Iraq

Death by Consensus

by Sheldon Richman December 13, 2006

When John Kerry came back from fighting in Vietnam, he famously inquired, How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake? Regarding the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group (ISG), a lot of people would like to know, How do you ask a man to ...

Is Any War Civil?

by Sheldon Richman December 4, 2006

Whether Iraq is embroiled in a civil war is a matter of some controversy. News organizations such as NBC have dramatically announced that, indeed, it is. Pundits solemnly the debate the question on cable news talk shows. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell says yes. Present Secretary of State ...

Trapped in Lies and Delusions

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 20, 2006

I could, of course, be proven wrong but my hunch is that the United States will be trapped in Iraq for the indefinite future. Despite the recent election results and increasing demand among the American people for a withdrawal, I believe that there is no possibility that President Bush is going ...

The Repudiation of Bush

by Sheldon Richman November 10, 2006

Power tends to corrupt, Lord Acton famously said. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. The voters apparently agreed. Its reasonable to conclude from the election results that most voters felt the Republicans had been in power too long. The hopeless war in Iraq, the culture of corruption and incompetence, the spending binge (which includes the war), the grating social conservatism, and ...

They Lied About the Reasons for Going to War

by Jacob G. Hornberger October 23, 2006

In determining whether someone has lied, circumstantial evidence can oftentimes be as critical as direct evidence. For example, suppose someone says, “I was outside all last night and it did not rain.” A person who was inside might be tempted to conclude, “Well, since I wasn’t outside, I must assume that ...

Bush’s Evasion

by Sheldon Richman September 15, 2006

Five years after 9/11, as things increasingly sour in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush’s public appearances get increasingly more pathetic. During Bush’s August news conference a persistent reporter wouldn’t let him get away with his claim that Iraq is the central front on the so-called war on terror. “What did Iraq ...

Iraqis Are Ingrates

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 21, 2006

Poor President Bush. According to the New York Times, the president is frustrated by the lack of public support ... in Iraq. Apparently he’s lamenting that thousands of Iraqis were recently demonstrating in the streets in favor of Hezbollah and chanting, “Death to Israel! Death to America!” Those darned ...

Polarization Needed

by Sheldon Richman August 16, 2006

When Sen. Joseph Lieberman lost his Connecticut Democratic primary to an anti-war candidate, he used his concession speech to decry the politics of polarization. This was hypocritical because the war hawks, Lieberman included, have gone far in suggesting that criticism of the war policy is tantamount to assisting terrorists. But even if no hypocrisy were involved, the abhorrence of polarization ...

Operation Founding Fathers

by James Bovard July 1, 2006

Few subjects generate more official lies than the U.S. government’s devotion to spreading democracy abroad. Iraq has been the largest most recent geyser of such deceits. In order to understand future U.S. government messianic democracy efforts, it is worthwhile to review the opportunism with respect to representative government in Iraq. In a late February 2003 Washington speech, George W. Bush ...

Killing Iraqi Children

by Jacob G. Hornberger June 19, 2006

In a short editorial, the Detroit News asked an interesting question: “Some war critics are suggesting Iraq terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi should have been arrested and prosecuted rather than bombed into oblivion. Why expose American troops to the danger of an arrest, when bombs work so well?” Here’s one possible ...

Is This Really War?

by Sheldon Richman June 16, 2006

In 1985, Wilson Goode became the first U.S. mayor to bomb his own city. In an effort to rid a West Philadelphia neighborhood of a ragtag, violent, back-to-nature organization called Move, which had engaged in a shootout with police, Goode ordered explosives dropped on the Move house from a helicopter. ...

Iraqi Death by Political Abstraction

by Sheldon Richman June 5, 2006

Try as they might, apologists for the war in Iraq wont be convincing when they insist that, at worst, the Haditha incident (or was it a mishap?) was the unfortunate work of a few bad Marines. It was something much worse. When men trained to kill on a battlefield this wasnt the Salvation Army, after all are ordered into civilian ...