By Andrew G. Marshall - July 10, 2008

...[W]hy [was] Iraq...occupied[?]...If the answer is...to spread democracy and freedom and rid the world of tyranny and terror, then it doesn’t make sense that the British or Americans would orchestrate terror...However, if the answer to the question...was not to spread democracy and freedom, but to spread fear and chaos, plunge the country into civil war, balkanize Iraq into several countries, and create an "arc of crisis" across the Middle East, enveloping neighboring countries, notably Iran, then terror is a very efficient and effective means to an end.

by Komfie Manalo - July 9, 2008

A senior Iraqi official...demanded a date for U.S. troop withdrawal in the region and warns it will reject any security deal with Washington that does not spell out a timetable.

The Bush administration is hard line and fixed. It plans permanent occupation of Iraq. Democrats support it.

By PATRICK COCKBURN - July 5/6, 2008

Iraq will be plunged into a new war if Israel or the US launches an attack on Iran, Iraqi leaders have warned. Iranian retaliation would take place in Iraq...The Iraqi government may be militarily dependent on the 140,000 US troops in the country, but its Shia and Kurdish leaders have long been allied to Iran.

By Naomi Klein - July 05, 2008

[Iraq's] invaders should be paying billions in reparations not using the war as a reason to pillage its richest resource.

By JAMES GLANZ and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. - NY Times

Bush administration officials knew that a Texas oil company with close ties to President Bush was planning to sign an oil deal with the regional Kurdistan government that ran counter to American policy and undercut Iraq’s central government, a Congressional committee has concluded.

By Seumas Milne - June, 30 2008

What is certain is that, if Bush's blueprint for indefinite foreign rule in Iraq and the takeover of its oil is forced down the throats of the Iraqi people, resistance and bloodshed will increase. Of course, it's true that the US and Britain didn't invade Iraq only for its oil. It was a projection of American power in the world's most strategically sensitive region, with oil at its heart, which has brought catastrophe to Iraq and great danger to the Middle East and the wider world. That's why the struggle to restore Iraq's independence matters far beyond its borders -- it is a global necessity.

By Chris Hedges - June, 05 2008

American Marines and soldiers have become socialized to atrocity. The killing project is not described in these terms to a distant public. The politicians still speak in the abstract terms of glory, honor, and heroism, in the necessity of improving the world, in lofty phrases of political and spiritual renewal. Those who kill large numbers of people always claim it as a virtue. The campaign to rid the world of terror is expressed within the confines of this rhetoric, as if once all terrorists are destroyed evil itself will vanish.

by Nicholas Keung - Toronto Star

The treatment of Armenian Iraqis reminds Toronto immigration lawyer Chantal Desloges of how Jewish refugees fleeing the Soviet Union after its collapse in the 1990s were denied refugee status and told to resettle in Israel instead...A client of hers in Syria already tried to go to Armenia after being rejected by Canada and was refused.

BBC News - 2008/06/08

Iraq will not allow its territory to be used to attack Iran, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has said during a visit to Tehran..."We will not allow Iraq to become a platform for harming the security of Iran and neighbours," Iranian state-run media quoted Mr Maliki as saying after late-night talks with [Iran's] Foreign Minister...

By PATRICK COCKBURN - June 5, 2008

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in November.

By PATRICK COCKBURN - Counterpunch

The US is holding hostage some $50 billion of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely...US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal...

By GARY LEUPP - June 6, 2008

[U.S. Vice President] Dick Cheney wants the Iraqi government installed by the U.S. occupation to sign a “security pact” with Washington by the end of July...[Iraqi] public opinion is opposed to the pact based on leaked information about its content; and a majority of members of the Iraqi parliament have endorsed a letter to the U.S. government demanding U.S. withdrawal as the condition for “any commercial, agricultural, investment or political agreement with the United States”...Few Americans are familiar with the proposed treaty. If they were, they might be shocked at its provisions, ashamed about its naked sadism.

Former US President Jimmy Carter is making more enemies in Washington. Over the last few days, he has published a statement denouncing human rights abuses in Palestine, called for Europe to break from the US and lift the blockade on Gaza, confirmed the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons and called for a complete withdrawal from Iraq. Wow.

The American Nightmare has no boundaries as it were. I had just recently moved to a new domicile and was talking with the telephone technician working on my phone line. We were talking shop and I happened to mention I was a journalist. I told him of my exploits interviewing everyday people around the country. Then I mentioned the sad tales of the “New Homeless” and how their high tech and engineering jobs were being sent to third world countries. I also mentioned the foreclosure fiasco and all the people living in RV’s or traveling to family members or friends to live out this non recession. Then he looked at me with the all too familiar look of loss I’ve seen over these last few months.