Good news from Afghanestan
It was a rare victory for the underdog in what’s become a burgeoning real estate scandal for the government of U.S.-backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Some U.N. and human rights officials say the scandal could play into the hands of the Taliban, the hard-line Islamists who were ousted by a U.S.-led coalition [...]

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Does this sound like the US?
“According to Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock, Ashcroft wants to explain “key facts directly to the American people” and not have to subject himself to “as much of a filter from people who are already invested in having a different view of it.”
Of course he does. What public official wouldn’t [...]

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More on Powell at Halabja
Colin Powell’s visit to Halabja, the infamous location where “Saddam gassed his own people,” was a masterpiece of hypocrisy, as I’ve mentioned here and here. But according to the Mahablog, I didn’t know the half of it. Some excerpts:
[addressing Powell]:
Let’s not talk about “the world’s” reaction to this tragedy, Mr. Secretary. [...]

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“If they said with a straight face that the world was flat or the sky was orange, they would expect people to accept it, and would question the patriotism of those who didn’t,” said David Sirota, spokesman for the Center for American Progress, a liberal research and advocacy group.
NYTimes

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I wonder info you can add critisism of American policies too.
“Friedman’s first rule of Middle East reporting: What people tell you in private is irrelevant. All that matters is what they will defend in public. And when I see Iraqis defending our shared aspirations — with both their words and their lives — my optimism [...]

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Here is another CIA success storey
In 1959, a young Saddam Hussein, allegedly in cahoots with the CIA, botched an assassination attempt on Iraq’s leader, Gen. Abdel Karim Qassim. Hussein fled Iraq and reportedly hid out under the CIA’s protection and sponsorship.
By early 1963, Qassim’s policies were raising new alarms in Washington. He had withdrawn Iraq [...]

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Freedom of speech only good in the US
According to a Wall Street Journal report, a US army major was relieved of her duties and removed from the base when she argued that the order contravened principles of free speech. After all, these are principles guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, which every US [...]

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Pentagon Crowd “we know everything and everyone else is stupid”
o one can say with any certainty who was behind the bombings at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad and the Shiite holy place in Najaf, but here is what you can say about them: They are incredibly sick and incredibly smart.
With one bomb at the U.N. [...]

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