Only 21 Nations Have Troops in Iraq — Not Bush’s Claim of 36

According to the respected GlobalSecurity.org, there were only 21 nations with ground troops in Iraq as of February of this year. No countries have joined the list since then, and a couple of nations have all but withdrawn their contingents.

In Bush’s speech tonight, he claimed that GIs are supported by troops from 36 nations.

In fact, only two other coalition nations have more than 1,000 troops in Iraq — Britain and South Korea. Seven nations have less than 100 troops in Iraq. Virtually all of these smaller contingents are confined to non-combat operations.

I guess no one had time to fact-check the speech.

The Israel Lobby: Mearsheimer & Walt on Tour

Over the next six weeks, John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government will be touring to promote their blockbuster book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.

Mearsheimer and Walt are currently scheduled for 17 appearances between September 16 and October 29, including an appearance on The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. Cities they will be speaking in include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, Chicago, Cambridge, Cleveland, New York, Iowa City, Dallas, and Washington.

War Made Easy: Coming To A Theatre Near You

The documentary War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death (based on Norman Solomon’s book of the same title) is now playing at movie theatres and other independent venues throughout the United States. The movie, narrated by actor Sean Penn, uses stunning archival video to expose a 50-year pattern of White House deception and media propaganda that has dragged our country into one military intervention after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Rare footage also spotlights heroes who have resisted the war barrage: people like Sen. Wayne Morse, Rep. Barbara Lee and Phil Donahue. Reviewers have called it “Superb” (Howard Zinn), “Chilling and persuasive” (The Nation) and “Damning” (Variety).

Your seeing War Made Easy now and spreading the word, particularly if you buy a ticket to a theatre, could help it gain wider release. See where the nearest showing to you is now.

Ron Paul’s Major Foreign Policy Address at Johns Hopkins (audio)

Ron Paul gave the September 11 foreign policy address at the Johns Hopkins’ Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. His talk was “A Traditional Non-Intervention Foreign Policy.” CPFR director Robert Guttman and Andrew Ward, the Financial Times White House correspondent, moderated the Q&A session following Paul’s remarks.

Listen to the talk here.

Download MP3 here.