Iraq
Glenn Greenwald thinks he understands Egypt
Regarding the protests against Hillary Clinton that occurred in Alexandria, Egypt, Glenn Greenwald tweeted this: And then this: As if the Arab world is one undifferentiated mass of anger at the U.S. In fact, this report (hat tip David Toube via FB) on the demonstrations includes the following line:
A Kurdish opening
Gorran, a new political coalition in Iraqi Kurdistan, has done better than expected against the PUK and KDP in regional elections. Discontent with the two ruling parties has been brewing for years, as I found during my trip to the area in March 2006. Pre-election reporting in this round told of the two parties resorting to slimeball tactics (freezing salaries
Scahill’s million
On June 6, Jeremy Scahill appeared on Real Time With Bill Maher and stated that a million Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq. Maher was correct to greet the figure with skepticism. Scahill based his remarks on a much-discussed Johns Hopkins study published in The Lancet in 2006. The methodology of the study was promptly discredited by Iraq Body
Surge PS
Steve Coll of The New Yorker describes the situation in post-surge Iraq as “patchwork calm,” and here’s one feature of said calm: “Violent deaths of Iraqi civilians, while difficult to measure, have also dropped steeply, although the figure remains high: about five hundred per month, at a conservative estimate.” Five hundred violent deaths per month, and this is what the
Quagmire reality check II
You’ve got to hand it to Sarah Palin: she’s got the brass balls to try to put the Iraq war in the plus column for McCain and the Republicans, trashing Obama on the campaign trail on the issue of the troop surge. As I argued here, the Iraq war did not begin in early 2007, it began in early 2003,
Quagmire reality check
In the midst of the Obama-McCain sparring over Iraq this past week, George Packer provides a useful reminder: “The Shiite-led government has been trying to get American forces out of the way for at least two years.” Maliki’s endorsement of the Obama timetable is not some bolt from the blue, and it has everything to do with Iraq’s internal politics,
McCain: appeaser?
John McCain was for negotiating with Hamas before he was against it. (Via.) On that note, David Brooks has an interesting column about Obama on Hezbollah. He starts out skeptical, even hostile, then presses Obama further and gets a remarkably nuanced set of answers on the Lebanon crisis. Obama is striking exactly the right balance: No to Bush’s cowboy diplomacy,
“Message force multipliers”
I’m heading out of town for a few days, so I’ll hit pause with a link to David Barstow’s phenomenal piece on the Pentagon-run disinformation campaign that has infected nearly all mainstream coverage of the Iraq war. Of course, the story of these self-serving con men posing as “military analysts” on FOX News, CNN, ABC and even on the Op-Ed