Oh, no.   We have it from George W. Bush directly.   (More about Bush)

Meanwhile, some of the troops themselves have reported:   "Mom, we killed women on the street today.   We killed kids on bikes.   We had no choice...."

*JULY 4, 2007:     As we commemorate our Independence Day and celebrate our successful struggles against England (now, as the UK, our closest ally), and against a king named George, something a little lighter about remembering:   "The Remember Song," (a/k/a "Remember?"), written by Steven Walters and performed by TOM RUSH,     photographed by Gwendolyn Stewart, c. 2008; All Rights Reserved.

*JUNE 24, 2007:   Tomorrow the Central Intelligence Agency is to unveil the "family jewels," a "693-page file amassed on CIA's illegal activities by order of then-CIA director James Schlesinger in 1973," according to the National Security Archive.   JAMES SCHLESINGER in 2007,     photographed by Gwendolyn Stewart.

*JUNE 21, 2007:     The New York TIMES opens an article on "Another Summer of Love" by invoking the image of JANIS JOPLIN:   "JANIS JOPLIN looms large in Kim Matulova's consciousness -- not least Ms. Joplin's free-form hair, flounced frocks and fingers choked with rings."   For a look at the real thing, go here (below) and here; this latter site includes a photograph of Joplin and her Full Tilt Boogie pianist, RICHARD BELL, much praised, who died last Friday.

*MAY 17, 2007:     "Yo, Blair"   :   George W. Bush bids farewell to Tony Blair.

*MAY 10, 2007:     The Long Good-Bye of Tony Blair begins its end --       TONY & CHERIE BLAIR photographed by Gwendolyn Stewart.

*MAY 1, 2007:   May Day, Again   -- who is in denial, again, and and who pays, and pays, and pays?

*APRIL 23, 2007:     BORIS YELTSIN, first president of Russia, dies (born February 1, 1931).   For more on Yeltsin, see "The Phoenix";   "Yeltsin's Farewell"; "Bill & Boris & Vladimir & George:   America's Russia Policy"; and Chapters ONE and TWO of RUSSIA REDUX.

*APRIL 12, 2007:     ROVING E-MAILS?    

*MARCH 28, 2007:     Former Senator and presidential candidate BILL BRADLEY       has a new book promoting The New American Story, and Charlie Rose has an interesting interview with him (on the March 26 program).

*MARCH 20, 2007:   GEORGE W. BUSH:   "My choice is to make sure that I safeguard the ability for Presidents to get good decisions."     Oh, yes?

*MARCH 11, 2007:   JACQUES CHIRAC     announces his upcoming retirement as president of France.

*MARCH 6, 2007:   "SCOOTER" LIBBY IS FOUND GUILTY -- and the unindicted co-conspirator is?

*FEBRUARY 26, 2007:     Well, Peter O'Toole did not win the Oscar, but here is a salute to him anyway, for highly memorable moments on film, and a photograph of him in earlier days.    

*FEBRUARY 18, 2007:   SUPPORT OUR TROOPS:   check out some of the realities on the ground.

*JANUARY 20, 2007:    Two years until the scheduled inauguration of the next president of the United States of America.

*JANUARY 14, 2007:    What can you buy for $600 billion dollars?    According to the Los Angeles Times, "By the time the bill for World War II passed the $600-billion mark, in mid-1943, the United States had driven German forces out of North Africa, devastated the Japanese fleet in the Battle of Midway, and launched the vast offensives that would liberate Europe and the South Pacific."   And in Iraq?

*JANUARY 7, 2007:    A British poodle no more?    According to the Telegraph, Gordon Brown, expected to be the next U.K. Prime Minister, "vowed yesterday to take on President George W Bush and the Americans over foreign policy as he spelt out plans to break from Tony Blair's approach to the 'war on terror'."

*JANUARY 6, 2007:    A conundrum investigated by the Los Angeles Times:   "The world's largest philanthropy pours money into investments that are hurting many of the people its grants aim to help."

*JANUARY 5, 2007:     Re George W. Bush's comparing himself to Harry S Truman:   see remarks under November 12, 2005.

*JANUARY 4, 2007:     John Burns of the New York Times, on the January 3, 2007, Charlie Rose Show, on Baghdad and Iraq after the execution of Saddam Hussein:

"What we saw there was a glimpse into the soul, I'm afraid to say, of this new government.

"He wouldn't, I'm sure, have planned it this way, but what we saw had a kind of terrible beauty about it.   It expressed, absolutely, in full degree, the nature of the American problem here in Iraq -- the inability of the people that the United States is trying to work with, to rise above the urge to revenge, the sectarian passion, and to turn towards the conception of a civil society."

*DECEMBER 29, 2006:     "Waist deep in the Big Muddy!   /   And the big fool says to push on!"   --   Pete Seeger, "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy"

*NOVEMBER 24, 2006:     "And all the news just repeats itself   /   Like some forgotten dream that we've both seen."   --   John Prine, "Hello In There"

*OCTOBER 10, 2006:         FIVE YEARS ON....  

*SEPTEMBER 28, 2006:   After twenty-seven years of blisteringly hot growth, China now has, by some measures, the second largest economy in the world.   Can it keep it up?   What will China look like in twenty years?   If you are in the Boston area on September 29, you are invited to come join in a discussion "Forecasting China's Economic Growth over the Next Quarter Century" at the China Current Events Workshop at the Fairbank Center at Harvard.

*SEPTEMBER 26, 2006:   Junichiro Koizumi resigns as Prime Minister of Japan of and strides into history.    

*SEPTEMBER 6, 2006:   "NEVER FORGET" --         -- and never forget the "First Responders," the people who came to help, and now the evidence is coming in still more strongly, are still paying for it with their health.

*JULY 17, 2006:   Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush march to the Expanded "Family Photo" session at the G8 in St. Petersburg, Russia --      

*JUNE 25, 2006:   More than half a million Americans killed?   That is the American equivalent of the fifty thousands Iraqi deaths now reported by the Los Angeles Times as a minimum since the invasion.   A U.S. equivalent of five hundred seventy thousand, the paper says.   (The Iraqi population is usually estimated as about twenty-five million; the American population is now approaching three hundred million.)

It is from official Iraqi sources that the L.A. Times has arrived at the count it has.   But even this is a conservative figure.   The actual Iraqi death toll is acknowledged by Iraqi officials to be higher.

It does no good to stick our heads in the sand -- what we may not want to know, the Iraqis will surely know.

*JUNE 22, 2006:   Close enough for government work?   George W. Bush comes to Budapest to commemorate the passing of half a century since the Hungarian Uprising --- four months and a day early.

So why the rush on the not-quite-fiftieth anniversary?

As it happened, it was just in time to get in a few digs before Russia hosts the G8 summit for the first time, in the face of calls for the U.S., or at least President Bush, not to show up.   And, it might be added, in the face of much ignorance (willful or not) of how Russia came to added to the G8 in the first place.

As for the event itself, Prof. Charles Gati has some sharp comments about what did and did not happen in Hungary in 1956:

"The truth is that at a critical juncture in the Cold War, when Hungarians rose against their Soviet oppressors, the United States abandoned them.   After 13 days of high drama, hope and despair, the mighty Soviet army prevailed.   For its part, Washington offered a sad variation on 'NATO': no action, talk only.   The Eisenhower administration's policy of 'liberation' and 'rollback' turned out to be a hoax -- hypocrisy mitigated only by self-delusion.   The more evident, if unstated, goal was to roll back the Democrats from Capitol Hill rather than liberate Central and Eastern Europe from Soviet tyranny."

*JUNE 21, 2006:   George W. Bush, the self-proclaimed "war president," June 21, 2006:   "The United States is -- we'll defend ourselves, but at the same time, we're actively working with our partners to spread peace and democracy."

George Orwell, nearly sixty years ago, in the book, 1984, names "the three slogans of the Party:   WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH."

*JUNE 15, 2006:   "It's a number...." :   George W. Bush's press secretary Tony Snow speaking today of the Pentagon's announcement that American deaths in Iraq had reached 2,500.   No name has yet been attached to this "number," to make sure that his (or her) family has been notified first.   For one day, at least, " The Unknown Citizen," just "a number."

"Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:

"Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard." -- W.H. Auden

On the other hand, President Bush informed us only yesterday that "... I'm a high-value target for some."

"And," the president continued, "Iraq is a dangerous place."

In which 18,940 American service members were reported to have been wounded.

The BBC has a brief riff (with good, detailed maps) on the problem of trying to determine what Iraqi casualties have been.   It reminds us that President Bush himself gave a figure of about 30,000 Iraqis having been killed -- already six months and three days ago.

Nobel Prize winner in Economics Joseph E. Stiglitz has tried to puzzle out " The True Costs of the Iraq War."

*JUNE 14, 2006:   Today is Flag Day in the United States.   A lot of money was made today on the sale of four Revolutionary War precursors to Old Glory.

*JUNE 13, 2006:   The Stunt of the Day:   Shocked!   Shocked!   Could everyone really have been as surprised as they were said to be (even Bush cabinet officers!) by the president's sudden de-camping for Baghdad?   If the thought that it was time for another lightning trip to Iraq could flit through my mind, as it did, surely it could flit through others'?   Now we will see if the serious work gets done.

*JUNE 12, 2006:     June 12 is Russia's national holiday, the "Day of Russia," and this year marks fifteen years since the first Russian presidential election     on June 12, 1991.   (Boris Yeltsin casting his ballot, June 12, 1991; photograph by Gwendolyn Stewart c. 2008; all rights reserved)   The election day was chosen to honor the declaration of sovereignty the year before by the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, as Russia was then known as one of the fifteen republics of the USSR.   (For more on the story and the significance of June 12, see chapters 6-8 of Sic Transit by Gwendolyn Stewart, Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation, June 1995.   For more on Boris Yeltsin, see Chapters One and Two of Russia Redux.)

Today the event was celebrated both in the Kremlin and on the street.

*JUNE 9, 2006:   John Updike     has a new book called Terrorist, which USA Today calls "a thriller," and one which "leaves the reader ripping through the book to its finale, desperate to find out what happens."   (More on Updike)

*JUNE 8, 2006:   Turn the Tide:   A new way to say "turning point"?   Today President Bush announced that "Zarqawi's death is a severe blow to al Qaeda.  It's a victory in the global war on terror, and it is an opportunity for Iraq's new government to turn the tide of this struggle."   Strange then that in giving the New York Times the tick-tock, or chronology, of the handling of the news of the "termination" of the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, this point was emphasized:   "Officials also decided to proceed carefully and not repeat mistakes of the past by referring to the capture as a turning point or an end to violence in Iraq, which is expected to, if anything, increase in coming days."   The warning about violence can easily be seen to smack of CYA, of course, but, sadly, has also already started to come true.

Philip Kennicott has a thoughtful meditation on "A Chilling Portrait, Unsuitably Framed":   " The frame surrounding an image of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's head, revealed to the world as proof the terrorist is dead, is bizarre. When the picture was displayed at a U.S. military news briefing, Zarqawi's face was seen inside what appeared to be a professional photographic mat job, with a large frame, as if it were something one might preserve and hang on the wall next to other family portraits."   (more)

*JUNE 7, 2006:   Iraq "begins to look more and more like a Terminator world." -- John F. Burns, New York Times Bureau Chief, on The Charlie Rose Show, PBS, June 7, 2006.

*JUNE 6, 2006:   TEAR DOWN THIS HIGHWAY!         Tip O'Neill has a tunnel named after him, and Frederick Salvucci, the "Father of the Big Dig," sees his dream come true.   Now, Boston, will it all be worth it in the end?