What am I doing up at this hour? I have no clue. I went to bed at 10:30 and my eyes thrust open at 3am and I haven’t been able to go back to sleep. So I ordered up some tea and thought I’d write a bit. The United States has said that it will allow the Israelis to use US airbases in Iraq and Iraqi airspace in the event of a strike against Iran. It would seem that the Iraqi government has absolutely no say ...More »

Andrew Cockburn comments on a new US covert initiative that is truly frightening in its scope… “Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, "unprecedented in its scope." Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan – but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines – up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. ...More »

Since the advent of the nuclear age, only two nuclear weapons have ever been employed, both in August of 1945 on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While many will argue that their use was required to avoid directly invading the Japanese islands, an effort that the government and military at the time claimed would cost the lives of upwards of a million US soldiers, the reality was that most of Japan has been decimated by conventional fire bombing, that the government of Japan ...More »

If you’re labouring under the misconception that the Bush Administration is going to leave office without first confronting the Iranians, it’s time to start paying serious attention. The propaganda machine is in full swing, led by a new report by the State Department that labels Iran the most active sponsor of terrorism. If you can believe it, the Sudanese government actually ranked lower despite the fact that it has been complicit in supporting the Janjiweed who have been responsible for a genocidal campaign in Darfur. ...More »

Jeff Cohen’s piece published on The Huffington Post yesterday is of import… “In the fall of 2002, week after week, I argued vigorously against invading Iraq in debates televised on MSNBC. I used every possible argument that might sway mainstream viewers -- no real threat, cost, instability. But as the war neared, my debates were terminated. In my 2006 book Cable News Confidential, I explained why I lost my airtime: “There was no room for me after MSNBC launched Countdown: Iraq -- a daily one-hour show that seemed ...More »

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 overriding nightmare -- not chemical, but urban, warfare. Saddam Hussein, they feared, would lure American forces into "Fortress Baghdad," as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld labeled it. There, they would ...More »

A reader, Kevin Mejlholm, recommended the following lecture (*See update below) by David Ray Griffin regarding 9/11. I am posting this not to promote the ideas presented by Griffin, but rather to simply present information that I think should be presented. Therefore, if you want to spend the time watching this lecture, which is one hour and thirty-eight minutes in length, I would be interested to hear your views in the comments as an exercise in open public debate. The video is too large to ...More »

The Bush administration is running out of time. Since President Bush singled out Iran as a member of his auspicious Axis Of Evil, the gears have been turning with regards to how best to confront the Iranians. Obviously, condemnation of Iran’s nuclear program was never going to provide substantial pretext given the precedent set during run up to the invasion of Iraq and the wholly erroneous information provided the Security Council, and others, pertaining to Iraq’s quest for nuclear materials, among other things. The best ...More »

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 ability to use disingenuous justifications and rhetoric to not merely defend their purpose, but to casually address the failures produced by them. Besides those fighting in Iraq, what experience does ...More »

When, in 2001, President Bush announced the adoption of what is now known of The Bush Doctine as official US foreign policy, those who were aware of the policies promoted by a cabal of US neoconservatives throughout the 1990’s knew that it was, in truth, simply The Wolfowitz Doctine, the roots of which lay in Paul Wolfowitz’s 1992 draft of The Defense Planning Guidance commissioned by Dick Cheney, then Secretary Of Defense. Excerpts of the draft were leaked to The New York Times in March ...More »