We wrote in our last post on the Egyptian elections:

The first-round results cast a dubious light on the apparent assumption of the neocons that a wave of democratic revolutions in the Arab and Islamic worlds will bring pro-West "moderates" and technocrats to power. They may be dramatically underestimating the degree to which radical Islam has cornered the market on popular unrest in this part of the planet. Their model seems to be Czechoslovakia 1989. A more appropriate one might be Algeria 1992.

Alas, this analysis has been further vindicated by subsequent events. Dec. 7:

DAMIETTA, Egypt (Reuters) - Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets and two men were killed in the last stage of Egypt's parliamentary elections on Wednesday in which Islamists said security forces blocked voters to limit their gains.

Perhaps some of our Eritrean readers could explain the logic of this decision:

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - Eritrea has ordered the expulsion of U.S., Canadian and European staff of the U.N. peacekeeping mission that monitors the tense border with neighboring Ethiopia, United Nations officials said Wednesday.

Concern has been growing that war could again erupt between the two countries. Both have been increasing troops along the border and two weeks ago the United Nations threatened to impose sanctions if Eritrea fails to ease restrictions imposed on peacekeepers.

Here's the exact quote, as reported in the New York Times Dec. 7:

"I am Saddam Hussein!" the former ruler said repeatedly, shaking his fist. "Like the path of Mussolini, to resist occupation to the end, that is Saddam Hussein," he said.

All sides continue to exhibit the utmost cynicism in the increasingly confused Iraq war. The anti-terrorist SITE Institute notes that the self-declared al-Qaeda in Iraq has issued a communique on the Nov. 28 assassination of Sheikh Ayad al-Izzi, a prominent Sunni parliamentary candidate with the Iraqi Islamic Party. According to SITE:

Commenting on who killed al-Izzi, the message implicates the US, saying: “The Americans have an interest to kill Ayad al-Azzi and those like him so as to instigate civil wars between the followers of the Sunna and their protégés.

The December issue of The Broken Rifle, newsletter of the War Resisters International, which supports conscientious objectors from military service around the world, offers this report from a strategically-placed country not often in the news: Eritrea. We noted in our last post on Eritrea that military tensions with Ethiopia are once again growing. The secession of Eritrea in 1993 left Ethiopia landlocked. Ethiopia is much closer to the US, which has an interest in securing the Horn's access to the Red Sea (just north of the Strait of Djibouti chokepoint, already threatened by Somali pirates) against Islamic militants. Therefore Eritrea's strongman Isaias Afwerki is playing up supposed Islamist subversion of his regime—both as an excuse to suppress opposition and to win Washington's good graces. If war comes, it is Eritrean and Ethiopian conscripts who will be the first to pay with their lives in this power game. This report, which starts with a background primer on the country, notes thousands of Eritrean conscientious objectors who have been imprisoned or forced into exile. It seems that many have also been tortured and even executed.

Well, more than 40 years after the damage is done, the government comes clean on the lies that got the US into the Vietnam War. We guess it must be official now that its in the New York Times. But even the Times (whose own recently-sacked Judith Miller similarly parroted White House malarky) notes the disturbing sense of deja vu here. Its good to see this in print, and its good that Miller got the sack—but is the world going to have to wait 40 years before the full story of Bush's WMD deception is revealed? And by then how many will have been killed in Iraq?

Another mass grave for the idiot left to deny the existence of or try to explain away—this time in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, near the Syrian border. From Reuters:

ANJAR, Lebanon, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Lebanese forces excavated a suspected third mass grave on Sunday, a day after unearthing 25 decomposed corpses in an eastern town that was the headquarters of Syrian intelligence for three decades.

Security forces were digging for more bodies at the third site near two other mass graves close to an old onion farm in the eastern town of Anjar, long used by Syrian intelligence as a notorious interrogation centre.

Recent reportage raises some disturbing questions about the abduction of the four activists from the Christian Peacemaker Teams now being held hostage in Iraq—Tom Fox, 54, of Virginia; Norman Kember, 74, of London; James Loney, 41, of Toronto; and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, also of Canada. (See our last post on the case.)