In answer to the question about the causes of the Democrats' failure to stop the war, I say: they are the same reasons which led to the failure of former President Kennedy to stop the Vietnam war. Those with real power and influence are those with the most capital. And since the democratic system permits major corporations to back candidates, be they presidential or congressional, there shouldn't be any cause for astonishment - and there isn't any - in the Democrats' failure to stop the war. You're the ones who have the saying which goes, "Money talks."

[An extract from the latest Osama bin Laden video, which some claim to be a forgery] . . read more

We are told the “surge is working”, whereas it is the U.S. military’s abandonment of its brutal home invasions that has led to the lull. Insurgents still control their own terrain. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of Iraqis face the prospect of malnutrition and outright starvation, which is not newsworthy. Bush psychopathy stretches from the Middle East to the White House, where it is widely suspected that prior to its illegal erasure, the CIA torture tape was screened for the pleasure of the President.

Looking back over the terror war years, we can now contemplate accusations of high crimes & misdemeanours that once seemed impossible. The recent announcement that eight U.S. State Department veterans challenge the official account of 9/11 is likely to flush out more witnesses. Mainstream media are too embedded with the power elite to conduct an impartial yet vigorous evaluation of the evidence relating to dirty deeds on 9/11. In the end, the bloggers will have the last laugh. . . read more

The success of ‘the Surge’ is becoming almost received wisdom in the U.S. This is strange since, if the U.S. strategy did win such an important victory, why do America generals need more soldiers, currently 147,000 of them, in Iraq than they did before ‘the Surge’ started? But belief in this so-called victory is in keeping with the American tradition of seeing everything that happens in Iraq as being the result of actions by the U.S. alone. The complex political landscape of Iraq is ignored.

U.S. commentators have never quite taken on board that there are not one but three wars being fought out in the country since 2003: the first is the war of resistance against the American occupation by insurgents from the Sunni Arab community. The second is the battle between the Sunni and Shia communities as to who should rule the Iraqi state in succession to Saddam Hussein. The third conflict is a proxy war between the U.S. and Iran to decide who should be the predominant foreign power in Iraq. The real, though exaggerated, fall in violence in Iraq over the last year is a consequence of developments in all three of these wars, but they do not necessarily have much to do with ‘the Surge’. [More] . . read more