-
Iraq investigates cross-border raids
Published: May 9, 2008 at 7:26 PM
RAMADI, Iraq, May 9 (UPI) -- Iraq called on Damascus to examine the deaths in Anbar province of 13 police allegedly killed by foreign fighters entering the country from Syria. -
Iranian weapons causing Iraqi rift
Published: May 9, 2008 at 7:25 PM
BAGHDAD, May 9 (UPI) -- The decision by the Iraqi government to launch an investigation into Iranian weapons in the country raises questions about political motives. -
Saudis solicit bid for Iraqi border fence
Published: May 9, 2008 at 7:23 PM
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, May 9 (UPI) -- Scholars in Saudi Arabia warned against extremist ideologies urging men to enter Iraq to join the insurgency while officials solicit bids for a border fence.
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Iraq Press Roundup
Published: May 9, 2008 at 7:59 PM
By HIBA DAWOOD
UPI Correspondent
The Kurdish Al Ahali newspaper Friday carried an editorial with the title "Between the official delegations to Iran and the statements from the government's spokesman," by Heval Zakhori. -
Dogs of War: Inherently governmental?
Published: May 9, 2008 at 12:03 PM
By DAVID ISENBERG
WASHINGTON, May 9 (UPI) -- Amid all the polemics over the use of private military and security contractors by the U.S. government there are two words one rarely sees, but they lie at the very heart of the debate: "inherently governmental." -
Iraq Press Roundup
Published: May 9, 2008 at 11:28 AM
By HIBA DAWOOD
UPI Correspondent
The Sunni Al Mashriq newspaper said Thursday in an editorial titled "The killing of 15 women" that the problem any militia in the world faces is that no matter how politically professional, organized and ideologically mature they are, they still might be accepted by one country and rejected by another. -
Analysis: Border force seeks recognition
Published: May 9, 2008 at 11:21 AM
By KUSHAL JEENA
UPI Correspondent
NEW DELHI, May 9 (UPI) -- An Indian police force that guards the Indo-Tibetan border wants the federal Interior Ministry to give it the same status as other paramilitary security forces. -
Atlantic Eye: Hardly a done deal
Published: May 8, 2008 at 2:08 PM
By MARC S. ELLENBOGEN
UPI International Columnist
PRAGUE, Czech Republic, May 8 (UPI) -- Most Europeans see the U.S. presidential election as a done deal. They are quite surprised. They were convinced that Sen. Hillary Clinton was the sure thing. Now, and they are confused, they are expecting the inevitable: Sen. John McCain as president. -
Iraq Press Roundup
Published: May 7, 2008 at 3:29 PM
By HIBA DAWOOD
UPI Correspondent
Shebab Al Iraq newspaper Wednesday carried an editorial with the headline "Who is responsible for the atrocities in Sadr City?"
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Commentary: Of yarmulkes and epithets
Published: March 26, 2008 at 10:38 AM
By ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE
UPI Editor at Large
WASHINGTON, March 26 (UPI) -- To understand the chasm between mainstream media and the blogosphere, Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" is a helpful guide. Tweedledum and Tweedledee, they are not. But they are frequently fact and factoid (an invented fact that is taken to be true because of its appearance in print). And many blogs have achieved the status of print by virtue of the fact that countless millions get their news online. The average age of a newspaper reader is 55. Onliners? Try 30.
Sen. John McCain and his independent (formerly a Democrat) fellow traveler Sen. Joe Lieberman wound up their most recent Mideast foray in Israel where the Republican candidate for the presidency got a little help from the man widely tipped to be his choice for vice president in adjusting his yarmulke. For many Mideast bloggers, the yarmulke gesture was proof McCain would be even less inclined than President Bush to coax/cajole/pressure Israel into the kind of concessions that would make a Palestinian state possible.
McCain also fueled the speculation when he said Jerusalem was to remain the indivisible capital of the Jewish state and that Israel must not be asked for anything that might jeopardize its security. Without a Palestinian capital in Arab East Jerusalem, no Palestinian leader could sign a peace agreement -- and expect to stay alive.
Anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic epithets flooded the blogs, a lethal blend of extremist outbursts from the far right to the far left, e.g., "Hitler saw the tremendous danger posed to Germany by communism" and "although Jews formed less than 5 percent of Russia's population, they formed more than 50 percent of its revolutionaries."
Or, "the major role Jewish leaders played in the November (Russian) revolution was probably more important than any other factor in confirming (Hitler's) anti-Semitic beliefs." Holocaust deniers, along with those who say the 6 million Jewish victims of Hitler's death camps were wildly exaggerated, get a free ride in the blogosphere.
Another free-fire zone among the millions of blogs is the notion that Bush will have one last throw of the geopolitical dice by bombing Iran's nuclear facilities. Vice President Dick Cheney, on his most recent trip to the Middle East, left little doubt he believes the Iranian mullahs have resumed their nuclear quest after a brief interruption following the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Tehran ran scared in the spring of 2003 and concluded Iran might be next on Bush's hit list. That fear subsided quickly as the insurgency, stoked in part by Iranian Revolutionary Guard agents, spread all over Iraq. Cheney indicated clandestine lethal aid from Iran was still continuing.
Gen. David Petraeus, commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq, went one better when he said the Easter Sunday rocket-and-mortar barrage against Baghdad's Green Zone was made possible by Iran providing the rockets -- in complete violation of promises made by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other most senior Iranian leaders to their Iraqi counterparts.
And if Bush doesn't order the bombing of Iran, bloggers write matter-of-factly, McCain, as president, will not hesitate. Both McCain and Lieberman have said on separate occasions that there is only one thing worse than bombing Iran -- and that's Iran with nuclear weapons. Bombing thus becomes the lesser of two evils. Blogs also speculate on whether one Iranian nuclear weapon against Tel Aviv would knock out the state of Israel. Blog opinion is evenly divided between those who say Israel could not survive such a blow and those who say Iran would be pulverized by nuclear retaliation from Israel and the United States, and the Western world would coalesce around an Israeli reconstruction effort.
Important pieces of the Mideast jigsaw fail to make it into mainstream media but can be found online. The United Arab Emirates-based newspaper Gulf News said last week that with Bush in office Washington is effectively maintaining low-intensity warfare with Iran and the potential exists to ratchet it up to more open hostilities. Recurring visits by Cheney and McCain to Iraq and Israel, added Gulf News, are "surely not 'coincidences' but a means to ensure Israel remains fully in the picture for any plans the U.S. could have against Iran."
The latest iterations about Iran's nuclear ambitions are seen by Arab blogs as a pretext for fresh adventurism in the region, bearing in mind that Iraq has now suddenly taken a turn for the worst and Afghanistan isn't faring well either. Arab media speculate the Bush administration may feel engaging the United States militarily in Iran is its only option for seeing a Republican president elected in November. Blogs -- factoid or fact? -- quote an aide to Cheney saying the United States will need the cooperation of Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey to mount air attacks on Iran.
Blogs, newspapers, radio, television, all in fierce competition, al-Jazeera's forced competition in the Iraqi war zone, imams double-shifting as spies, thousands of volunteer Pakistani spooks for temporary duty in Afghanistan, and it soon becomes multidimensional chess. Reporting these days requires speed reading -- and what Hemingway called a bullfeathers detector.
UPI Editor at Large
WASHINGTON, March 26 (UPI) -- To understand the chasm between mainstream media and the blogosphere, Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" is a helpful guide. Tweedledum and Tweedledee, they are not. But they are frequently fact and factoid (an invented fact that is taken to be true because of its appearance in print). And many blogs have achieved the status of print by virtue of the fact that countless millions get their news online. The average age of a newspaper reader is 55. Onliners? Try 30.
Sen. John McCain and his independent (formerly a Democrat) fellow traveler Sen. Joe Lieberman wound up their most recent Mideast foray in Israel where the Republican candidate for the presidency got a little help from the man widely tipped to be his choice for vice president in adjusting his yarmulke. For many Mideast bloggers, the yarmulke gesture was proof McCain would be even less inclined than President Bush to coax/cajole/pressure Israel into the kind of concessions that would make a Palestinian state possible.
McCain also fueled the speculation when he said Jerusalem was to remain the indivisible capital of the Jewish state and that Israel must not be asked for anything that might jeopardize its security. Without a Palestinian capital in Arab East Jerusalem, no Palestinian leader could sign a peace agreement -- and expect to stay alive.
Anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic epithets flooded the blogs, a lethal blend of extremist outbursts from the far right to the far left, e.g., "Hitler saw the tremendous danger posed to Germany by communism" and "although Jews formed less than 5 percent of Russia's population, they formed more than 50 percent of its revolutionaries."
Or, "the major role Jewish leaders played in the November (Russian) revolution was probably more important than any other factor in confirming (Hitler's) anti-Semitic beliefs." Holocaust deniers, along with those who say the 6 million Jewish victims of Hitler's death camps were wildly exaggerated, get a free ride in the blogosphere.
Another free-fire zone among the millions of blogs is the notion that Bush will have one last throw of the geopolitical dice by bombing Iran's nuclear facilities. Vice President Dick Cheney, on his most recent trip to the Middle East, left little doubt he believes the Iranian mullahs have resumed their nuclear quest after a brief interruption following the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Tehran ran scared in the spring of 2003 and concluded Iran might be next on Bush's hit list. That fear subsided quickly as the insurgency, stoked in part by Iranian Revolutionary Guard agents, spread all over Iraq. Cheney indicated clandestine lethal aid from Iran was still continuing.
Gen. David Petraeus, commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq, went one better when he said the Easter Sunday rocket-and-mortar barrage against Baghdad's Green Zone was made possible by Iran providing the rockets -- in complete violation of promises made by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other most senior Iranian leaders to their Iraqi counterparts.
And if Bush doesn't order the bombing of Iran, bloggers write matter-of-factly, McCain, as president, will not hesitate. Both McCain and Lieberman have said on separate occasions that there is only one thing worse than bombing Iran -- and that's Iran with nuclear weapons. Bombing thus becomes the lesser of two evils. Blogs also speculate on whether one Iranian nuclear weapon against Tel Aviv would knock out the state of Israel. Blog opinion is evenly divided between those who say Israel could not survive such a blow and those who say Iran would be pulverized by nuclear retaliation from Israel and the United States, and the Western world would coalesce around an Israeli reconstruction effort.
Important pieces of the Mideast jigsaw fail to make it into mainstream media but can be found online. The United Arab Emirates-based newspaper Gulf News said last week that with Bush in office Washington is effectively maintaining low-intensity warfare with Iran and the potential exists to ratchet it up to more open hostilities. Recurring visits by Cheney and McCain to Iraq and Israel, added Gulf News, are "surely not 'coincidences' but a means to ensure Israel remains fully in the picture for any plans the U.S. could have against Iran."
The latest iterations about Iran's nuclear ambitions are seen by Arab blogs as a pretext for fresh adventurism in the region, bearing in mind that Iraq has now suddenly taken a turn for the worst and Afghanistan isn't faring well either. Arab media speculate the Bush administration may feel engaging the United States militarily in Iran is its only option for seeing a Republican president elected in November. Blogs -- factoid or fact? -- quote an aide to Cheney saying the United States will need the cooperation of Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey to mount air attacks on Iran.
Blogs, newspapers, radio, television, all in fierce competition, al-Jazeera's forced competition in the Iraqi war zone, imams double-shifting as spies, thousands of volunteer Pakistani spooks for temporary duty in Afghanistan, and it soon becomes multidimensional chess. Reporting these days requires speed reading -- and what Hemingway called a bullfeathers detector.
© 2008 United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.
This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.
