Category Archives: RagBlog

Watada states his case in Moiliili: Standing ovations greet a soldier facing a court-martial for refusing to go to IraqBy Leila Fujimori A highly sympathetic crowd of a few hundred people gave Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada standing ovations before, … Continue reading →

Iraqi Women’s Bodies Are Battlefields for War VendettasBy Kavita N. Ramdas, Global Fund for Women. Posted December 19, 2006. The United States’ so-called “liberation” of Iraqi women has made them less free than they were under the Baathist regime, with … Continue reading →

The Retreat from Empiricism and Ron Suskind’s Intellectual Scoop Even realism has an obligation to be realistic. –George Packer. The only piece of political journalism ever to make me cry was Ron Suskind’s article, Without a Doubt, published in the … Continue reading →

SMU Faculty Want “W” Library Returned [T]he letter-writers object to the W Library because of Bush’s policies, seeing the library as symbolizing SMU’s endorsement of “attitudes and actions widely deemed as ethically egregious: degradation of habeas corpus, outright denial of … Continue reading →

Iraqis Can’t Be Blamed for the Chaos Unleashed by InvasionOnly those who live there can solve Iraq’s problems, but Bush and Blair must bear prime responsibility for igniting themby Jonathan Steele A rare joke was circulating among Iraqis shortly before … Continue reading →

Torture Is Now Part of the American SoulBy George Monbiot, The Guardian. Posted December 18, 2006. After thousands of years of practice, you might have imagined that every possible means of inflicting pain had already been devised. But you should … Continue reading →

2006: A Year of Living DangerouslyJeremy Brecher & Brendan Smith The year 2006 will be remembered as one in which the American people and the world rose up to challenge the criminal actions and deceit of the Bush Administration. Despite … Continue reading →

Pentagon tries to dump the disastrous newsby smintheusMon Dec 18, 2006 at 09:33:00 PM PST The Bush administration, always bursting with embarrassing information, is famously addicted to the document-dump. I discovered long ago that the ritual dumps on Friday evenings … Continue reading →

Robert Gates – All Ready a Victim of the Bush Self-Delusion PlagueA. Alexander, December 19th, 2006 Robert Gates, Bush’s nominee for Defense Secretary, was sworn in on Monday. Gates immediately exhibited the single most important characteristic that the President seeks … Continue reading →

Iraq is Vietnam-and You’d Better Believe Itby John Graham I was a civilian advisor/trainer in Vietnam, arriving just as US troops were going home. I wasn’t there to fight, but I hadn’t been in country a week when I learned … Continue reading →

KNOWING THE ENEMYby GEORGE PACKERCan social scientists redefine the “war on terror”?Issue of 2006-12-18Posted 2006-12-11 In 1993, a young captain in the Australian Army named David Kilcullen was living among villagers in West Java, as part of an immersion program … Continue reading →

How is it that we only begin to hear of the failed state in the past few weeks when the first days after the fall of Baghdad saw the first symptoms of state failure? Remember Don Rumsfeld’s cynical remark that … Continue reading →