Antiwar.com Blog

Dahr Jamail explains the Earthly Hell that the U.S. government has created for the people of Iraq.

MP3 here. (40:30)

In late 2003, Weary of the overall failure of the US media to accurately report on the realities of the war in Iraq for the Iraqi people and US soldiers, Dahr Jamail went to Iraq to report on the war himself.

His dispatches were quickly recognized as an important media resource. He is now writing for the Inter Press Service, The Asia Times and many other outlets. His reports have also been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald, Islam Online, the Guardian, Foreign Policy in Focus, and the Independent to name just a few. Dahr’s dispatches and hard news stories have been translated into French, Polish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic and Turkish. On radio as well as television, Dahr reports for Democracy Now!, the BBC, and numerous other stations around the globe. Dahr is also special correspondent for Flashpoints.

Dahr has spent a total of 8 months in occupied Iraq as one of only a few independent US journalists in the country. In the MidEast, Dahr has also has reported from Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Dahr uses the DahrJamailIraq.com website and his popular mailing list to disseminate his dispatches.

The Alabama Department of Homeland Security has shut down a Web site it operated that that included antiwar, pro-life, and gay rights organizations in a list of groups that could include terrorists.

The Web site identified different types of terrorists, and included a list of groups it believed could spawn terrorists. The list also included environmentalists, animal rights advocates and abortion opponents.

The site included the groups under a description of what it called “single-issue” terrorists. That group includes people who feel they are trying to create a better world, the Web site said. It said that in some communities, law enforcement officers consider certain single issue groups to be a threat.

Read more…

The Opus cartoon in Sunday’s paper is one of the finest Memorial Day tributes I have seen anywhere. 

Cartoonist Berkeley Breathed ruled the 1980s with Bloom County, and today’s cartoon is one of his best since then.

(Comments et al. welcome at my blog entry on the cartoon here).

First, Ron Paul on Bill Maher’s show.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEkjPkXHSEw[/youtube]

While Maher deserves props for giving Paul a chance to make his case, he doesn’t seem to get Paul’s fundamental point. Yes, Bush’s response to 9/11 has been horrible, but the policies that led to 9/11 didn’t begin when Bush took office. As Paul notes, American meddling in the Middle East goes back decades – and Bill Clinton’s eight years of bombing and sanctioning Iraq probably motivated more anti-Americanism than anything George W. Bush did in his first eight months of office.

Clip two, from Penn & Teller’s Bullsh*t, features Jacob Hornberger, whose commentaries frequently appear on this site.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDYTizsjbKw[/youtube]

(Both clips courtesy of LRC blog.)

Tucked away in an Associated Press story this morning:

Meanwhile, in Kut, 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad, 70 police officers resigned Sunday morning and handed over their weapons. They cited their fears of being targeted by Mahdi Army militants, police said.

Scott Ritter, author of Target Iran and Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement, discusses the irrationality of Bush’s Iraq policy, the Democrats betrayal of the Antiwar Left, Mitt Romney’s fit over ABC News’ reporting Cheney’s leak of the finding authorizing CIA action against Iran, the pretext of Iran’s nuclear program as the excuse to bomb them, Pelosi and Reid’s complicity in that upcoming war and John Boehner’s blubbering crocodile tears.

MP3 here. (19:18)

As a chief weapons inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq, Scott Ritter was labeled a hero by some, a maverick by others, and a spy by the Iraqi government. In charge of searching out weapons of mass destruction within Iraq, Ritter was on the front lines of the ongoing battle against arms proliferation. His experience in Iraq served as the basis for his book Endgame, which explored the shortcomings of American foreign policy in the Persian Gulf region and alternative approaches to handling the Iraqi crisis, and for Iraq Confidential, which detailed his seven year experience as a weapons inspector.

Scott Ritter has had an extensive and distinguished career in government service. He is an intelligence specialist with a 12-year career in the U.S. Marine Corps including assignments in the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. Rising to the rank of Major, Ritter spent several months of the Gulf War serving under General Norman Schwarzkopf with US Central Command headquarters in Saudi Arabia, where he played an instrumental role in formulating and implementing combat operations targeting Iraqi mobile missile launchers which threatened Israel.

In 1991, Ritter joined the United Nations weapons inspections team, or UNSCOM. He participated in 34 inspection missions, 14 of them as chief inspector. Ritter resigned from UNSCOM in August 1998, citing US interference in the work of the inspections.

He is the author of many books, including “Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein” and most recently “Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change.” He lives in New York State. Ritter was born in Florida, and raised all over the world in a career military family. He is a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College, with a B.A. in Soviet History.