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Kamil Mahdi - The old city of Najaf is being demolished. Bulldozers are moving in to complete the work of the tanks, missiles and airborne machine guns. The promised help for reconstruction appears to be conditional on the population leaving their homes and businesses in order to allow what is left of the city’s old seminaries, historic homes, khans, markets, cellars, catacombs; its alleys and its beautiful but damaged and neglected architecture, to be swept away in a mad rush to create free fire zones that are accessible for humvees.
Fawaz Turki - Irrespective of our national, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, there always remain common denominators that define our humanity — our media of interaction, our moral compass, our grammar of perception of what constitutes inherent decency in our social values. And when a community of people crosses a line, we know it. By its actions as an occupier, most notably since it chose a murderous bully like Ariel Sharon as prime minister, Israel clearly has enacted a decisive change in the tenor of that human behavior. Its action in Gaza most certainly attests to that. And many have recognized that behavior for what it is. Today Israel stands as the most reviled and isolated entity in the world, threatened with international boycotts, condemnation and divestiture.
Pepe Escobar, Asia Times - Everything imaginable, in Iraq and elsewhere, has been attributed to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But not a single source, anywhere, claims to have actually seen “Zarqawi” since late 2001 in Afghanistan. “Zarqawi” is much like a movie. Fake leg or not, return of the living dead or not, he is everywhere. American corporate media do not even bother to examine all the holes in the story. Who cares? Without Zarqawi, the Bush administration would have to painfully admit that the Iraqi resistance is a national liberation struggle. With Zarqawi, the administration can parrot to oblivion the line that Iraq is in the frontline of the “war on terror”. If multi-purpose “Zarqawi” did not exist, he would have to be invented.
Charles Kennedy - Yesterday, at Prime Minister’s Questions, I challenged the Prime Minister to admit that he “led us into an illegal war”. I said that we now know that the 45-minute claim was unfounded; that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; and that regime change - which is contrary to international law - was the only remaining argument. The Prime Minister blustered and was angry. But so was I. This war was wrong and it’s time he faced up to it. For those of us who care about the way this country is run, and have a duty to hold the government to account, it’s necessary to keep pursuing the truth about how we got involved in the worst foreign policy disaster since Suez.
Robert Fisk - I once sat down with old Malcolm Macdonald, Britain’s Colonial Secretary during the 1930’s. I’ll always remember the way, talking to me in his Sevenoaks home 26 years ago, he turned to me during our conversation. “In Palestine, I failed,” he said. “And that is why you are in Beirut today.” And he was right, of course. Had we really “fixed” the Middle East, I wouldn’t have spent the last 29 years of my life travelling from one war to another amid the lies and deceit of our leaders and the surrogates they appointed to rule over the Arabs. Had we really “fixed” the Middle East, Ken Bigley would not have been murdered in Iraq last week.
Hasan Abu Nimah - In the current anti-terrorism hysteria, why are we supposed to feel that the murder of civilians by a suicide bomber in an exploding truck is more terrible than the murder of civilians by a man in a tank, or a helicopter or a bulldozer wearing a uniform? Israel’s assault on Gaza killed more children in a few days than the entire number of victims in the recent attacks in Egypt. It is simply immoral to continue to pretend that there is any difference whatsoever between the two types of terrorism. The point here is not to say that the attack in Taba is in any way excusable or justifiable, but rather to underline that the attacks in Gaza should be treated just like the attacks in Taba, as terrorist outrages, viciously targeted and calculated to kill innocent people.
Naomi Klein - When President Bush appointed James Baker as Special Presidential Envoy on Iraq’s debt last year, he called Baker’s job “a noble mission.” At the time, there was widespread concern about whether Baker’s extensive business dealings in the Middle East would compromise that mission, which is to meet with heads of state and persuade them to forgive the debts owed to them by Iraq. Of particular concern was his relationship with merchant bank and defense contractor the Carlyle Group, where Baker is senior counselor and an equity partner with an estimated $180 million stake. Until now, there has been no concrete evidence that Baker’s power has been used to benefit any of his corporate clients or employers. But according to documents recently obtained, that is precisely what has happened.
Mahir Ali - So, no WMD. And no WMD programmes either. The final findings of the Iraq Survey Group come as no surprise, but, given that the ISG is an organ of the US government rather than an independent entity, it was more or less inevitable that it would try to offer some comfort to the invaders. This takes the shape of its conclusion that Saddam Hussein was determined to revive his weapons programmes once sanctions were lifted. Conveniently, this assertion cannot be substantiated. It is purely speculative and based on hearsay, yet it is now supposed to suffice as a reason not only for maintaining sanctions even after they had served their ostensible purpose, but also for a military assault that has cost tens of thousands of civilian lives. This, surely, is the stuff that dystopias are made of.
John Michael Greer - With the coming of Peak Oil and the beginning of long-term, irreversible declines in the availability of fossil fuels (along with many other resources), modern industrial civilization faces a wrenching series of unwelcome transitions. This comes as a surprise only for those who haven’t been paying attention. More than thirty years ago, the Club of Rome pointed out that unless something was done, a global economy based on fantasies of perpetual growth would collide disastrously with the hard limits of a finite planet sometime in the early 21st century. The early 21st century is here, nothing was done, and the consequences are arriving on schedule. The road that would have brought industrial society through a transformation to sustainability turned out to be the road not taken. The question that remains is what we can do with the limited time we have left.
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