Category: The Middle East

Like selling Bibles to believers

Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens: New Atheists flirt with Islamophobia By Nathan Lean, Saturday, Mar 30, 2013 02:00 PM CDT   Richard Dawkins, the preppy septuagenarian and professional atheist whose work in the field of evolutionary biology informs his godless worldview, has always been a prickly fellow. The British scientist and former Oxford University professor has expended …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2013/03/31/like-selling-bibles-to-believers/

Israel was the main issue

The Neocons Won By Gary Leupp, Weekend Edition March 29-31, 2013   Reading an assortment of commentaries (“retrospectives”) on the tenth anniversary of the U.S. war on Iraq, and onset of the horrific occupation, I find most center their discussion on the now almost universally conceded fact that the war was based on false pretexts. …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2013/03/30/israel-was-the-main-issue/

We are alive but not living

Iraq: ‘You didn’t fall… we pushed you’ By Alia Brahimi, 21 Mar 2013 11:06   “Are you here to work or… work?” a Basra airport security guard asked sympathetically.  I was standing on a small wooden platform behind a flimsy curtain, as she waved her hand-held metal detector across my body. She had guessed my …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2013/03/24/we-are-alive-but-not-living/

And it did not matter

Iraq and the reinvention of reality By Sarah Kendzior, 24 Mar 2013 10:35   The worst thing about the Iraq war was not that people got away with lying. It was that they did not – and it did not matter. The 10th anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq was a week of media …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2013/03/24/and-it-did-not-matter/

Three flickers of light

What America Learned in Iraq By John A. Nagl, March 19, 2013   The costs of the second Iraq war, which began 10 years ago this week, are staggering: nearly 4,500 Americans killed and more than 30,000 wounded, many grievously; tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis wounded or killed; more than $2 trillion in direct …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2013/03/23/three-flickers-of-light/

Resurrection

The Crucifixion of Tomas Young By Chris Hedges, Mar 10, 2013   I flew to Kansas City last week to see Tomas Young. Young was paralyzed in Iraq in 2004. He is now receiving hospice care at his home. I knew him by reputation and the movie documentary “Body of War.” He was one of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2013/03/23/resurrection/

Harder to laugh at that

What drives jihadism? Clue: it’s not what you think By Memphis Barker, Tuesday 19 March 2013   Did you hear the one about the jihadist cleric? According to a new Harvard study, the main reason Islamic imams start to talk up the wholesale murder of Western civilians has nothing to do with top-to-toe ideological hatred. …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2013/03/23/harder-to-laugh-at-that/