Iraq… “1. Yes, the war has morphed into the U.S. military’s worst Iraq nightmare: Few now remember, but before George W. Bush launched the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, top administration and Pentagon officials had a single [...]

Removed from a situation, so much so that it has become an informational inconvenience, not to mention social taboo with regards to conversation, how do societies at war deal with the realities of war given the distance from which they are viewed? With regards to fighting abroad, this reality provides those promoting conflicts abroad with the [...]

I think it’s safe to say that if you didn’t see this coming you’ve been living in a bit of a dream world… “For months, U.S. President George W. Bush and Gen. David Petraeus have been touting the programme of recruiting tens of thousands of Sunnis into U.S.-financed ‘Awakening Councils’ as a master stroke of Iraq [...]

It’s like a vacuum. On this side of the ocean people have become so tired of it that ignoring it has become the norm. On the other side of the ocean, despite claims that things are improving, instability still reigns in Iraq. Millions have fled the country, millions more are displaced within it, it boasts [...]

Historical resentment has its drawbacks, especially when you’re militarily occupying a country. In the case of Iraq, its Shia majority has been under the thumb of Sunni minority governments since the British installed Faisal as king in 1923. During the tenure of Saddam Hussein they were persecuted, as were the Kurds, and following the Gulf [...]

It is often argued that we don’t know what’s occurring on the ground in Iraq and therefore can’t really comment on incidents such as that which recently transpired involving Blackwater Security. In truth, this excuse is used uniformly in many cases with regards to commentary about the war in Iraq, and there is a very [...]

It has been learned that Blackwater security contractors that came under fire yesterday were protecting a US State Department official. According to US and Iraqi sources, their convoy was hit first by an IED and then small arms fire, after which a gun battle ensued with some 8 to 10 individuals, some in Iraqi police [...]

Time. It seems funny to think that the time the surge was supposed to provide Iraqi politicians to make inroads with regards to healing national political divisions is mostly likely now going to allow them more room to politically exploit the time given them rather than focus on efforts of political reconciliation. As Robert Reid [...]

Six years ago today we all know where we were and what occurred. In fact, we will never forget, and efforts will be made to ensure that. What happened six years ago today opened the flood gates, and we are, all of us, now up to our necks in it. For today, the 11th of [...]

It’s nice to see someone actually use the word ‘bribe’ for a change… “American forces are paying Sunni insurgents hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to switch sides and help them to defeat Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The tactic has boosted the efforts of American forces to restore some order to war-torn provinces around Baghdad in the [...]