be just

The Iraq War As We See It : "Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched."

Al Jazeera English - News - Power Cuts In Gaza As Eu Halts Aid Gazans have been suffering a fourth day of power outages after the European Union suspended an aid scheme under which it finances fuel supplies. The only power plant in Gaza was shut on Sunday when deliveries were stopped and the EU has said they will not resume until Hamas assures them it is not benefiting from the aid.

Al Jazeera English - News - Iraq Governor Dies In Bomb Attack : "An Iraqi governor has died in a roadside bomb attack, the second assassination of a provincial leader in nine days. Mohammed Ali al-Hassani, governor of al-Muthana province, died when the blast hit his convoy in the provincial capital Samawa at about 8am (0400GMT) on Monday, said Zaman Hadi, head of security at the city's general hospital."

United States detain nearly 800 juveniles in Iraq : "BAGHDAD: US troops are holding nearly 800 children and teenagers on a Baghdad base, boys who are largely illiterate and picked up for allegedly planting bombs and now the focus of a multi-million-dollar education project."

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 08/19/2007 | Democrats candidates on the Iraq pull-out : "DES MOINES — Listen to a Democratic presidential candidate talk about Iraq and you'll likely get the bumper-sticker promise to end the war: U.S. troops out, war over. But most of them don't really believe it should be that neat and simple. What they seldom emphasize as they court anti-war primary voters is that they'd leave at least some U.S. troops — perhaps tens of thousands — in Iraq, or nearby, indefinitely, perhaps for years."

Mehdi fighters 'trained by Hizbollah in Lebanon' - Independent Online Edition > Middle East : "Lebanon's Hizbollah has trained Shia fighters from Iraq in advanced guerrilla warfare tactics, according to Mehdi army militants who have been fighting British forces in the south of the country. Members of Muqtada al-Sadr's powerful militia said they had received instruction from fellow Shias from Hizbollah, the movement that fought Israel's vaunted military machine to a bloody standstill in last year's July War. "

Kurds flee homes as Iran shells villages in Iraq | Iran | Guardian Unlimited : "Jabar Yawar, a deputy minister in the Kurdistan regional government, said four days of intermittent shelling by Iranian forces had hit mountain villages high up on the Iraqi side of the border, wounding two women, destroying livestock and property, and displacing about 1,000 people from their homes. Mr Yawer said there had also been intense fighting on the Iraqi border between Iranian forces and guerrillas of the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), an armed Iranian Kurdish group that is stepping up its campaign for Kurdish rights against the theocratic regime in Tehran."

Prelude to an Attack on Iran - TIME : "Reports that the Bush Administration will put Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the terrorism list can be read in one of two ways: it's either more bluster or, ominously, a wind-up for a strike on Iran. Officials I talk to in Washington vote for a hit on the IRGC, maybe within the next six months. And they think that as long as we have bombers and missiles in the air, we will hit Iran's nuclear facilities. An awe and shock campaign, lite, if you will. But frankly they're guessing; after Iraq the White House trusts no one, especially the bureaucracy. "

Padilla Jury Opens Pandora's Box - by Paul Craig Roberts : "José Padilla's conviction on terrorism charges on Aug. 16 was a victory, not for justice, but for the U.S. Justice (sic) Department's theory that a U.S. citizen can be convicted, not for committing a terrorist act but for allegedly harboring aspirations to commit such an act. By agreeing with the Justice (sic) Department's theory, the incompetent Padilla jury delivered a deadly blow to the rule of law and opened Pandora's Box."