TOTAL BULLSHIT: THERE CAN BE A JUST WAR

The NYT Sunday Book Review features "The Violence of Peace, America's Wars in the Age of Obama," by Yale law professor Stephen L. Carter, and reviewed by James Traub, contributing writer for the NYT Magazine and a weekly columnist for ForeignPolicy.com.

Traub writes about Carter's acceptance of a "just war," in the Augustine and Aquinas tradition. War must be a last resort; the force used must be proportional; and "whenever possible," civilians must be spared.

The concept of a just war is pure fiction and total bull. No war is ever just. The fiction arises because kings and presidents want some moral justification for what they will engage in, and their lackeys come up with pseudo-moralistic and quasi-philosophic justifications for their leader's actions.

War never spares civilians, it always targets them. See the American carpet bombing of German cities during WWII, the dropping of American nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the drone attacks currently conducted by the CIA in the Waziristan areas of Pakistan.

War is never proportional. The larger the bomb or shell, the better. The more destructive and lethal the weapon, the sooner it is incorporated into the action.

And war is never the last resort. Consider George W. Bush's action against Iraq. Saddam wanted a compromise. Bush would not permit it.

BRITISH OFFICIAL DENIES PUBLIC'S RIGHT TO KNOW ABOUT IRAQ

Here's another case of government officials in the U.K. and U.S. trying to block the release of information embarrassing to governmental leaders. The top civil service official in the Britain has banned the release of transcripts of conversations between George W. Bush and Tony Blair over Iraq.

Why? Because obviously the content would embarrass present and former officials of the British government, and indeed show that Tony Blair was George Bush's poodle.

"CLASSIFIED" INFORMATION EMBARRASSING TO U.S. GOVERNMENT

Why is it when newspapers publish "classified" information it is always a threat to U.S. military personnel and an aid to America's "enemies?"

This is the response of politicians and government officials who hate to be embarrassed by information which casts doubt on their abilities and policies.

Witness Hillary Clinton's statement about the trove of classified information about the conduct of the Iraq War made public recently by Wikileaks. She said it was despicable and harmful. Oh yeah, right! This is the same response that the Obama people put out after the publication of information about the Afghan campaign. It was "illegal" and it could kill American soldiers and personnel of American allies. Has there been anyone who has been killed by the Afghan "classified" information? Do the uneducated cadres of the Taliban really sit down and read this stuff! Of course not!

The only reason for the sanctimonious huffing and puffing of American officials is because the public can see how incompetent the military and their supervisors in government really are.

BLAIR ADMITS TOPPLING SADDAM JUSTIFIES WAR IN IRAQ

So Tony Blair now admits that even if he had known (wink, wink) that Saddam Hussein had no WMD, he still would have gone ahead with the War in Iraq. The BBC reports on Blair's claims. I agree with Hans Blix that such statements show that Tony Blair and by association George W. Bush decided to attack, invade and occupy Iraq even before one of their aides came up with the pretense of threats of a WMD being readied by Saddam within "45 minutes."

Let's ask both Blair and Bush: was it worth it? Were the deaths of some 600,000+ Iraqi civilians worth toppling Saddam? How about the 4,000+ U.S. soldiers or the 100+ British troops killed? Or the 40,000 American soldiers needing hospital care and the 6,000 British forces?

Were all these lives subservient to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein? Apparently Tony Blair and George Bush think the answer is yes, but then again, all of the people injured or killed as a result were someone else's son, daughter, mother, father, brother or sister, not those of George W. Bush or Tony Blair.

BLUE DOG JIM MATHESON (2ND CONG. DIST. UTAH) VOTES FOR STUPAK AMENDMENT, YET VOTES AGAINST HEALTH CARE BILL

Some Democrats voted no to the health care reform bill last night in the House. Yet they voted for the Stupak amendment barring insurance companies from paying for abortions.

One of those Democrats was Jim Matheson, Democrat from the Second Cong. District of Utah, who prides himself as being a Blue Dog and fiscal conservative.

If Matheson knew that he would not vote for the final bill, why did he vote to deny abortion? It is as if he just wanted to be obstructionist as possible regarding health care reform.

Consider Jim Matheson's other votes in the past: voting to pass the Bankruptcy Reform bill in 2005 making it much harder for debtors to file bankruptcy; voting for Bush's military authorization to take action in Iraq; voting for all of Bush's tax cuts; voting for the federal Defense of Marriage Act; voting against setting a date certain for pull-out of American forces from Iraq; and now voting against health care reform.

Let's take away Jim's congressional health care and see how he reacts if he or one of his family suffer a catastrophic illness. Will he consider personal bankruptcy in such a case? Will he call upon United Healthcare for more political donations so that he can pay for all the attendant medical and hospital care? Perhaps he will change his mind about health care reform. Maybe then he will have some sympathy for those financially unable to pay for health insurance.

CAR BOMBS TODAY IN BAGHDAD POINT AGAIN TO UNJUSTIFIED WAR OF BUSH & BLAIR

The unrelenting violence in Iraq and Baghdad depresses beyond words. We can only stand by helplessly and watch a descent into irrational killing.

But the two car bombs detonated today in Baghdad point out once again the unjustified and immoral war of George W. Bush in 2003. Yes, people like Bush and Tony Blair still insist that what they did was for the benefit of Iraqis, but if you had a family member killed in today's bloody bombings, I don't think that you would agree that Bush's hands (and those of Blair) are or were clean of blood.

France 24 has video and description of the two bombings today.

"At least 132 people have been killed and more than 600 wounded when two powerful car bombs targeting the justice ministry and the nearby governor's office went off in central Baghdad on Sunday."

TED KENNEDY OPPOSED BUSH'S WAR IN IRAQ, WHY DOES OBAMA PUSH WAR IN AFGHANISTAN?

Sen. Ted Kennedy was one of the Democratic voices in the Senate totally opposed to the stupid War in Iraq. Thanks to his speaking out, and thanks to the others, especially Sen. Robert Byrd and VP Al Gore. But where were the others? Why did they go along with the hated Bush/Cheney war machine?

Sen. Barack Obama came out early in 2002 against the War. Yet he remained somewhat muted about it probably due to campaign pressures. But why does Obama now president push and prosecute the War in Afghanistan and even enlarge it?

Afghanistan is worse than Iraq for education, social services, hospitals, schools, roads, infrastructure. Nothing will be solved there by dropping cluster bombs and firing phosphorous or spent nuclear shells. To think that an Afghan farmer, with no primary schooling, with no television, with no radio, is going to be changed by American soldiers, renounce conservative Islam, or become a political progressive calls for a psychological examination. It will never happen.

So why does Obama persist in keeping U.S. troops there? Obama should be smarter than what his foolish military policy indicates. And all the while, U.S. troops fall as casualties in a needless and purposeless war.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH DOCUMENTS KILLING OF HOMOSEXUALS IN IRAQ

There is a cruel campaign going on in Baghdad and probably throughout the rest of Iraq to kill anybody thought to be homosexual. Even family members are thought to kill off their siblings because they believe that homosexuality brings disgrace upon the family's reputation.

The BBC reports on findings of Human Rights Watch:

"It says hundreds of gay men have been targeted and killed in Iraq since 2004.

"So-called honour killings also account for deaths where families punish their own kin in order to avoid public shame."

So is this what Bush's war produced? A full scale pogrom against gays who exhibit homosexual ways and tendencies.

The campaign against homosexuals in Iraq is just as medieval and barbarous and the killing of albinos in Tanzania for their magical body parts or the campaign in Afghanistan that punishes girls for going to school and which restricts women in public to the burka.

Why must religion always try to regulate morality by the sword? I am sure that the Catholic Church approved the same harsh and cruel morality prior to being shamed into cessation by the Enlightenment in the 18th Century. And Christian churches nowadays know that they could never get away with imprisoning, torturing or executing people just because of their different morality, especially when it comes to sex.

The report of Human Rights Watch documents:

"[A] wide-reaching campaign of extrajudicial executions, kidnappings, and torture of gay men that began in early 2009. The killings began in the vast Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, a stronghold of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, and spread to many cities across Iraq. Mahdi Army spokesmen have promoted fears about the "third sex" and the "feminization" of Iraq men, and suggested that militia action was the remedy. Some people told Human Rights Watch that Iraqi security forces have colluded and joined in the killing."

ISRAEL CLAIMS THAT IRAN IS "EXTREME ENEMY OF PEACE"

This is getting ridiculous. The Netanyahu government in Israel is accusing the Palestinians of talking with "extreme enemies of peace" because a Palestinian official met with the Iranian Foreign Minister.

The BBC reports:

"Israel has accused a senior Palestinian official of meeting "the extreme enemies of peace" after he held talks with Iran's foreign minister."

Israel's response follows the classic treatment of "enemies." First demonize them, then attack them.

Israel's government seems to have the George W. Bush sickness: refuse to talk or have any dialog with those countries that have insulted you or said bad things about the Holocaust.

Just as Bush would not have diplomatic relations with Hugo Chavez and Venezuela because Chavez called him the devil, so it seems that Israel will have nothing to do with Iran or even establish talks with the Iranian government because Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the holocaust a figment of the imagination or that the government of Israel should be wiped off the map.

Because of these words, however harsh and intemperate not to say foolish, Israel now deems Iran an "extreme enemy of peace."

George Bush attacked Iraq because he claimed Iraq was a threat to world peace. It turned out that it was Bush who was the genuine threat. I would argue that it is the same with Israel. It terms Iran an extreme enemy of peace but I see Israel as the great destabilizer in the Middle East when it comes to peace. Just look at the Israeli three-week war against Gaza this past January, or the cruel Israeli month-long military campaign against Lebanon several years ago that left a thirty-mile swath in southern Lebanon filled with unexploded cluster bombs.

U.S. FINALLY RELEASES FIVE IRANIAN DIPLOMATS HELD CAPTIVES FOR OVER TWO YEARS

The U.S. military has finally released five Iranian diplomats after more than two years in a military prison in Iraq. The U.S. never produced any evidence as to why they were held or what their alleged crime was. I maintain that the whole episode was just a ploy of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to provoke the Iranian government into some action that Bush & Co. could claim was a casus belli and thus give the U.S. a chance to attack Iran.

Steven Lee Myers writes in today's The New York Times:

"The American military and a senior aide to President Obama offered few details about the release or its timing. A military spokesman here, Capt. Brad Kimberly, said in a statement that the release had come “at the request of the government of Iraq” and complied with the security agreement between the United States and Iraq which requires the eventual transfer of all detainees in American custody."

No matter what the U.S. military claims, until and unless it releases evidence showing the complicity of these five Iranians in illegal actions in Iraq, I will believe that they were arrested and imprisoned solely on the bias of the U.S. government against Iran and against the natural influence Iranians have in the neighboring country of Iraq.

Gen. Odierno tries to paint the Iranians as part of an effort to fund and train an anti-American insurgency.

Writes Myers:

"The American military has not detailed its evidence against the men, so the extent of their involvement in violence in Iraq, if any, may never be known.

"However, senior American military and diplomatic officials here continue to accuse Iran — or at least parts of its security forces and secret services — of supporting insurgent groups.

"At a news conference on June 30, the top American commander here, Gen. Ray Odierno, criticized Iran in blunt terms.

"“Iran is still supporting, funding, training surrogates who operate inside of Iraq — flat out,” he said. “They have not stopped. And I don’t think they will stop. I think they will continue to do that because they are also concerned, in my opinion, of where Iraq is headed. They want to try to gain influence here, and they will continue to do that. I think many of the attacks in Baghdad are from individuals that have been, in fact, funded or trained by the Iranians.”"

Note the words of Odierno. "Iran is . . . training surrogates who operate inside of Iraq . . . " [The Iranians] are . . . concerned . . . {about] where Iraq is headed." "They want to try to gain influence here." My reaction to all of this is, so what? I disagree with Steven Lee Myers that these are "blunt terms." I think rather they are fudging words trying to convey the impression without any evidence that Iranians are meddling. But is "meddling" a crime or an act of war? I don't think so.

Odierno also "thinks" that many of the attacks are from individuals that have been trained by the Iranians. But what does this mean?

Furthermore, Odierno thinks his assertions about the Iranians are true, but this word "thinks" surely implies that he does not know for sure. And even if Iraqi insurgents were funded or trained by Iranians, this statement still means nothing. Perhaps the individuals attended Islamic school in Iran to study the Quran or maybe they took language training and studied Farsi.

Odierno's statement is just fluff. But it is dangerous insofar as it tries to demonize Iran and the Iranians on the basis of conjecture and Odierno's own opinion which conceivably is riddled with conjecture.

BRITISH INQUIRY ON IRAQ WAR WILL HEAR TESTIMONY OPEN TO PUBLIC

Good news. Sir John Chilcot, head of the British inquiry on the causes and reasons for the Iraq War, has decided that evidence be taken in public. This means that former PM Tony Blair will give evidence in public regarding his decision to have the U.K. join Bush and the U.S. in the disastrous invasion of Iraq. I say "disastrous, because over 600,000 Iraqis lost their lives, not counting the lives of 4,600+ Americans and the 150+ British who were part of the military invasion and occupation.

Nicholas Watt reports the story for The Guardian today:

"In a setback for Brown, who had hoped the inquiry would be held in private, Sir John Chilcot has ruled that all witnesses will be expected to give evidence in public. This will apply across the board unless there are "compelling reasons" in a small number of cases for evidence to be heard in private. This would be if evidence could jeopardise national security or upset allies."

Originally, Gordon Brown had signaled that the inquiry would take evidence and testimony in private. Reportedly, Tony Blair wanted private hearings because he feared that opening them to the public would amount to a "show trial" of his own decisions in going along with Bush and Cheney.

Writes Watt:

"The prospect of public grillings for Brown and Blair shows how the prime minister's plans for the inquiry have been dramatically changed since it was established last week. On 15 June Brown told MPs that the inquiry would be modelled on the Franks inquiry into the 1982 Falklands war, which met in private. He said: "I believe that that will also ensure that evidence given by serving and former ministers, military officers and officials is as full and candid as possible.""

Still, the testimony from Tony Blair and others will not be under oath. This is indeed unfortunate, because we have seen how Bush and Cheney managed to avoid sworn testimony when talking to the 9/11 Commission.

OPEN BRITISH INQUIRY RE WAR IN IRAQ TO THE PUBLIC

This Wednesday at Prime Minister's Questions, British MPs are going to debate the controversial order of PM Gordon Brown to conduct an closed-door inquiry into the intelligence and decisions that took Britain into war against Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

The key question is why Brown has ordered the inquiry and hearing to be closed to the public. Obviously, Brown desires to keep the truth from the British public. This reminds me of Pres. Obama's current attempt to conceal photos of prisoners being subjected to the harsh interrogation methods approved by George Bush and Dick Cheney. There is no legitimate reason why Brown should want the hearings closed other than to prevent the world from seeing Blair's fawning acceptance of Bush's crazed and illegal policies.

Toby Helm and Gaby Hinsliff write in yesterday's The Guardian:

"Tony Blair urged Gordon Brown to hold the independent inquiry into the Iraq war in secret because he feared that he would be subjected to a "show trial" if it were opened to the public, the Observer can reveal.

"The revelation that the former prime minister - who led Britain to war in March 2003 - had intervened will fuel the anger of MPs, peers, military leaders and former civil servants, who were appalled by Brown's decision last week to order the investigation to be conducted behind closed doors."

I don't think the British public is going to allow Gordon Brown to proceed behind closed doors. There is too much awareness in Britain that Tony Blair was George Bush's poodle, that he let himself be led around on Bush's leash, and that he was overwhelmed by the prospect of disagreeing with the then U.S. administration.

WOLFOWITZ, NEO-CON ARCHITECT OF WAR IN IRAQ, OBJECTS TO OBAMA'S POLICY OF NOT MEDDLING IN IRANIAN ELECTIONS

Paul Wolfowitz, one of the architects of the War in Iraq, writes an op-ed in today's The Washington Post, criticizing Barack Obama for his policy of purposely not meddling in the Iranian elections.

Writes Wolfowitz:

"It would be a cruel irony if, in an effort to avoid imposing democracy, the United States were to tip the scale toward dictators who impose their will on people struggling for freedom. And if we appear so desperate for negotiations that we will abandon those who support our principles, we weaken our own negotiating hand."

First of all, it would be a huge mistake for Obama to wade in with his support of the demonstrators. For the last 100 years or more, the United States has continuously butted into Iran's affairs. At the beginning of the 20th Century, it was to seize control of Iran's mineral resources. Then in 1953, the U.S. engineered an overthrow of Iran's democratically elected government, this time, in the name of controlling Iran's oil deposits. It was the CIA which helped the Shah regain despotic control over Iranians. Because of the U.S. interference, Iranians are very wary of further American attempts at influence. Wolwowitz seems to have little awareness of Iranian suspicions.

If Obama and the U.S. followed Wolfie's advice, it very well could lead to another confrontation with an Islamic state. Remember what happened with Wolfowitz's advice about invading Iraq. A failed policy that still handcuffs the United States to keeping 100,000+ soldiers there. Now Wolfie wants Obama to take sides in the Iranian elections.

Consider that no Iranian protester holds a sign that says, "We want the U.S. to intervene and help us." No, Iranians of all persuasions would recoil from any meddling by Obama. Any insertion of American views or preferences by the U.S. would turn even the protesting Iranians against the U.S. and possibly make them commit to the other side.

Wolfie's advice is again short-sighted and shallow on a matter affecting U.S. foreign policy towards an Islamic nation. How did this guy ever become Asst. Sec. DOD?

U.S. AERIAL BOMBINGS KILL MANY CIVILIANS IN IRAQ

Thanks to Juan Cole in his Informed Comment today for pointing me to this important study by Iraq Body Count reporting on the large number of civilian casualties, mostly women and children, killed in U.S. bombing raids.

The New England Journal of Medicine published a new study on fatalities among women and children in Iraq as a result of the U.S. prosecuting the war there. The study, in conjunction with Iraq Body Count, is authored by Madelyn Hsiao-Rei Hicks, M.D., M.R.C.Psych., Hamit Dardagan, Gabriela Guerrero Serdán, M.A., Peter M. Bagnall, M.Res., John A. Sloboda, Ph.D., F.B.A., and Michael Spagat, Ph.D.

Write the authors:

"In events with at least one Iraqi civilian victim, the methods that killed the most civilians per event were aerial bombings (17 per event), combined use of aerial and ground weapons (17 per event), and suicide bombers on foot (16 per event). Aerial bombs killed, on average, 9 more civilians per event than aerial missiles (17 vs. 8 per event). Indeed, if an aerial bomb killed civilians at all, it tended to kill many. It seems clear from these findings that to protect civilians from indiscriminate harm, as required by international humanitarian law (including the Geneva Conventions),4 military and civilian policies should prohibit aerial bombing in civilian areas unless it can be demonstrated — by monitoring of civilian casualties, for example — that civilians are being protected."

IRAQIS SHOOT GAYS IN BAGHDAD

Think Progress points to a story reporting the killing of six gay men in Iraq. They were shot in the head. Some cadavers had a signed pinned on indicating "puppy," the Iraqi slang for gay. And this is the "democracy" that George W. Bush wasted over 4,000 U.S. lives in establishing and setting free?

JUAN COLE POINTS OUT SOME OF CHENEY'S UNTRUTHS

Here's another good post by Juan Cole in his Informed Comment on Dick Cheney's baseless statement that "we have achieved almost everything we started out to do in Iraq."

Does Cheney think that the deaths of close to one million Iraqis represents victory of the Bush/Cheney foreign policy?

Or that 4,000+ American soldiers lost their lives in the foolish adventure that did not have to be. Is this something Cheney is proud of and considers worthwhile and an accomplishment? Not to mention the other 40,000 American troops maimed, blinded or left permanently disabled.

Or consider the fractious nature of Iraqi politics, ready to break out at any time into a bloody civil war, where the Sunnis dislike the Kurds, and they both hate the Shias. If one of the aims of the Bush/Cheney occupation was to create a stable society, their goal is way off in the distant future.

Cole brings up the 4 million Iraqis left homeless or displaced by Bush/Cheney war mongering, including those stranded in Syria and Jordan. Surely when Cheney claims that he and Bush achieved their goals, he cannot mean all the children out of school or all the widows eking out a threadbare existence for their families.

Writes Cole:

"Some 2.7 million are internally displaced inside Iraq. A couple hundred thousand are cooling their heels in Jordan. And perhaps a million are quickly running out of money and often living in squalid conditions in Syria. Cheney's war has left about 15% of Iraqis homeless inside the country or abroad. That would be like 45 million American thrown out of their homes."

HAS OBAMA DECIDED TO RETAIN SECRET RENDITIONS?

There are reports today that Barack Obama has decided to allow the CIA to continue with its rendition program, meaning that the CIA can kidnap someone off the street, without any involvement of a court, and transport and deliver that person to torturers in some foreign country.

Greg Miller reports in today's The Los Angeles Times:

"Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

"Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism -- aside from Predator missile strikes -- for taking suspected terrorists off the street."

How can this be? We elected Obama because he promised to close Guantanamo and stop the war in Iraq. Part of the whole appeal of Obama was that he would bring a shameful legacy of George Bush to an end. It is hard to believe that Obama could back slide and keep the hated rendition practice.

Reports Miller:

"The rendition program became a source of embarrassment for the CIA, and a target of international scorn, as details emerged in recent years of botched captures, mistaken identities and allegations that prisoners were turned over to countries where they were tortured.

"The European Parliament condemned renditions as "an illegal instrument used by the United States." Prisoners swept up in the program have sued the CIA as well as a Boeing Co. subsidiary accused of working with the agency on dozens of rendition flights.

"But the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard."

U.S. SOLDIERS SHOOT, KILL IRAQI COUPLE IN THEIR HOME

A pitiful story in today's The New York Times about a man and wife in Kirkuk being shot dead apparently by U.S. Special Forces.

Timothy Williams writes from Baghdad:

"American soldiers fatally shot an Iraqi couple in their home near Kirkuk early Saturday after the wife reached for a pistol hidden under a mattress, American and Iraqi officials said. The couple’s 8-year-old daughter was wounded.

"United States troops, using helicopters, raided the family’s house in Hawija, a town in northern Iraq, around 2 a.m. in search of members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the Iraqi police and witnesses said. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is a homegrown militant group that American intelligence officials say is led by foreigners.

"In one room, soldiers saw a woman reaching under a mattress, Agence France-Presse reported, quoting an unidentified United States Army spokesman.

"The woman was told several times in Arabic to show her hands, but she refused and was shot, the spokesman said. The American military said soldiers found a pistol under the mattress."

This is a sad story. There was no reason why it should have happened.

For one thing, the U.S. has no business raiding homes of Iraqis at 2 AM. Everyone is entitled to his or her privacy in the home.

Second, the fact that the U.S. military says self-servingly that they found a pistol under the mattress begs for some evidence or proof. Of course, there is none.

Third. Why was it necessary to shoot the woman in her own home? Is there no other way for soldiers to deal with Iraqis other than to shoot and kill them?

Reports Williams:

"After the woman was shot, her husband, Dhia Hussein Ali al-Tikriti, attacked the soldiers and was shot and killed, the spokesman said, adding that Mr. Tikriti had been suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

"The couple’s 8-year-old daughter, Ahlam Dhia, was shot once in the leg and was taken to a hospital. Her injuries were not life-threatening.

"“They killed my mother and father right in front of me,” she said. “I was under the blanket. I heard my mom screaming, and I started to cry.”"

The killing of the husband was doubly unfortunate. Having shot and killed the woman, what did the U.S. soldiers expect the husband to do? Just stand there and take it?

And finally, what is going to happen to the couple's children? Consider the eight-year old girl who saw and heard her mother being shot. Surely she will want revenge, as young as she is, and she will never forget the cries of her mother in her final moments. If the child were you, would you ever stop hating Americans for killing your mother?

IRAQ SHOULD FREE SHOE THROWER, NOT PUT HIM ON TRIAL

The BBC reports that the Iraqi who threw his shoes at George W. Bush calling him a "dog" is now facing trial on December 31st.

Muntazar al Zaidi could be sentenced to as many as 15 years. This would be a legal outrage and an affront to anyone who tries to speak truth to power, in other words, tell Bush to his face that he is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis by his foolish and bloody occupation and unjustified war.

Writes the BBC:

"Investigating Judge Dhiya al-Kenani told the AFP news agency that the trial date had been set for the last day of 2008.

""The investigation phase is over and the case has been transferred to the Central Criminal Court," he said.

"Aggression against a head of state carries a prison term of between five and 15 years - but media reports said Mr al-Zaidi could eventually face a lesser charge of "attempted aggression".

"The journalist's brother, Uday al-Zaidi, confirmed the court date, but made accusations against the Iraqi authorities of beating and abusing his brother."

I join those who want Iraq to free al Zaidi, not put him on trial. His courageous act of throwing shoes was intended not to hurt Bush but to humiliate him. That act should be rewarded, not punished.

FREE MUNTAZAR AL ZAIDI!

The outrage of the day is that the Iraqi government continues to hold Muntazar al Zaidi in jail following his taking aim at George W. Bush with his shoes.

Al Zaidi is a hero to everyone in the Arab world and elsewhere who sees Bush as the direct cause of the deaths of over 600,000 Iraqis. Bush's name will be forever associated with that unjustified and illegal invasion of Iraq.

By hurling his shoes, Al Zaidi was expressing his contempt and disdain for Bush. Bush claimed al Zaidi was merely expressing his freedom of expression under Bush's new Iraq. Bush well knows what al Zaidi meant, but true to form over the last eight years, Bush tries to put an entirely different spin on being the object of the Arab world's loathing.