General Petraeus’ report on the war’s progress yesterday presented to the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees lands smack in the middle of a maelstrom of political discontent in Iraq. The report will also lead to a broader conversation between the presidential candidates.

Recent fighting in Sadr City and a failed military operation led by Prime Minister Maliki to crush Shiite opposition in Basra marks the disruptive beginning of the country’s upcoming elections.

Radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr’s militia dissolved into the general population after Maliki gave Sadr the ultimatum of disarming his militia or else his party would be banned from elections. Sadr’s party, which maintains a robin-hood-like presence in the working-class and poorer districts in Iraq, would certainly escalate hostilities if his party is prevented from participating in these elections. But Maliki may not have the political muscle to follow through with his challenge, even though many Sunni and Kurdish leaders have lined up behind the beleaguered Prime Minister.

According to the New York Times, an increase in overall attacks from 239 in February to 631 in March threatens to “reignite public concern about the cost of the war.” Although several of my friends who have served up to two and even three tours in Iraq have suggested that the media has largely eschewed real progress in the country, the statistics coming from US officials in the past few days and the Iraqi government’s failed attempt to squash resistance suggests a delicate political fulcrum on which our success in this war rests.

Although the media constantly strays from important issues and offers up instead the drunken misadventures of some long-legged Hollywood vixen, I like to remind myself that we are at war. I cannot imagine the hell our soldiers experience on a daily basis, nor can I imagine what it would feel like to be at the business end of the United States military forces.

The fighting in Basra and in some southern Baghdad neighborhoods continued for days, despite concerted efforts by American-trained Iraqi troops to dislodge remnants of the Mahdi Army, the militant wing of the political party of Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. The prospect of a successful operation looked grim as militants openly walked the streets and manned checkpoints and as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s compound – where he oversaw the operation personally – was mortared, forcing him to flee.

A ceasefire agreed upon by both the Iraqi government and Sadr’s party is still holding despite an escalation of hostilities.

Despite the fact that Sadr said he would withdrawal his fighters (or perhaps because of it), the Shiite militant faction may have scored a major victory in the upcoming elections.

Bush touted the Iraqi government last week for pulling its weight against the militants while Iraqi officials downplayed the recent clashes, calling it a fight against criminal elements, as quoted in the New York Times.

The Iraqi capital has been in lockdown for the past four days, and the recent security improvements credited to the American troop surge that took place last year is delicately hanging in the balance as thousands of Shiites demonstrate in Baghdad against the recent moves against the Mahdi Army and as the American death toll exceeds 4,000.

The administration, measuring the slightest improvements by the centimeter, is laying bets on the April 8^th testimony of US officials in Iraq who will brief Congress on the prospects of bringing troops home and our recent successes in the region. Regardless of the outcome, the recent fighting in Iraq underscores the violent tribal nature of the government’s political parties, many of whom have their own, privately-funded militias, and stresses the Iraqis’ resolve to kill each other long after we have left them to their own fatal devices.

According to a recent study conducted by researchers in the US, Canada, and the UK from the Public Library of Science, and according to documentation won by investigators who sued under freedom of information, antidepressant drugs don’t work.

Much of the information that was obtained through the investigation and in the resent study was already known by US drug regulators – by law, drug companies must deliver all studies, even those that show its product as ineffectual, to regulators before the drug is approved for public consumption.

While these recent findings have sent shock waves through lobbying firms and made sheepish the clinically depressed public, pharmaceutical giants like Eli Lilly, the maker of Prozac, have denied they withheld studies showing that their products had no more of an effect than dummy pills. Read the rest of this entry »

According to the Independent, British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, and the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, expressed concerns about the sentencing of journalism student Sayed Pervez Kambakhsh, 23, after surprise visits to the Afghan capitol.

Last Week, Kambakhsh was sentenced to death in a lower Afghan court after forwarding to fellow-students and teachers a report(s) (more of a parody of Islamic gender issues) that suggest(s) the Koran is being misused to treat Muslim women as second-class citizens.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has not yet granted clemency to Kambakhsh, but said, “justice will be done.” He may yet intervene in the Afghan Supreme Court, which is expected to uphold the decision to execute the student.

This case has sparked international protest, and highlights the divide between remnant Islamic hardliners in the country’s eastern tribal regions and NATO’s prolonged effort to establish democracy in the region.

What the hell is going on in Afghanistan? Sayed Pervez Kambakhsh, a 23-year-old male student of journalism, is awaiting the death sentence after downloading a report from the internet that states the Koran is being misinterpreted to oppress women. He was found guilty of blasphemy after forwarding the report to fellow-students and teachers. He had no legal representation.

Am I missing something? Did we not oust the Taliban and watch with great anticipation on CNN as women cast their ballots to elect a new “democratic” government?

If anyone is interested in learning more, or to sign a petition aimed at staying the execution, please visit The Independent online.