Iraqi Bloggers Continue Posting at TimesSelect

The four young writers that the New York Times scooped off of the blogosphere, three from Baghdad and one from Mosul, are still providing well-written posts about everything from health care to education to bombs to Eid celebrations at http://iraq.page.nytimes.com/.

This is yet another bonus for TimesSelect subscribers ($50/yr, but free if you subscribe to even just the Sunday Times).

In a week that saw a despicable display of editorializing by Washington Post ombudsperson Deborah Howell, topped with the mass deletion of reader feedback at post.blog, it has been revealed that the New York Times has ordered its editors to remove e-mail addresses from their print and online op-eds, thereby enabling only TimesSelect subscribers to e-mail as well as to access the truthiness of the likes of Frank Rich, et al. Worseover, American Thinker busted The Times last week for mis-captioning this photo, alleged to be from the site of the recent U.S. airstrikes in Pakistan.

Howell, wholly disregarding and abusing her ombudsly responsibilities failed to clear up false claims in her Abramoff report last week and the melee that followed, allowing that she did print wrong information, but encouraging readers to “stay tuned…”

Lame. Sunday talk shows of note include Sen. Kerry on Stephanopolous, Obama on Russert, and Sens. Lieberman and Roberts on Face the Nation. The coming week, on the other hand, is setting up to be quite newsworthy, what with French PM Chirac dropping his own nuclear bombshell, and news of Israel planning to attack Iran should diplomatic efforts to halt their nuclear projects fail.

AND NOW, AFP reports from Tehran:

Iranian officials have held talks with radical Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, a prominent opponent of US forces, with Tehran using the visit to repeat its call for foreign troops to quit Iraq.

Afghanistan: The Forward Lateral

The suicide attacks of 2006 in Afghanistan, coinciding with an increase of NATO-led forces in the area, serve as harsh reminders of the unfinished business left behind when the United States shifted its focus in the Global War on Terror (GWOT) to Iraq (based on a series of uncorroborated claims).

When U.S. troops attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001, they had the backing of many allies in the war on terror including the United Nations. However, months later, when Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and the disasterminds of U.S. foreign policy decided to change course and invade Iraq, the rogue Taliban had not been defeated as imagined, they merely slipped into obscurity; taking refuge in the mountainous borderlands of Afghanistan/Pakistan.

Thus began a series of foreign policy fumbles reulting from the U.S. determination to militarily implement rapid regime change without providing support and logistics necessary for rebuilding. It even appears that some U.S. politicians are prepared to give up on Iraq entirely and start over again with (gulp!) Iran (Krauthammer and Ledeen, among others, think a showdown is inevitable), as USAID today paints a picture of an out-of-control Iraq, replete with “social breakdown” and criminal “free rein.”

So now as the UK has begun displacing some of their troops in Iraq to help lead the NATO mission in Afghanistan, a U.S. envoy is warning them to be prepared for violent opposition from Taliban forces.

Hamid Karzai is left to his own devices to foil future attacks and has launched an investigation to find “where the militants are getting their resources, their support and where they are coming from,” and protests are underway at the site where 26 where killed and dozens injured near Kandahar on Monday.

Holland has pledged to send over 1,000 troops to Afghanistan, but not without a grudge to bear:

Dutch Commander General Dick Berlijn said on Wednesday:

“The actions of the Americans have had little or no effect. The Taliban was dealt with – and that was very necessary – but the country is no more stable as a result….”

Even pacifist Sweden’s mission in the country has recently been threatened:

“[Al-Qaeda] had a focus and direction against Sweden that we hadn’t seen before and were coupled with a criticism of Sweden’s participation in Afghanistan…” — SAPO Security Chief Dagens Nyheter.

There are reports of at least 20 suicide bombings in Afghanistan in these first 17 days of 2006 alone, including an attack near Kandahar Sunday, killing a senior Canadian diplomat.

While President Bush continues insisting that “everything changed” after “September the eleventh,” it is as a result of hasty U.S. policies an actions in the four years since that have led to a dangerous deterioration in worldwide faith in United States’ foreign policies and goals abroad.

Afghanistan is not a forgotten war, at least not outside of the U.S., as UN Security Council President Augustine P. Mahiga of Tanzania has announced an international conference later this month in London to ?provide a solid framework for the next stage of reconstruction.? But it seems that America’s poor handling of the Afghan situation has only left a bitter taste and has inspired fear not in the enemy, but in our NATO allies left to clean up the mess.

And by the way, What’s up with Osama bin Laden?

Wiretapping Lawsuits Filed; Dr. King Rolls Over

ACLU ad, Washington Post, Jan 16, 2006Eric Lichtblau reveals that two lawsuits are being filed in regards to President Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program.

According to the article, in Tuesday’s New York Times, the two separate suits are being filed by the in Detroit, and the Center for Constitutional Rights in Manhattan, on behalf of Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, Guantanamo Action Network, oft-scrutinized journalist Christopher Hitchens and Tara McKelvey, senior editor of The American Prospect.

The full-page ACLU ad at left appeared in Monday’s Washington Post.

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Classes were not in session in the United States today, in observance of what would have been the 77th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but while it is honorable to celebrate the man, we certainly have not come far as a society in holding up his legacy as a civil rights visionary. Robin Shulman writes in Tuesday’s Guardian:

Millions of Americans marked Martin Luther King Day yesterday with tributes to the civil rights leader, despite a Harvard University report showing that racial segregation in schools has been increasing since the early 1990s, when the courts made a series of decisions to dissolve desegregation orders.

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Unless you were watching C-Span, you missed the very important speech (foreshadowed by The Nation’s John Nichols on Friday) given by former Vice President Al Gore.

In a midday speech memorializing Dr. Martin Luther King at Constitution Hall, Gore criticized the president for his careless and repeated constitutional breaches, and warned the public against “a gross and excessive power grab” by the Bush Administration.”

transcript – (Raw Story)
Audio (.mp3)

“Where was this Gore when we needed him?” queried a journalist seated next to The Tribune’s Frank James, according to his glowing review in the Trib Washington Bureau’s The Swamp blog. At any rate, it appears that Gore will not stand down.
Additional commentary at Digby’s Hullabaloo, The Left Coaster, and Susie was there and highlights tomorrow’s headlines, in which the media finally shows up for the bashing. Seems the much needed blast of new blood is being injected by the people’s president that never was? The “right blogosphere” is quick to juxtapose Gore’s rage against his policies as a VP, but libertarians tend to be on Al’s side when it comes to guarding against Constitutional transgressions.
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Also, Lyndon Johnson’s Attorney General, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, who remembers wiretapping Dr. King.