I can add little to this excellent Rozen report, but I would like to make one point. The age in which people all over the world are happy to be oppressed, told how to live and what to think, is ending. Not just here, where fat and comfortable Americans can sit around and feel all radical while they read blogs and use curse words about Bush, but also abroad. Not everything is changing because of the Internet, but rapid, open communication has let loose a genie that won't go back into the bottle. That genie is one in which people can turn on the satellite TV station of their choice, read information they believe and trust because it speaks to them, and compare how they live with those not only around them, but around the world.

Of course the Saudis are "worried" about the reaction to Hezbollah's victories. Like our Masters, the Saudi Royalty can only exist so long as people all over the Middle East believe they are the best keepers of the holy sites of Islam. The minute enoughh people are motivated to act on the truth of how Arab and Islamic leaders in many of these corrupt nations really are, well- let's just say that it's time for an Islamic Gandhi or MLK. I love Laura.

"For a long time, Americans were beating the nuclear weapons drum, and countries in the region were saying, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, we hear you, sure, whatever you say,' " he continued. "I think, in the region, while people were concerned about the nuclear issue, what really spooked the Arab regimes was the reaction after Hezbollah's triumph in Lebanon and the popular reaction in their own countries of infatuation with Hezbollah, and Iran's defiance."

When he grows, he may come for you, Nuddie.

BAGHDAD, 22 Jan 2007 (IRIN) - “My name is Lina Massufi. I’m a 32-year-old laboratory assistant who works 10 hours a day just to make enough money to raise my children.

“My life has been like hell over the past three months. US and Iraqi soldiers have raided my house more than 12 times.

“My husband, Khalil, was killed during the US invasion in 2003 when he drove through a closed road and soldiers shot him dead.

“I live in Haifa Street, one of the most dangerous places to live in Baghdad today. The area is infamous for its huge number of insurgents. This is why Iraqi and US soldiers have increased their activity in the area, constantly raiding homes and arresting men for interrogation.

“Last month, they arrested my 23-year-old brother Fae’ek, who lives with me. He is a pharmacy student but nonetheless they took him and kept him in prison for more than a week - even after knowing he was innocent. He returned with signs of torture on his body and was crying like a baby because of the pain.

It is common to see at least three corpses on Haifa Street each day and sometimes up to eight, as happened last week.

Republicans clamor for peace and diplomacy, Democrats want Armaggedon.

Compare:

Steve seems to be buggin. Those are only two of many pieces I've read this week, which are claiming that the rumors we've heard for so long are true, and that now is when Hersh's words will come back to haunt us. Lambert riffs off Glenn. My question: how long is the air campaign supposed to "work?" That is, we don't have the troops for an invasion, and I think right now, a serendipitous "terrorist" attack to spur a draft would go over really, really badly with the voters. Anyone heard anything new lately?

Former PM says it's time to give up on 'democracy' in Iraq.

Iraq's former prime minister Ayad Allawi has called for the imposition of martial law in a last-ditch attempt to halt the country's worsening security situation.
The car bomb killed 70 people at Tayaran Square
Dr Allawi is the first major Iraqi politician to suggest that democratic freedoms can no longer be sustained in the face of mounting violence.

Saddam is guilty. I guess he's sorry now that all that chumminess with Rummy back in the day didn't pay off. Or something. As most of the blogosphere has noted, ah, such timing. So....yawn inducing. Meanwhile, we're still not winning in Iraq or Afghanistan, police forces in both countries are a joke, and military and political leadership continues to live upon the River in Egypt.

Sing along with me, kids. You know the words:

September 29, 2006 5:39 a.m. EST

Ryan R. Jones - All Headline News Middle East Correspondent
Jerusalem (AHN) - The U.S. House of Representatives Thursday voted in favor of launching a unilateral initial embargo on Iran over the Islamic Republic's failure to comply with international demands regarding its nuclear program.
The Iran Freedom Support Act sanctions any entity that provides any form of assistance to Iran's chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs. The bill's sponsors expect the Senate to quickly endorse the measure and send it on to President George W. Bush for his final approval.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen told the AP following the vote, "Enough with the carrots. It's time for the stick."

The Beast craves blood, it will never be sated.

Two spooky October Surprise posts for ya:

Phoenix Woman:

About Iran: General Wesley Clark said that Bush is painting himself into a corner on Iran. The General feels that the only chance to stop a strike on Iran is the election of a Democratic Congress in November, assuming BushCo does not manage to start dropping the bombs before the election. The only good news about Iran is that Clark feels there are clear divisions in the Administration, with Rice showing some misgivings about striking, and CheneyCo wanting war with Iran ASAP. The bad news is that with RiceCo wavering, and CheneyCo chomping at the bit, a strike is simply a matter of "when, not if."

I know there's a lot going on, but you'd think words like "Iranian troops massing" and "Turkish shelling" would get the attention of at least one or two Murkin journamalists:

Al-Quds al-Arabi (www.alquds.co.uk, Tuesday September 12, item on page 1) says 902 Kurdish farming families have been forced out of their homes in the area where the Turkish-Iranian-Iraqi borders meet, because of continued shelling of the area by both Turkish and Iranian forces. The shelling has already caused several deaths and injuries, as well as the destruction of hundreds of head of cattle.

METimes. Interesting:

Sherwood Ross

WASHINGTON, DC -- It is an "open secret" in Washington US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "wants to extricate himself from Iraq" but President George W. Bush "remains resolute," thus the US hangs on, a US investigative reporter has written.

The result is a military posture in limbo somewhere between aggressiveness and withdrawal that could bog the US down in Iraq for years. Tragically, it opens the door to escalation of the horrific violence which in Baghdad on kills around 50 people daily and wounds many times more.

The Pentagon has largely switched from rooting out and killing insurgents, as in the first two years of the war (2003-4), to hunkering its troops down in "isolated mega-bases," said George Packer, a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine and author of The Assassins' Gate (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). This approach, known in Washington as an "exit strategy," has put the much victimized Iraqi public at increased risk.