"The U.S. media still has not figured out that if it takes a nuclear attack by the U.S. on anyone in the region or anywhere else, the U.S. will take or control that oil -- period. All the rest is inconsequential, and if the Iraqis decide after we take their oil that they do not want democracy, they will be allowed to have whatever they want and we will leave when the oil is gone."

"...the settlements are only a symptom, not the heart of the problem. Otherwise, why doesn't the government freeze them, at least, as it has undertaken again and again? If the settlements are the main obstacle to peace, why are they being enlarged even now, and why are new settlements still being set up, disguised as new "neighborhoods" of existing settlements?"

"Many say that the Mahdi Army could win a majority of the seats. As the United States learned in 2005, in a fractious nation, elections can often exacerbate societal cleavages rather than heal them. Thus, instead of demonstrating progress on national reconciliation, the law for local elections already may have destabilized the country further."

"'It's a draft, plain and simple. I don't care what they call it,' Steven told me as our plane landed at LAX. 'I didn't sign up for the Navy to be in the Army. But I'm going because I don't feel I have a choice. I have children to feed and a mortgage to pay.'"

"The U.S. is rapidly becoming a police state and the days are approaching in which population control techniques used in Fallujah and Iraq will be used in Des Moines and Charlottesville. Americans will soon be issued national identity cards and the government will develop the technical ability to track movements of all individuals."

"The country presents a variety of scenery and geology, from black basaltic mountains to beautiful green valleys, from brightly hued sandstone highlands to arid flat deserts. The country is divided on a north-south axis by the old Turkish railway line, with the west mostly mountainous but fertile (in fact, it is part of the ancient Fertile Crescent) and the east a flat plateau of mainly desert."

"In the late nineteenth century, the advanced Western nations had opened a lethal weapons gap with their automatic weapons: this gave them a quick, nearly costless colonization of Africa and Southeast Asia. When that gap began to close in the interwar period, it gave an impetus to resistance movements in Indonesia, Vietnam, Kenya and Algeria. Already weakened from fighting their own fratricidal wars, the Western colonial powers retreated: and the Third World was born."

"The independence of the Obama campaign from right-wing Christians and pro-Israel lobbyists bodes well for many hoping that such a presidency can be more balanced than the current administration in its approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Contrasted with the quickly-fading promises of President Bush for a peace treaty in 2008, Obama's candidacy is welcomed."