The Zarqawi effect
Bush's Mideast policies have turned a brutal terrorist into an icon of resistance -- and made violent fundamentalism more popular.

Whatever the meaning of the killing of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by a US air strike earlier this month, it has not lessened Iraq's violent nightmare, or calmed tensions in the Middle East. Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called him "the prince of martyrs" and vowed revenge on the US. Some reports suggest that the two US soldiers captured at Yusufiyah were tortured and killed by Zarqawi's shadowy successor. The three weeks after his death have witnessed daily bombings with dozens of casualties throughout Iraq. And Zarqawi's demise has stirred up trouble throughout the region, as controversies on how to respond to it have erupted among secularists and fundamentalists, Sunnis and Shiites.

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"Operation Forward Together": Deeper Into the Quagmire
By Dahr Jamail

On Tuesday, June 13th, while Mr. Bush spent a brave five hours in the "green zone" of Baghdad with puppet Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, at least 36 people were killed across Iraq amidst a wave of bombings. 18 of those died in a spasm of bombings in the oil city of Kirkuk in the Kurdish north.

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Bush's Baghdad Palace

Among the many secrets the American government cannot keep, one of its biggest (104 acres) and most expensive ($592 million) is the American Embassy being built in Baghdad. Surrounded by fifteen-foot-thick walls, almost as large as the Vatican on a scale comparable to the Mall of America, to which it seems to have a certain spiritual affinity, this is no simple object to hide. So you think the Bush Administration is planning on leaving Iraq? Read on.

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  thanks to Antiwar.com

Their Barbarism, and Ours

The Baghdad bureau chief of the New York Times could not have been any clearer. "The story really takes us back into the 8th century, a truly barbaric world," John Burns said. He was speaking Tuesday night on the PBS "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," describing what happened to two U.S. soldiers whose bodies had just been found. Evidently they were victims of atrocities, and no one should doubt in the slightest that the words of horror used by Burns to describe the "barbaric murders" were totally appropriate. The problem is that Burns and his mass-media colleagues don't talk that way when the cruelties are inflicted by the U.S. military -- as if dropping bombs on civilians from thousands of feet in the air is a civilized way to terrorize and kill.

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Why Bush's Iraq is Worse Than Saddam's
"Just Tell Me One Thing, Are You Glad that Saddam Hussein is Out of Power?" And I Say, "No."

Kicking Open the Gates of Hell

The prospect of an American defeat in Iraq grows greater with every passing day. A memo which was leaked to the Washington Post depicts a situation on the ground which is steadily deteriorating into chaos. The memo, which was written by Iraqi ambassador Zalmay Khalizad, contrasts dramatically with the confident “happy talk” of high-ranking officials in the Bush administration. It offers a bleak “insiders-view” of a society that is progressively crumbling from the nonstop violence and lack of security.

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Crackdown in Ramadi

Ramadi is not an “insurgent stronghold” as it is characterized in the media. Nor is it a “safe-haven” for foreign fighters and Al Qaida. This is merely the Pentagon’s fairy-tale to justify attacks on a civilian population. In fact, Ramadi is a city of 400,000, the capital of Anbar Province; a peaceful enclave that never experienced any widespread violence or turmoil before the illegal invasion by the United States armed forces.

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List of accusations of GIs in Iraq stuns experts
Officials point to stressed troops, greater scrutiny as possible reasons

The accounts are brutal: An Iraqi man dragged from his home, executed and made to look as if he were an insurgent. Three prisoners killed by their Army captors. A team of revenge-seeking Marines going home to home, shooting down unarmed Iraqi men, women, children.

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  thanks to Antiwar.com

Wars force Army equipment costs to triple

The annual cost of replacing, repairing and upgrading Army equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan is expected to more than triple next year to more than $17 billion, according to Army documents obtained by the Associated Press.

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