World-News

"Democrats oppose the escalation. Senator Reid and I signed a letter to that effect to the president last week," said Pelosi, on a 35-minute call with leading Progressive bloggers. "And we're making a very strong differentiation between supporting our troops, which we do - those in the field now - and giving a blank check to the president for an escalation of the war."

https://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011007H.shtml



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Pelosi

Pentagon insiders say members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have long opposed the increase in troops and are only grudgingly going along with the plan because they have been promised that the military escalation will be matched by renewed political and economic efforts in Iraq.

https://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011007B.shtml

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Brooding Prince's Soliloquy

Robert Scheer writes: "To surge or not to surge, that is the question. As our prince proposes, once again, to take arms against a sea of troubles, he responds not to the disaster that he has visited upon Iraq, but rather embraces a desperate strategy for salvaging what remains of his reign."

https://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011007E.shtml



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=troop+surge
https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Scheer

The Bush administration's plan to beef up the US military presence in Iraq is likely to create a new wave of protests across the United States in the coming days. As Bush is expected to announce his plans Wednesday to send approximately 20,000 more troops to Iraq, anti-war groups say they will hold rallies and sit-ins in dozens of cities across the nation to press the US Congress to thwart any troop escalation.

https://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011007N.shtml



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=troop+surge

"We are stuck in hell in Iraq, and everyone knows it. Even those whose only response is to go in deeper - with 'a new approach' - in this 'grave and deteriorating' situation," writes Bill Scheurer. "Yet, there is a way out of hell. A way back from the collective Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that led us astray after September 11, to return to our truer and better selves."

https://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011007M.shtml

John Cory writes: "President Bush will unleash the latest formula of folly in Iraq: the 'surge' doctrine, embroidered with a theme of 'sacrifice.' Voices of the dead scream in silent sorrow, and the world watches aghast at the fiery failure. And yet, the man-child king demands one more chance. The coming speech matters little and cannot hide the bloody lies and deception that have taken a toll on America."

https://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011007J.shtml



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=troop+surge

Boston Globe
by H.D.S. Greenway

01/09/07

Were Saddam Hussein's flawed trial and disgusting death just further examples of incompetence, or were they symptoms of a deeper dilemma? What did the incident tell us about America in Iraq and the problems of trying to impose democracy by force? One has to wonder how even a star-crossed administration such as George W. Bush's and his Iraqi allies could have turned one of the world's most cruel and despicable dictators into a stoic martyr-hero, facing death calmly in the face of an officially sanctioned lynching by Shi'ite militiamen? After all, the Americans had had physical custody of Saddam for nearly three years. Was it just another bumble that led them to hand him over so quickly to such an undignified death?

https://tinyurl.com/vuqwt



Hope for a unified Iraq died with Saddam

Frontiers of Freedom
by Greg C. Reeson

01/09/07

No sooner had the grainy cell phone video of Saddam Hussein's execution been broadcast across on the Internet than angry mobs began to fill the streets of Iraq, protesting not only the hurried nature of the act, but the manner in which it was conducted. Both objections are crucial to understanding the reality of Iraq today, a reality that was made glaringly obvious by the scene in Saddam's death chamber: sectarian divides have widened to a point where the idea of a unified Iraq with a representative government is no longer realistic...

https://tinyurl.com/yb4jpo


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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Saddam Hussein rushed to the gallows
https://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/694/36057



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=gallows

Tennessean
by Saritha Prabhu

01/08/07

Two things we've been hearing a lot after Saddam Hussein's execution are, 'the world is a better place without him' and 'Iraq is better off without him.' Is that really so? These are two very moot points. Let's examine the report card. He was, undeniably, a very bad man who killed, tortured, terrorized his own people, waged regional wars and was a general nuisance to the world body. But, on the plus side, he held together the fractious elements of his country in what was probably the only way -- with an iron fist; he was secular and was actually a bulwark against Islamic radicalism; women and Christians enjoyed some freedoms during his time. What's more, from the point of view of ordinary Iraqis, Saddam's Iraq had the markers of 'normal' life -- garbage was picked up, electricity was on, children could go to school safely, you had a job, could attend weddings and funerals, go downtown to a kebab restaurant...

https://tinyurl.com/yxx6dx



Reconciliation is easier said than done

Christian Science Monitor
by Jeffrey Shaffer

01/12/07

Mr. Hussein was definitely a murderous tyrant who deserved to be held accountable for his crimes, but it will be bitterly ironic if his death creates a new divide within a population that’s supposed to be pulling itself together. Reconciliation is often a crucial factor in the process of building and maintaining a nation. In a perfect world, justice and reconciliation would work together to resolve collective grievances and break cycles of recrimination. I doubt that the crude video of Hussein’s hanging will encourage a spirit of national unity in Iraq. And people who taunt a condemned man on the gallows have crossed the line that separates justice from revenge...

https://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0112/p09s03-cojs.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=gallows
https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=hanging
https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=executed

CounterPunch
by James T. Phillips

01/09/07

Except for his abbreviated prayers, cut short when he dropped through the small trapdoor on the floor of the gallows, Saddam Hussein's last words -- a retort to a taunt -- were spot on: The hell that is Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of innocents have been killed in the bloodbath that has washed over Iraq since the American-led invasion in March of 2003. Thousands of willing war fighters have also died while cleansing the desert sands of insurgents, terrorists, women, and children. The figurative purgatory that was Iraq when Saddam ruled with an iron fist has become, under the thumb of George W. Bush, a literal hell on earth...

https://www.counterpunch.org/phillips01092007.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=gallows

Winchester Herald Chronicle

01/09/07

A 101st Airborne Division soldier who had been charged with murder in the deaths of three Iraqi detainees pleaded guilty Tuesday to a lesser charge of aggravated assault with a dangerous weapon and was sentenced to nine months in military jail. Spc. Juston R. Graber, 21, is accused with three others from the division's 187th Infantry Regiment of killing detainees during a raid of a suspected al-Qaida stronghold near Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad...

https://tinyurl.com/w7ddj


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Chico Enterprise Record

01/09/07

The first of up to 20,000 additional U.S. troops will move into Iraq by month's end under President Bush's new war plan, a senior defense official said Tuesday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged to hold a vote on the increase, which many Democrats oppose. Details of a gradual military buildup emerged a day before Bush's planned speech to the nation, in which he also will propose a bit over $1 billion to shore up the country's battered economy and create jobs, said a second U.S. official...

https://tinyurl.com/w2rvo


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=troop+surge