A couple of important stories out today: Senate committee: Bush knew Iraq claims weren’t true and more information on our permanent bases in Iraq.
The first isn’t anything new. We’ve known that the White House ignored whatever information wasn’t useful to their case for war. That meant ignoring consensus on al Qaeda-Iraq ties and ignoring significant [...]

I just watched No End in Sight, a documentary about the clusterfuck that was (and is) the planning and execution of the Iraq war. I can’t recommend it enough. Unlike Robert Greenwald’s Uncovered, which is similar in subject matter, it isn’t just a few people talking about what they think happened, with little actual information. [...]

According to this guy:
Having been subjected to this technique, I can say: It is risky but not entirely dangerous when applied in training for a very short period. However, when performed on an unsuspecting prisoner, waterboarding is a torture technique - without a doubt. There is no way to sugarcoat it.
…
Unless you have been strapped [...]

Public trusts the fascists to run things! Good heavens, what will become of our country?
This is just how it was in Germany in the ’30s, man.

Strangeness abounds. Women have the highest freedom in Iran and there are no gays. Who knew?
He also tried the standard Holocaust denier rhetoric of “questioning, not denying.” It’s pretty transparent. He also waffled on his alleged comments about wanting Israel to be destroyed, which isn’t that surprising.
I don’t really care that he spoke at Columbia. [...]

Disclaimer: There are two obvious objections to the post that follows: I’m assuming without evidence that the Bush administration’s stated reasons were not the reason for the war and that these sorts of arguments are no longer relevant. The first is wrong, but it’s another subject and I won’t answer such arguments on this post. [...]

Petraeus and Crocker have begun their Congressional briefings in the past two days and it’s really not impressive. I’m a fan of this nonsense:
Petraeus’s plan would rotate 2,200 Marines out of Anbar province in western Iraq this month without replacing them, then begin pulling out 17,500 Army troops and 2,000 more Marines starting in mid-December. [...]

A new bin Laden tape came out on Friday and since I was traveling, I couldn’t comment on it.
It’s sort of an interesting tape. Lots of reports have noted how topical (if that’s the right word) it is, mentioning global warming, the subprime mortgage collapse, etc. His rhetoric resembles that of the anti-war crowd [...]

Al Qaeda is pretty obviously a bad group of people, but do they barbecue children and feed them to their parents? I’m with Wulfgar; that’s a bit sketchy. Yon’s reporting is from an anonymous Iraqi official who apparently heard it from someone else. Not much more than a rumor in a region filled with vile [...]

Religious scholar Karen Armstrong is offended by ignorance of Islam:
RELIGIOUS scholar Karen Armstrong says she is defending Islam as it has been portrayed inaccurately in many ways, particularly in western countries.
She said when Islam, a religion professed throughout the world, is portrayed inaccurately and misrepresented, it offended her intellectually.
“When Islam is projected incorrectly, inaccurately and [...]