To speak out for human rights in an occupied land — to investigate and publicize the systematic tortures and atrocities practiced by the client regime of the occupying power — is a dangerous, often deadly business. Harith al-Obaidi found that out in Iraq this week, when he was gunned down in a Baghdad mosque a day after he condemned the American-installed government for its flagrant abuses. The New York Times reports: The Sunni leader, Harith al-Obaidi, was leading Friday prayers at al-Shawaf mosque in the upscale neighborhood of Yarmouk, and also gave a sermon complaining about the abuses, when a

I’m on the road, in a strange country; by all appearances, a fragile, brittle, frightened land, where the natives must be told every day — and preferably every hour — by every means possible how wonderful they are, how good, how righteous, how deserving and important, how unquestionably, uncritically, purely and simply (oh so simply) special they are in every way. A land where cleavage-popping babes adorn forty-foot billboards for bail bonding companies. Where pasty realtors and corn-starched pols gather to pledge allegiance to the Confederate flag, and cranky predestinarians sketch flowcharts of salvation on basement whiteboards in the wee

We are told that Barack Obama gave a “major address” on the subject of US-Muslim relations. He was speechifying in Cairo, capital of one of the most repressive regimes in the Middle East, following a sleepover with the Saudi king, Abdullah, ruler of one of the most repressive regimes on earth. Regarding the deep impact of this landmark event, we defer to the observations of Professor As’ad AbuKhalil, who provides this incisive commentary: Who cares about what Obama will say or not say? I mean, why should people care about what the visiting White Man (yes, as soon as you

As we prepare for an excursion beyond the reaches of Inner Blogolia, to strange realms and undiscovered countries from whose bourne no traveller returns — for at least a few days — we direct your attention to the musings of a youngish man known only as “The Grey Shield.” Said Shield scampers in God’s domain at the website Magnificent Valor, where lately he has entertained himself — and, er, ourselves — with an homage to the Master, S.J. Perelman. So scoot on over there and give Mister Grey a gander. After all, in these petty, piping times, do we not

Glenn Greenwald, among others, is enraged at Barack Obama’s eager embrace of the latest disgorgement of third-rate juntaism to belch forth from the hallowed halls of the U.S. Congress: the “Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009,” sponsored by those ever-stalwart champions of liberty, Senators Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman. As Greenwald describes it: [The bill] literally has no purpose other than to allow the government to suppress any “photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United

(UPDATED BELOW.) What drove the man who killed Dr. George Tiller? Perhaps someone who had seen Tiller lambasted by one of the nation’s leading media figures as someone “who will execute babies for $5,000” and protects “rapists impregnating 10-year-olds.” Tiller’s activities were compared by the leading national media figure to “the kind of stuff that happened in Mao’s China and Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union.” The multimillionaire media figure then promised that “we’re going to try to stop Tiller,” declaring that Tiller’s Nazi-like atrocities were stripping the entire nation of its moral authority. In other words, one the nation’s

Number CrunchingJonathan Schwarz uses the Obama Rules calculus and discovers that, by the president’s own blood-and-iron logic, “Afghans are now permitted to kill 14,000 Americans.” Faithful ServantsThis is exactly the kind of “resolute action” that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton demanded of their Pakistani clients: Pakistani Military Killing Fleeing Swati Civilians (Antiwar.com). We hope that history records it with their other high and worthy deeds. Feast of the VictorsAs we all know, you never take any options “off the table” when you’re doing “whatever it takes” to advance your interests in the “clash of civilizations.” From the Guardian: How Neanderthals

Señor, señor, do you know where we’re headin’?Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?Seems like I been down this way before.Is there any truth in that, señor ?— Bob Dylan “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)” Yesterday, we briefly took up a Daily Kos piece that declared, with quivering fervor, that America’s ever-expanding and ever-more-deadly military intervention in Central Asia is actually an act of purest altruism, aimed solely — solely, we were told — at preventing those lesser breeds under the law on the subcontinent from blowing their silly-billy selves up in a nuclear war. We were also informed that anyone who

Where he leads me I will follow, Where he leads me I will follow, Where he leads me I will follow; I’ll go with him, with him all the way. — “Where He Leads Me,” E.W. Blandy & J.S. Norris Arthur Silber states a plain if unpleasant truth in the title of his latest piece: Barack Obama, Murderer and War Criminal-in-Chief. But as that great American military leader Jack Nicholson once said — on the witness stand in a military tribunal for crimes committed in Guantanamo Bay, no less — some folks “can’t handle the truth.” However, looking into the

1. Shiny Happy PeopleArthur Silber finds even more reasons to celebrate the truly special specialness of the “shining city on the hill.” He also thanks Bill Clinton for teaching him — and all of us — some very important lessons about the nature of the American political system. 2. Dirty is as Dirty DoesNell Lancaster looks askance at Barack Obama’s craven climbdown on releasing the rest of the torture photos from Abu Ghraib — even as he appoints one of the dirtiest of our many dirty war mavens to take over the “humanitarian intervention” in Afghanistan, as Scott Horton of