Well, I went over to the sewer of American left political thought to see if Kos was happy to see Nick Berg -- a mercenary according to Kos' worldview -- dead. It turns out Kos isn't happy Berg is dead -- a definite improvement. Maybe the uproar over his "screw them" comment has taught him […]
We've had almost a week of wall-to-wall coverage of the Iraqi prisoner abuse (not torture) scandal. It was inevitable that something would come along eventually and replace it. It's unfortunate that it had to be something like this. A video posted Tuesday on an Islamic militant Web site showed the beheading of an American civilian […]
I know it's a day after Mother's Day and all. But I'm watching CNN and some talking head is describing how torture at places like Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq start out with seemingly minor things and escalate. Psychologist Philip Zimbardo described one of the tortures: ...had them clean toilet bowls out with their bare […]
It's long since passed that partisan politics stopped at the water's edge. Nowadays partisan politics comes even before the national good (for Republicans to a lesser degree, and to Democrats a greater degree). So, it should come as no surprise that the Kerry 2004 campaign sent out a fund-raising letter highlighting the abuses at the […]
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld needs to take responsibility for the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by soldiers under his command by apologizing and resigning. Just over a decade ago, at the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas, Attorney General Janet Reno ordered the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms' agents to enter the compound […]
I've waited to comment on the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners for some of the overheated rhetoric to die down. Some of what happened was wrong -- certainly everything detailed in the now-ubiquitous photographs falls under that category -- but it is not torture. The people who did these things will be punished. At last count, […]
I just finished watching 10 minutes of Ted Rall on "The O'Reilly Factor." There's currently no transcript of the exchange up on Fox News' Web site, and I'm certainly not going to listen to Rall's idiocy again. Among the highlights: Egyptian Islamic Jihad committed the 9/11 attacks -- not Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda. We […]
In his soon-to-be-released book, former ambassador Joseph Wilson reveals that Iraq may indeed have attempted to buy uranium from Niger. It was Saddam Hussein's information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as "Baghdad Bob," who approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade -- […]
It's just not a good idea to walk around toting a rocket-propelled grenade in Fallujah, even if you think no one's watching, because some Marine snipers just might be looking at you. In the past three weeks, two sniper teams attached to the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment have shot down 90 people who have […]
The New York Times' David Brooks gets it exactly right. The media isn't paying nearly enough attention to what's going to happen next in Iraq. Instead, they're obsessed with the past at the expense of the future. Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee did at least hear testimony last week on the political transition […]