War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
One of the worst, sometimes tragic consequences of an action is the “boomerang,” or “backfire” effect: A miscalculation that recoils on its maker. Iraq is nothing but miscalculation after miscalculation with a lots of boomerang. Although Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mehdi Army Iraqi security forces, and now US and UK GIs, have been battling in Basra…
In seems so incredulous that with hundreds of thousands dead and entire countries torn to bits, Decider George would apologize for the supposedly unlawful killing of a seller of cigarettes and antiques. President Bush called Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Thursday to apologize for the shooting death of an Egyptian man by security personnel on a…
An uneasy sense of watching in slo-mo some nasty, cruel shit hitting the fan. Iraq’s Prime Minister was staring into the abyss today after his operation to crush militia strongholds in Basra stalled, members of his own security forces defected and district after district of his own capital fell to Shia militia gunmen. With the…
Despite wanting to wield a mighty sword, Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki’s central government assault this week on Shia militia in Basra has encountered much difficulty, making no significant gains against the army of Mugtada al-Sadr, and creating a looming lump of problems. As fighting across Iraq between Shia and Shia continues, the main objective at Basra, to…
A spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, Tahsin al-Sheikhly, was kidnapped from his Baghdad home by armed men on Thursday, security officials told AFP. The officials said Sheikhly, who spoke on civic matters related to the security plan launched in February last year, was abducted from his home in Baghdad’s Al-Amin neighbourhood at around 2:30…
Just at dawn on Christianity’s most-holy day, rockets and mortor rounds slammed into Baghdad’s Green Zone. Time for the biggest blunder in history to begin its horrific draw down. The attack seemed to spark violent incidents all across Iraq, like a disjointed, ragged shock wave, although at first view might appear un-related: A suicide bomber at a police station in Mosul, leaving at least 17 dead;…
A mark in the sand. This evening as it does just about every evening, the death toll in the horrific war in Iraq has quietly spiked. BAGHDAD – Four U.S. soldiers were killed by a bomb blast in southern Baghdad late Sunday, raising the death toll for American forces since start of the war to 4,000, according…
As 2008 A.D. un-gaily moves forward, Decider George is playing out his game in high drama. Although cavorting all over the planet the last few months, he and his cohort, Dufus Dick Cheney, have sealed themselves into a self-created, highly-hardened ‘bunker mentality’ — reminds one of an old Phillip K. Dick novel (we cannot remember the title) in which just about all these…
Al-Jazeera broadcast on Thursday an audiotape on which a voice identified as Osama bin Laden declares “Iraq is the perfect base to set up the jihad to liberate Palestine.” The voice calls on “Muslims in neighboring countries” to “do their best in supporting their mujahedeen brothers in Iraq.” “My speech to you is about the…
March 19, 2003: Today five years ago. Better yet is yesterday five years ago. Then there was still a chance, a flicker of a remote possibility something could have stopped the horror from happening; a 24-hour window for a back-to-the future trek to rescue the world from the clutches of crazy people. Alas, however, the day is…