Pardon My Politics

After the thoughtless campaign in Iraq, the deaths of over 4,000 brave US troops, and countless Iraqi civilians and militants, there was some hope that the reconstruction effort might attract employment to the US economy. After all, we made the mess, so we should help clean up, right? A reconstruction effort is underway, but very few of those contracts to rebuild Iraq have fallen to US contractors, and very few have resulted in new employment opportunities for American citizens. At a time when the American economy is patchy at best, the fact that jobs continue to be outsourced by the American government as a cost saving device, rather than helping the US economy, is yet another tragedy for the millions of unemployed Americans feeling the pinch in the current economic climate. So who's to blame?

Noah Feldman, who helped advise the Iraqis, educates Stephen Colbert about the Iraqi Constitution.

Blood money stains the hands of more than 25% of members of the U.S. House and Senate Who profits from the Iraq war? More than a quarter of senators and congressmen have invested at least $196 million of their own money in companies doing business with the Department of Defense (DoD) that profit from the death and destruction in Iraq. According to the latest reports, 151 members of Congress invested close to a quarter-billion in companies that received defense contracts of at least $5 million in 2006. These companies got more than $275.6 billion from the government in 2006, or $755 million per day, according to FedSpending.org, a website of the watchdog group OMBWatch.

Opinions that once gave legal cover to the Bush administration's torture regime are ultimately branding both John Yoo and the administration as war criminals.

If the United States is serious about advancing peace in the Middle East, it must clarify what sort of security threat Syria poses, and how North Korea factors into their assessments.