When additional American forces were deployed to Iraq, many of them were assigned to the impoverished neighborhood called Sadr City, where the Mahdi Army (Jaish al-Mahdi, or “JAM” in American military shorthand) has been attempting to establish itself as the …

Essentially re-requesting the amount he wanted for the war this fiscal year by requesting the difference (and then some), Bush is playing on our feelings of common sense and sympathy to obtain the funding that General Petraeus recommended for the …

The New York Times has an article this morning detailing at least part of the incident involving Blackwater contractors that resulted in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians and the wounding of 24 more. Reading the article requires a …

As today’s Congressional hearings on Blackwater begin I highly recommend reading the latest Salon.com article on the role of military contractors in Iraq. The depth of their involvement is breathtaking and the problems caused by this involvement may be …

General status reports from Iraq continue to be bleak. Congress’ investigative agency has reported that the Iraqi government has only fulfilled 3 of the 18 benchmark goals it committed to last June, and that the levels of violence between …

Is is a ploy? Am I mishearing? Or did the President, in a surprise visit to Iraq yesterday, comment that if security continues to improve in the country then troop withdrawals may begin sooner than expected? The …

It has not been uncommon over the last several words to hear allusions to the “v word” - Vietnam. Supporters of the war have squashed any analogy with our Asian adventure, often claiming that Iraq is a very different …

The Drudge Report is currently leading with a headline entitled: Hillary on Surge? ‘It’s working’ . . . While Mrs. Clinton is certainly one of the more hawkish Democratic candidates I was surprised that she had come out in …

I grew up on Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Italian Folktales. Story telling and the making of myth can often help reveal deeper aspects of humanity and ingrain moral precepts in a way that straight out preaching cannot. But …

As expected, the all-night debate in the Senate failed to push a preemptive bill forward that would require the beginning of troop withdrawals in only three months. A vote of 52-46 was not enough to achieve the supermajority necessary …