One trillion dollars later.....and no "last throes" in Iraq

Today marks the US having passed the one trillion dollar mark for the cost to it of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The Nation reflects on what then US VP Cheney said 5 years back on Memorial Day:

"It was one of the most famous quotes from the early years of the war in Iraq and it came on Memorial Day five years ago. You've seen references, but here's the relevant portion of the Larry King transcript of his interview with Vice President Dick Cheney on May 31, 2005. For the full transcript, go here, it's filled with other amazing comments on Gitmo, John Bolton and the United Nations, and who-cares-about-Amnesty. Note: A little earlier today, the cost of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan passed $1 trillion (according to calculations), just as the U.S. death toll in Afghanistan passed 1000."

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Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives? In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...

Palestinian children in irons. UK to investigate

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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