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By Reese Erlich
$17.90
By David Armstrong and Joseph J. Trento
$16.47
$22
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Maan Images / Mohamed Al-Zanon
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About 1,300 Palestinians dead, $2 billion in damage and thousands of devastated families later, Israel claims it has officially pulled its troops from the Gaza Strip after its three-week assault—with no formal deal between Israel and Hamas and thus no real change in relations between the two sides.
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AP photo / Abdel Kareem Hana
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By Chris Hedges — Israel will, from now on, speak to the Palestinians in the language of death. And the language of death is all the Palestinians will be able to speak back. The slaughter—let’s stop pretending this is a war—is empowering an array of radical Islamists inside and outside of Gaza.
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Israeli Foreign Minister (and prime minister contender) Tzipi Livni responds to international criticism of the Gaza airstrikes that have killed hundreds: “The one who needs to be condemned by the international community is Hamas.”
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USAF / Michael B. Keller
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By Scott Ritter — Iraq is not Vietnam, yet there are parallels between the two wars. The American military dominated the battlefield in both conflicts, and yet America the nation emerged the loser in each. A “decent interval” is now needed for American troops to withdraw.
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AP photo / Khalil Hamra
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By Chris Hedges — We fool ourselves into believing we are immune to the savagery and chaos of failed states. Take away the rigid social structure, let society continue to break down, and we become, like anyone else, brutes.
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By William Pfaff — According to a new report, the U.S. has accomplished little more in Iraq than restoration of the basic services destroyed by the American invasion and the looting that followed. This is after killing or wounding—how many, a half million?—Iraqi civilians in order to liberate them. No wonder the Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at George W. Bush.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Muntadar al-Zaidi’s shoe-throwing made him a hero in the Arab world, but his fate is uncertain. The reporter remains in custody, where, his brother says, he has been beaten and suffers from broken bones and internal bleeding. A Saudi man, meanwhile, has reportedly offered $10 million for the shoes that nearly struck President Bush.
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U.S. Army / Staff Sgt. Michael Bracken
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An American living in Kandahar writes in The Washington Post that the “corrupt gunslingers” the U.S. put in charge of Afghanistan are as much to blame for the resurgence of the Taliban as anyone. “Why,” after all, “would anyone defend officials who pillage them?”
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AP photo / Hatem Moussa
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By Chris Hedges — Israel’s siege of Gaza, largely unseen by the outside world because of Jerusalem’s refusal to allow humanitarian aid workers, reporters and photographers access to Gaza, rivals the most egregious crimes carried out at the height of apartheid by the South African regime. It is meant to break Hamas, but will only breed future generations of militants.
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By William Pfaff — The steady expansion of nominally illegal colonies into the Palestinian territories has gone on to the point where the political parties are now incapable of disengaging from the settlement enterprise.
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americaslibrary.gov
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The British Defense Ministry has leaked news that it will begin a phased troop withdrawal from Iraq. The drawdown will bring to an end a torrid, near-six-year love affair with the U.S. that began with coordinated intelligence failures and eventually led to jointly invading a sovereign country under cover of a “war on terror.”
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By William Pfaff — What is the message of a terrorist attack that fails to deliver a message? Threats and warnings are being exchanged by India and Pakistan over the attack on Mumbai, carried out by presumed Muslim extremists. But acting to what purpose, and under whose instructions?
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By Eugene Robinson — Terrorism (for the umpteenth time) is a tactic, not an enemy. One of the most urgent tasks for President-elect Barack Obama’s “team of rivals” is coming up with a coherent intellectual framework—and a winning battle plan—for George W. Bush’s globe-spanning “war on terror.”
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USAF / Airman 1st Class Jason Epley
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What is George W. Bush thankful for? The Iraqi parliament voted Thursday to approve an agreement outlining the terms of U.S. military operations in the country. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki described the deal, negotiated over a year, as “an agreement for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq.”
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livableworld.org
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The anti-Iraq war organization Council for a Livable World has announced its support for the recently completed U.S.-Iraq security agreement. The group’s news release urges support for the resolution, which it believes is “the best way for the United States to leave Iraq promptly and responsibly.”
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USAF / Staff Sgt. Samuel Rogers
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By William Pfaff — Barack Obama has no choice but to accept responsibility for America’s foreign policy crises. But why should he accept them on the distorted and even hysterical terms by which the Bush administration has defined world affairs since 2001?
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AP photo / Hadi Mizban
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Nothing says “go home” like 10,000 people yelling at you in a language you don’t quite understand. And nothing says “go home” with more irony than an effigy of your president hanging at the very spot where a statue of Saddam was famously toppled after the fall of Baghdad in 2003.
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AP photo / Morry Gash
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By Chris Hedges — War is a poison. It is a poison that nations and groups must at times ingest to ensure their survival. But, like any poison, it can kill you just as surely as the disease it is meant to eradicate.
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U.S. Army / Spc. Richard DelVecchio
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To the great relief of U.S. military commanders, Iraq’s cabinet approved an agreement that would provide a legal basis for the occupation beyond Dec. 31. The deal, which still must clear a vote in parliament, maintains partial immunity for U.S. soldiers and calls for the withdrawal of American forces by 2011. Update
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Flickr / James Gordon
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Here’s one way to get U.S. troops out of Iraq: The tediously negotiated status-of-forces agreement between the U.S. and Iraq has met yet another snag. The current legal justification for the occupation of Iraq is about to expire, and the U.S. is eager to pass new guidelines, but the Iraqi Cabinet is hitting the brakes.
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AP photo / Hadi Mizban
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Tens of thousands of Iraqis, with remote guidance from Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, joined in a demonstration in Baghdad on Saturday to implore the Iraqi parliament to reject a security pact with the U.S. before the year’s end.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Russian troops are in the process of leaving the controversial buffer zones inside Georgia, allegedly created to protect the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgian military attacks. The exit, two days ahead of a Friday deadline, will still leave 8,000 Russian troops in the two regions, which Moscow has recognized as independent states.
Posted on Oct 8, 2008
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whitehouse.gov
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We tearfully regret to inform you that an agreement that would legally extend the U.S. imperial occupation of Iraq is at risk of falling apart, as Iraqi officials continue to make the audacious demand that U.S. soldiers and mercenaries be subject to Iraqi law for crimes committed outside the scope of military operations.
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AP photo / Dusan Vranic
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By Patrick Cockburn — Gen. Petraeus’ oft-declared uncertainty about the future stability of Iraq is genuine. It is the Shiites and their Iranian backers, not the Americans, who are the true victors in the Iraqi war.
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White House / Eric Draper
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Here’s one way to tell the difference between a war and an occupation: In response to the “success” of the surge and the undefined “victory” that lies just around the corner in Iraq, the president on Tuesday will pledge to maybe reduce troop levels by about 5 percent six months from now after he’s left office. How can John McCain win this argument with Barack Obama?
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AP photo / Adil al-Khazali
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By James Harris — Iraqi journalist Huda Ahmed, who has recently been granted asylum in the U.S., looks back on more than five years of war and occupation from an Iraqi perspective.
Posted on Sep 1, 2008
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AP Photo / Adil al-Khazali
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Iraqi journalist Huda Ahmed, who has recently been granted asylum in the U.S., looks back on more than five years of war and occupation from an Iraqi perspective.
Posted on Sep 1, 2008
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DoD photo
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Speaking to tribal leaders in Iraq’s capital, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged not to sign a deal with the U.S. that didn’t include a withdrawal date. He also said he would not accept “absolute immunity for anybody, whether Iraqis or foreigners.” That’s a sticking point for the Bush administration, although a draft deal is said to include limited immunity for U.S. soldiers, along with a pullout date of 2011.
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AP photo / Anja Niedringhaus
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By Anna Badkhen — Many Iraqis struggle every day to find work, but a shortage of jobs, superimposed on a tradition of using personal connections to do business, has led to what Iraqis complain is an explosion in corruption and graft among their nation’s officials.
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George W. Bush and John McCain may have missed the hypocrisy of condemning Russia’s conduct in Georgia while championing the occupation of Iraq, but Middle Easterners managed to connect the dots, according to the Mosaic Intelligence Report.
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AP file photo / Loay Hameed
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By Anna Badkhen — Walls have become ubiquitous in Baghdad, a place where barricades keep militias from one another and hungry shoppers from the nearest kebab. As Iraqis struggle with sovereignty, the barriers are a constant reminder of the American military occupation.
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Americans seem to have bought into the idea that the “surge” is working, but this Baghdad journalist returned home to a city of walls and bloodshed.
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What is it about the region that provokes intense sectarian passions, prompting seemingly endless vendettas? “Kingmakers,” by Karl Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, tells the story of British and American entanglement and how the modern Middle East was invented. It also offers an exemplary history of hubris.
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President Bush had hoped to shape America’s military presence in Iraq for years after his departure from the White House by negotiating a long-term status-of-forces agreement, but a number of sticking points indicate there will be a much shorter time frame. U.S. negotiators have agreed to a kind of timetable for withdrawal, as demanded by the Iraqis, but are holding out over legal immunity for American forces.
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DoD / Sgt. Luis R. Agostini
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President Bush is trying to wrap up a new status-of-forces agreement with the Iraqi government before the U.N. resolution under which the U.S. operates its occupation runs out. Team Bush has made some concessions to the Maliki government, but there’s one sticking point that threatens an agreement: veto power over military operations.
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Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has a bit of a problem on his hands. While he’s dependent on U.S. forces to protect his regime, his friends in Iran are concerned about the presence of so many American troops on their doorstep. The U.S. and Iraq are trying to bang out the details of America’s military mission, but just so there are no surprises, Maliki let his Iranian allies know, “We will not allow Iraq to become a platform for harming the security of Iran and neighbors.” Updated.
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AP photo / Maya Alleruzzo
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By Sarah Stillman — There’s a group of contractors working in Baghdad’s Green Zone that we don’t often hear about: The cleaners, cooks and construction workers from places like Uganda who toil and die in obscurity.
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By William Pfaff — Israel’s colonization and annexation of the Palestinian territories over the last 40 years, and opposition to the creation of an independent Palestinian state, have turned Israel into an Arab-Jewish state under Jewish control.
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AP photo / Anja Niedringhaus
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By Anna Badkhen — Sectarian violence has driven millions of Iraqis from their homes. Now that the violence has abated in one formerly upscale Baghdad neighborhood, residents are returning to find squatters who refuse to leave and a government and occupying army unwilling to kick them out.
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army.mil
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Pouncing on the rhetorical success of the U.S. “surge” in Iraq, the U.S. military launched operations Tuesday in the south of Afghanistan as part of a “mini surge” against strongholds of Taliban fighters.
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flickr.com / John Barnabas
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“Informed sources” say the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a historically contested area between Israel and Syria, may soon find itself under new management. The two countries, which have been at war with each other since 1973, are both looking to resume the stalled 2000 peace talk process, which Syria has declared will not happen until the Golan Heights are returned.
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swissinfo.org
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Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintained his defiant stance against the U.S. as intense fighting in Sadr City and Najaf claimed more lives this weekend, including that of a Sadr relative and supporter, Riyad al-Nuri.
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Newsday
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French President Nicolas Sarkozy was in London Wednesday to declare his readiness to send additional troops to Afghanistan. The move, seen by some as an effort to strengthen ties with his chums across the Channel, was well received by British lawmakers who believe an increase of NATO occupation forces in Afghanistan would best prevent a Taliban resurgence.
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The Iraq occupation has once again taken a violent turn. Dozens of Iraqis were killed on Tuesday as the average number of Iraqis killed or found dead each day continues to rise. Eight U.S. soldiers died on Monday, the most in one day since last September. U.S. military officials, however, have been anxious to downplay any talk of a trend.
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