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E.J. Dionne
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By Jabari Asim
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The Bush administration’s specific failures—in foreign and domestic policy and on matters related to civil liberties—are clear enough. Yet the deeper cause of the public’s disaffection goes beyond these specifics.
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By Eugene Robinson — Remember that long-ago news conference when George W. Bush couldn’t think of any mistakes he had made? Unbelievably, he still can’t.
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AP file photo
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By Chris Hedges — The world is far more complex than our childish vision of good and evil. We as a nation and a culture have no monopoly on virtue. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when viewed from the receiving end, are state-sponsored acts of terrorism.
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By Marie Cocco — It was nothing Bush did—no decision he made, no policy he pursued, no faith that he placed in ideological dogma—that he finds regrettable. Bush told a cable network, “I regret saying some things I shouldn’t have said” over the course of eight tumultuous years.
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collage: DoD / Flickr (Marcn)
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The answer is William Timmons, a lobbyist tapped by McCain to head his transition team. Timmons was connected to a lobbying effort on behalf of the Hussein regime, though he has denied any wrongdoing.
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White House / David Bohrer
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How far was Dick Cheney (above) willing to go to get his war in Iraq? Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, quoted in Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman’s new book, says the vice president hoodwinked him during a one-on-one meeting in the Capitol.
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commons.wikimedia.org
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According to Ron Suskind, former Wall Street Journal reporter and best-selling Bush critic, the White House ordered the CIA to fabricate evidence linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida and knew before the invasion that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. The White House denies the allegations, published in Suskind’s new book, “The Way of the World.”
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AP photo / Tony Nicoletti / pool
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By Anna Badkhen — The war is over for now in Sahar al-Jawari’s Baghdad neighborhood, but life is still a struggle. An American soldier encourages her not to be pessimistic, but it’s hard to look on the bright side while supporting a family by selling off your jewelry.
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Hey, Chris Matthews, what’s the French word for shower? Jon Stewart takes stock of the media coverage from last week’s West Virginia Democratic primary, wherein it was established that Barack Obama may not be the Mountain State’s “kind of guy,” and pits Matthews against Clinton campaign chair Terry McAuliffe in a good ol’ fashioned “Douche Off.”
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The New York Times / James Hill
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By Patrick Cockburn — All governments lie in wartime, but American and British propaganda in Iraq over the past five years has been more untruthful than in any other conflict since the First World War.
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thewashingtonnote.com
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Five years, nearly 4,000 dead Americans, millions of killed or displaced Iraqi civilians and $500 billion later, George W. Bush still thinks the Iraq war was a good move. In remarks leaked on the eve of his speech marking the anniversary of the war, the president says the high costs “are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq.”
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AP photo / Ahmad al-Rubaye, pool
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By Robert Scheer — President Bush has made his antagonism for Iran and its president well known, but in Iraq he has created a great ally for his enemy, as was clear from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s historic visit.
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AP photo / Hadi Mizban
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By Patrick Cockburn — Ahmadinejad’s unprecedented trip to Baghdad demonstrates his nation’s influence on its neighbor since the fall of Saddam.
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foxnews.com
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About a day after John McCain expressed his disapproval over the insensitive comments of a supporter, the candidate was once again forced to disown ignoble behavior, this time from an official part of his party. The Tennessee Republican Party issued a press release that featured a photo of Barack Obama wearing traditional African clothing, cited his middle name (Hussein) and attempted to portray him as an anti-Semite.
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timesonline.typepad.com
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Conservative radio host Bill Cunningham scored points with the audience while speaking before John McCain at a rally by repeatedly referring to “Barack Hussein Obama.” McCain apparently had no idea what Cunningham had said, but soon after the event addressed the matter in no uncertain terms.
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cbsnews.com
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George Piro, the FBI agent who spent nearly seven months interrogating Saddam Hussein, tells “60 Minutes” that the late Iraqi leader didn’t think the U.S. would actually invade and didn’t deny having weapons of mass destruction in order to intimidate Iran. “He told me he initially miscalculated ... President Bush’s intentions,” Piro revealed in the interview, which airs this Sunday.
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Bilal Hussein, an AP photographer whom the U.S. military has accused of collaborating with insurgents, has been detained in Iraq for 19 months and may soon be tried by an Iraqi court. The Associated Press, apparently fed up with trying to reason with the military, has released the results of its own exhaustive investigation, which found the charges against Hussein to be “false” and “meaningless.”
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news.bbc.co.uk
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For the first time in George W. Bush’s political life, a Bush government is trying not to have someone executed, or so it seems. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has accused the U.S. of stalling the executions of three prominent prisoners, one of whom might have been in cahoots with the CIA during Saddam Hussein’s reign.
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AP photo / Junji Kurokawa
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By Robert Scheer — Not to stoke any of the inane conspiracy theories running wild on the Internet, but if Osama bin Laden wasn’t on the payroll of Lockheed-Martin or some other large defense contractor, he deserves to have been. What a boondoggle 9/11 has been for the merchants of war, who this week announced yet another quarter of whopping profits made possible by George Bush’s pretending to fight terrorism by throwing money at outdated Cold War-style weapons systems.
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Historians may one day debate Rudy Giuliani’s recent preposterous comments at a New Hampshire town hall meeting. “Did he mean it?” they might ask. “Or was he just dehydrated?” While addressing voters, the candidate said that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were debating whether to invite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Osama bin Laden to their inaugurations. But wait, there’s more.
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By Robert Fisk — I’m not at all certain that the CIA did not have a scam drugs heist on board and I am not at all sure that the diminutive Libyan agent Megrahi—ultimately convicted on the evidence of the memory of a Maltese tailor—really arranged to plant the bomb on board Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988.
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AP photo / Jerome Delay
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As the U.S. government is learning much too late, democracy is not a one-size-fits-all application that can be lifted from one culture and grafted onto another. Here, UK reporter Ian Black from the Guardian Unlimited takes a look at what’s really going on politically and culturally in Iraq according to a prominent historian and his Iraqi contacts.
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macadamcage.com
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Gina Nahai —
Truthdig is pleased to present these two excerpts from the novel “Caspian Rain” by Gina Nahai, best-selling author of “Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith.” In “Rain,” her fourth novel, Nahai explores Iran’s complex culture through the eyes of a group of memorable characters living in various sectors of society during the years leading up to the Islamic Revolution.
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Patrick Cockburn —
Prior to the U.S. invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraq’s three main religious communities—the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites—were already divided. Although each group responded differently to the American presence in their country, Patrick Cockburn of The Independent argues that the divisions between them only deepened as a result.
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You’ve heard the hype, now see the show—or at least its standout number, if you’re not currently in Edinburgh, Scotland. Here, we present footage of foolhardy star Sorab Wadia as self-styled megalomaniac Hussein Al Mansour, singing “I Wanna Be Like Osama” in “Jihad The Musical,” playing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival until the last week of August.
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Former “60 Minutes” producer and author Barry Lando connects the dots between Saddam Hussein and his American backers in this powerful documentary.
(h/t: BarryLando)
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This week, our collection of Truthdig-flavored videos includes GOP senators grilling Condi on Bush’s troop escalation plan; a brutally ironic film reminding us that Saddam Hussein was a 40-year CIA asset; and “The Simpsons” on global warming.
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This quick, brutally ironic movie reminds us that America was for Saddam long before we were against him. What’s more, we were apparently for his invasion of Kuwait before we were against it.
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AP Photo / Marco Di Lauro, Pool
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By Robert Scheer — Someone has to say it: The hanging of Saddam Hussein was an act of barbarism that makes a mockery of President Bush’s claim it was “an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy.”
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Saddam Hussein’s American nurse, in an interview with his hometown paper, revealed what life was like for the former dictator during his last years. He would save scraps from his meals for birds, tend to a patch of weeds and once asked why the U.S. had invaded, saying: “The laws in Iraq were fair and the weapons inspectors didn’t find anything.”
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Left: sattlers.org / right: theepochtimes.com
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Saddam Hussein may be gone, but President Bush still has a souvenir he uses to titillate special guests: the pistol Saddam was carrying when he was captured. Like a child showing off his favorite toy, the president has been known to beam with delight when guests view the mounted weapon, which is held in the Oval Office.
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Iraqi state television
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By Robert Scheer — The grisly holiday hanging of Saddam Hussein has been greeted mostly with cheers from the media, but Truthdig editor Robert Scheer takes a different view, noting that even top Nazis, in the Nuremberg trials, received a far superior grade of justice.
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abc.net.au
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The former dictator was executed by hanging just before 6 a.m. local time in Baghdad.
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This “Saturday Night Live” parody of Middle Eastern children’s television nails the cultural disconnect at the heart of America’s adventure in Iraq. Don’t miss the brilliant satirical commercials in this episode of “Saddam and Osama.” (h/t: Iraq Slogger)
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It’s possible that even greater shame awaits the U.S. in 2007, apparently as early as next month. From the NYT: “An Iraqi appeals court today upheld a death sentence for Saddam Hussein in a decision that clears the way for his execution within 30 days, Iraqi officials said.”
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indymedia.org
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By Robert Scheer — Truthdig’s editor enters the mind of Donald Rumsfeld, who journeyed to Iraq recently to bid farewell to the troops, but ended up repeating the lies that put them at risk.
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Still wondering whether the trial of Saddam Hussein might have been a miscarriage of justice? Take a look at the HRW report (pdf) and make up your mind. Hussein’s chief defense lawyer, Khalil al-Dulami, recently complained to the BBC that he has been prevented from filing appeal papers.
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By Robert Scheer — Bush insisted that Saddam Hussein’s trial be held in Iraq so that an international tribunal would never expose America’s history of support for the tyrant—(as in 1982, when President Ronald Reagan sent Donald Rumsfeld, above, to enhance diplomatic relations between Iraq and the U.S.)
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AP / Scott Nelson
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Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death for crimes against humanity. Reactions to the verdict illustrate the sectarian divisions that have become so familiar in Iraq, with celebrations erupting in Shiite and Kurdish areas while some Sunni neighborhoods turned to violent protest.
Truthdig classic: Juan Cole on Saddam’s trial
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By Andy Borowitz — The political satirist reports on the brouhaha surrounding an unconventional choice to hold sway over the dictator’s trial.
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The U.N.‘s chief anti-torture expert, Manfred Nowak, says: “The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein.” Sectarian violence has filled the Baghdad morgue with bodies bearing evidence of brutal torture. More
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From Vanity Fair
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Vanity Fair’s Craig Unger reports that the Italian Secret Service likely concocted the Saddam-Niger forgery to bolster Bush’s case for war. The article raises questions about the involvement of a prominent White House-connected neocon in the “black ops” campaign.
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By Robert Scheer — “A once swaggering president, who so convincingly wielded a bullhorn and modeled a flight suit, now has assumed the pretzel pose of a supplicant attempting to cajole our old enemy in Tehran into dropping its nuclear ambitions while simultaneously initiating talks with Iran aimed at bailing us out in Iraq.”
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Remember the uranium ore that Hussein supposedly purchased from Niger? A contract documenting the sale was used as evidence of the need to invade Iraq and was included in a 2002 U.S. State Department fact sheet on Iraq’s weapons program. Remember how the IAEA denounced the documents as fakes shortly before the invasion of Iraq? Well, according to the Times Online, the forgers have finally been named.
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Karl Rove kept the public from knowing before the 2004 election that Bush had been apprised “directly and repeatedly” that Saddam’s infamous aluminum tubes might have been for conventional—not nuclear—weapons.
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Now that 48,000 boxes of Arabic-language Iraqi documents captured in Iraq have hit the web, armchair analysts have their work cut out for them.
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The New York Times gets a closer look at a UK official’s memo that indicates Bush was set on an invasion of Iraq regardless of a U.N. resolution or the outcome of the WMD issue.
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Too Soon to Tell: The Case for Hope, Continued
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