In contrast to their Cold War counterparts of yesterdecade, who openly embraced any dictator who was "our son of a bitch," today's neocons often seem to really believe their own rhetoric about how their global project is expanding democracy. This is why the auto-golpe in Pakistan puts them in such a pickle. Compounding their discomfort is the similar power-grab that US-backed President Mikhail Saakashvili is now attempting in Georgia—just two weeks short of the fourth anniversary of the "Rose Revolution" that put him in office. At the time of the Rose Revolution, the kneejerk anti-America crowd squawked about how it was all the work of the CIA and George Soros. Now Saakashvili is squawking about how the current wave of protest is all the work of Russian secret agents. Funny how those in power never seem to think anyone would have any legitimate reason to be pissed off at them.

Ten years after New York City's notorious Abner Louima case, police in Egypt appear to be emulating the brutal techniques of Rudolph Giuliani's NYPD. Two Cairo police officers were convicted this week of torturing a man in their custody—after a cellphone video of the man being sodomized with a stick appeared on the Internet. As the man, a 22-year-old bus driver who had been detained after trying to break up a fight between the police and a cousin last year, screamed in pain, onlookers taunted him and threatened to spread the video among his co-workers to humiliate him. The video made its way to Egyptian blog sites and YouTube, and widespread outrage followed. The officers were sentenced to three years in prison. Rights groups say torture is routinely used in Egypt's police stations. (NYT, Nov. 6)

The Pentagon has, astutely, chosen an African American as first chief of the new Africa Command, Gen. William "Kip" Ward—and his first official visit to the continent was, of course, to chief US ally Ethiopia. Meeting with African Union leaders in Addis Ababa Nov. 8, Ward explicitly addressed widespread fears of the US establishing a permanent military presence on the continent. "Any notion of a militarization of the continent because of this? Absolutely false; not the case," said Gen. Ward. "Africa Command is not here to build garrisons and military bases." (BBC, Reuters, Nov. 8)

Six US soldiers were killed in three separate attacks in Iraq Nov. 5, bringing the number of deaths this year to 852—and making 2007 the deadliest year of the war for US troops. The news comes days after the military announced a steep drop in the rate of US deaths this year. In October, 38 US soldiers were killed in Iraq, the lowest monthly tally since March 2006. November's total, if the current pace continues, would be higher, but still below the war's average of 69 US military deaths per month. Despite the decline, US commanders acknowledged that 2007 would be far deadlier than the second-worst year, 2004, when 849 US soldiers died. (NYT, Nov. 7) The news also comes as Congress has yet again approved war funding—reported by the NY Times Nov. 7 under misleading headline "Military Bill Approved, but Without Iraq Increase." The text reveals far greater wiggle room than the headline would indicate:

While we certainly don't put it past the Taliban to blow up a bunch of schoolchildren to take out a couple of politicians, we note that this attack comes in the normally (relatively) peaceful north of the country, where the Taliban were never popular and still have little following. News accounts frequently forget that the real power in Afghanistan's hinterlands remain the warlords who terrorized the country in a decade and more of internecine ethnic and sectarian bloodshed after the Soviets pulled out, and still have their deep personal grudges—despite the best efforts of Karzai and the US to broker peace (and maintain the fiction of a centralized Afghan state). Baghlan, the scene of today's horrific attack, lies within the domain of regional warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, who (as we have noted) has long been in an oft-bloody power struggle with local rivals. We'd like to know where the apparent targets of this blast stood vis-à-vis this conflict. Note that the Taliban explicitly deny responsibility this time, and raise the possibility of Mujahedeen accounts-settling. From Reuters Nov. 6, emphasis added:

Days after a car bomb in the normally (relatively) peaceful northern city of Kirkuk left eight dead in a Kurdish neighborhood (Reuters, Oct. 28), comes this ominous news from AlJazeera Nov. 6:

Kirkuk's Arabs paid to pack up
It is a volatile city, but one that is vital to Iraq's future, and Kirkuk is now facing its toughest test yet. Just weeks before a scheduled referendum on the city's future, Arab residents are being paid to pack up and leave.

A fascinating story from the New York Times Nov. 5. The Vatican seems to be sending an explicit message here about the need to protect Christians in Muslim lands. But note that the situation for Iraq's Christians has dramatically worsened under the US occupation. And it is very refreshing that Emmanuel III Delly refuses to cast collective guilt on his Muslim neighbors, and explicitly repudiates the logic of sectarian cleansing:

2,000-Year-Old Christian Community in Iraq Gains a Spiritual First in Baghdad
BAGHDAD — There is neither a cross nor a sign on the heavy metal gate to indicate that this is the official residence of one of the country’s most prominent Christians, the first in Iraq in modern times to be elevated to cardinal by the Roman Catholic Church.

The New York Times reports Nov. 5 on an initiative to win justice for Jews who fled Arab countries after 1948, and their descendants. But the first paragraph makes nearly explicitly clear that they are being exploited as bargaining chips against the claims of Palestinian refugees: