Oh boy. Remember all the jokes about how Bush's Operation Iraqi Freedom was originally dubbed Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL). Now life imitates humor as another Orwellian sobriquet is unleashed in Baghdad: Operation Imposing Law. You'd think the Pentagon PR people would've nixed that one. Or are they trying to tell us something? From the UAE's GulfNews, Feb. 19:

A hapless economic conscript who was in way over his head is sent up the river—while the architects of the war won't even face impeachment. From San Diego's North County Times, Feb. 17:

CAMP PENDLETON ---- A Marine lance corporal was sentenced Saturday to eight years in jail and a dishonorable discharge for his part in the abduction and shooting death of a retired policeman last year in Hamdania, Iraq.

You'd think if the global warming skeptics were so secure in their position, they wouldn't have to resort to such subterfuges. Ian Sample writes for The Guardian, Feb. 2:

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

The Guardian reported Feb. 16 that the WHO has logged a sharp jump in polio cases in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province after the parents of 24,000 children refused to allow health workers to administer the "infidel vaccine," which local clerics using mosque loudspeakers and underground radio stations said was a US plot to sterilize Muslim children. Then it got worse. From India's Zee News, Feb. 18:

Days after bomb blasts and insurgent attacks in Iranian Baluchistan, more terror in Pakistani Baluchistan. To what extent is this a Baluch ethnic insurgency, and to what extent a Sunni fundamentalist jihad? Or is it both? One shudders to think how complex the intrigues behind this are. The Baluch militants in Pakistan are said to be backed by Iran, while Pakistan's intelligence apparatus has long quietly backed the Sunni jihadists to further Islamabad's ambitions in Kashmir and (with CIA connivance) Afghanistan. Are the Baluch being pitted against each other as have the Kurds? Maybe the Baluch are starting to shake off all such manipulators and struggle for a unified independent Baluchistan—just as there is more talk of a unified Pashtunistan straddling Pakistan and Afghanistan, after centuries of the Pashtuns serving as pawns in the Great Game. From Reuters, via the UAE's Khaleej Times, Feb. 18:

The rad left (e.g. the ever-predictable Counterpunch) loves to hate Elie Wiesel, and actually makes some strong arguments about his double standards on human suffering. But we would trust their intentions a lot more if they weren't so intent on dismissing the reality of anti-Semitism. After his attack, Wiesel told Italy's Corriere della Sera that Jew-haters and Holocaust deniers are increasing worldwide and getting bolder: "Until today they used words; now they have switched to violence. Their numbers are growing by the day." (AP, Feb. 13). The evidence for this has been mounting for some time, whatever the morally equivocal position of Wiesel and however much Jew-haters are abetted by Israel's atrocious actions. When are supposedly "progressive" anti-Semitism-deniers going to start eating crow? From the Melbourne Herald-Sun, Feb. 18:

Having last year arrested two of its own intelligence agents in the "rendition" scandal, Italy now indicts 25 CIA men. Extraordinary indeed. From AKI, Feb. 16:

MILAN - A judge in Milan ordered on Friday the former head of Italy's military intelligence to stand trial along with six Italian agents and 26 US citizens - most of them CIA agents - over the alleged abduction of an Egyptian Muslim extremist in Milan in 2003 in a US practice known as 'extraordinary rendition'. The case will be the first criminal trial over the secret transfer by Washington of terror suspects to detention centers around the world. The trial is scheduled to begin on 8 June and the US citizens are expected to be tried in absentia.

From Iranian Workers' Solidarity Network, Jan. 30:

Workers shut off Iran Sadra's Bushehr shipyard's gate
"We'll stay on strike until we achieve our goal"

Following the sacking of 38 workers at Iran Sadra's Bushehr shipyard on 30 January, 150 workers shut off the shipyard's gate. According to a report by the government-controlled ILNA, Iranian Labour News Agency, the Iran Sadra workers' representative said: "An agenda had been arranged in the [Bushehr] province governor's office, according to which if the company has orders then its workforce will be returned to work and they will sign contracts so that the problem is resolved. But not only has the problem not been resolved, but after a month has passed 38 workers have also been sacked."