It’s been a while since I read my own comments about the gigantic protest march against the Iraq war in New York City on 15 February 2003, one of the coldest days I remember, at which hundreds of thousands turned out. I did not realize that I mentioned that the local “paper of record” suggested as many as 400,000 attended, which, ultimately, was my own best estimate; I just remember its insistence on treating the Republican Lord Mayor’s self-serving estimate at only 100,000 as if it were of equal importance. (In retrospect, I was too kind to Bush by… a...

No, I’m not sure whose plan “A” it is, given the apparent “surge” in violence in Iraq after a downturn of late, particularly after a Shiite group (naturally, the official story is that it is backed by bogeyman du jour Iran) appears to have admitted responsibility for a bombing in Central Baghdad that killed at least 15. Interestingly, the target was in a largely Shiite area, and had been previously attacked by Sunni insurgents; the current Shia on Shia attack was supposedly a misdirection to get the Shia residents to turn to their friendly neighborhood Shiite death squads for assistance....

Let’s see what we Americans have to give thanks for this year… our Dear Leader now has “the right” to lock any of us up at his sole (AND UNREVIEWABLE) whim… for “our security” you know. Dear Leader can listen in to any of our electronic communications, without one of those annoying warrants… heck, Dear Leader can order any of us to be tortured water-boarded (it’s for our own protection of course)… I could go on, and on (I’ll refrain from discussing, for example, matters fiscal, or environmental, or our overall security and moral standing position in the world). That...

For some surprisingly conciliatory (I’ll try to refrain from saying “good”) news coming out of the usual troublespots. First, it appears that Pervez (Our-Man-in-Islamabad), who is now going to Saudi Arabia, has released thousands of detained political prisoners, and has signaled some level of “softening” in that department– perhaps more will be released. No word that he would meet with former Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif (whom Pervez deposed in the first place) while visiting Sharif’s exile situs of Saudi Arabia. Still… anything even a little calming in nucular-armed Pakistan is a good thing. And on the other side of the...

Almost certainly thanks to the the Army reports that desertions since 2003 are up around 80%. This comes at the same time that the Army’s usual 18% or so rate of early discharge, primarily for physical inability (and including other things, such as reporting oneself as gay) dropped to around 7%, as major military action (in the form of occupations) in Iraq and Afghanistan roll on. One would think that this would mean that the Army should be more exacting in its physical standards, rather than less. So… something has to give, and many soldiers have decided to vote with...

Mrs. TD.

Lindsay, writing at In These Times, asks the musical question:

President Pervez, a/k/a our man in Islamabad, while jailing lawyers and students and dissidents (oh my)… has begun releasing captured Taliban, including the highest ranking Taliban in Pakistani custody. Not much we can do: the DeciderTM says Pervez is our man, and nothing– NOTHING– he does will change that (until, say, 21 January 2009, anyway).

His unreconstructed racism, his cocksure arrogance, his personal nastiness, his incompetent governance (which, quite frankly, must be recognized to include failing, despite clear warning, to provide adequate emergency communications equipment to firefighters and to locate the emergency response center in the likeliest target), and his clear likelihood of following in Dubya’s footsteps as a xenophobic institutional torturer (Abner Louima anyone?)… all seem to be features, rather than bugs, as St. Rudy Giuliani marches toward the Republican nomination (NOT: his front-runner-ness is actually by and large a media creation, insofar as the actually moderate and not bat-shit-insane-like-Rudy Mitt Romney is way...

As the “emergency” rolls on, former PM Benazir “Pinky” Bhutto has planned a massive (though banned) political rally for Rawalpindi, near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. Pres./Gen. Musharraf has already said he would have “an election” by mid-February, though he will doubtless win that “election”, as everyone has figured out by this point. Revelations have come out recently that billions went to Pakistan in the form of a blank U.S. check to “fight terrorism”… “terrorism”, evidently defined as “India”. And of course, there is Pakistani nuclear proliferation… like nuclear powers America and Russia, Musharraf has a fellow follow him around...