When a bomb exploded yesterday at the British embassy in Croatia's capital, Zagreb, causing minor injuries to a security guard, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader suggested it might be linked to Croatia's application to join the European Union. Britain is the current president of the EU, and one of several member states that has opposed Croatia's membership until it arrests its main war crimes fugitive, Gen. Ante Gotovina. (Reuters, Sept. 19) Croatian President Stipe Mesic condemned the incident as a "terrorist attack." But when an embassy employee, Damir Rovisan, was arrested today for smuggling in the device, Interior Minister Ivica Kirin said: "This indicates that this is not a terrorist act against the British embassy, but an act of an individual coming from criminal circles." Yet he admitted that no motive had been established for the bombing. (BBC, Sept. 20)

In a New York Times op-ed piece that ran Sept. 16 in the International Herald Tribune, Waleed Ziad of the Truman National Security Project questions Washington's interventionist consensus. In the piece, "Jihad's Fresh Face," Ziad writes:

The post-9/11 prevailing wisdom has held that military force and exporting democracy are the West's twin weapons against terrorism. Islamic fundamentalism is the product of a "medieval" mindset, we are told, and if we can deliver elections to the Arab world, our enemies will cower before the spirit of the Enlightenment.

New York City's Union Square Park, which had been a symbol of free speech in the aftermath of 9-11, has now become a symbol of censorship. This AP account appears in today's Newsday:

On Wednesday, Sept. 21 at 7:30 PM, WW4 REPORT editor Bill Weinberg will speak on "The Politics of the Anti-War Movement" in an event sponsored by the New SPACE (New School for Pluralistic Anti-Capitalist Education):

Hard-left elements of the anti-war movement affirm the abstract right of the Iraqi people to resist the occupation, but fail to grapple with the realities of Iraq's actually-existing armed resistance. The more moderate elements dodge the question entirely. Yet there is an active left opposition in Iraq that opposes the occupation, the regime it protects, and the jihadi and Baathist "resistance" alike. It is this besieged opposition, under threat of assassination and persecution, which is fighting to keep alive elementary freedoms for women, leading labor struggles against Halliburton and other US contractors, and demanding a secular future for Iraq. For all the incessant factional splits in the US anti-war movement, providing this real, progressive Iraqi resistance concrete solidarity is not even on the agenda. How can we build an effective anti-war movement which is based on principles of international solidarity, and loan a voice to our natural allies in Iraq? Join us in a discussion with award-winning journalist Bill Weinberg.

While 11 candidates (out of some 3,000) were barred from Afghanistan's parliamentary elections for ties to warlordism, many veteran Mujahedeen commanders with pasts tained by human rights abuses—or even ethnic cleansing—seem to have slipped through the cracks. Reported Newsday Sept. 19:

We recently aired first-hand accounts from paramedics in New Orleans that police from the suburb of Gretna had turned back refugees attempting to flee the devastated city at gunpoint. A Sept. 17 LA Times story, "A Roadblock to Compassion," reprinted by New York Newsday, confirms that this was the case:

GRETNA, La. - The city council of this mostly white suburb - heavily criticized for using armed officers to seal one of the last escape routes from New Orleans, trapping thousands of mostly black evacuees in the flooded city - has passed a resolution supporting the police chief's move.

Venezuela's left-populist President Hugo Chavez made history this weekend with a visit to New York for an appearance at the UN summit. His brief sojourn in La Manzana Grande consciously evoked his mentor Fidel Castro's historic 1960 debut address at the General Assembly—complete with a blistering verbal attack on the global economic order, and visits to the city's poor communities.

At least 80 are reported dead and twice as many wounded in suicide car bomb explosion near a gathering of laborers in Kadhimiya, a Shiite area of north-central Baghdad. About three hours later, another suicide car bomb targeted shoppers in the busy Shiite neighborhood of Shula in northwestern Baghdad, killing four and wounding 22 others. In Taji, about 10 miles north of Baghdad, men wearing Iraqi army uniforms stormed homes and pulled 17 Shiite men from their homes, shooting them execution style, police said.

Attacks were also staged on at least three military convoys. A suicide car bomb targeted an Iraqi army convoy in the al-Adil intersection in western Baghdad, killing three Iraqi soldiers. About 40 minutes earlier, another suicide car bomber hit a US military convoy in eastern Baghdad, wounding two soldiers and damaging their Humvee. A roadside bomb also exploded near a US convoy in the capital. There were no reports of casualties.