"It's the return of the right-wing crazies, crawling their way back," one of Armitage's associates said, referring to Wolfowitz's team. "The knives are out." One senior State Department official angrily told me that he would "meet them"—his "pissant" detractors in the Pentagon—"anytime, anywhere." In return, one of those detractors depicted the State Department's behavior as "unbelievably personal and vitriolic. Their attitude is that we're yahoos—especially those of us who come from the far right. The American Enterprise Institute"—a conservative think tank in Washington—"is like Darth Vader's mother ship for them."

"Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said Sunday his country would not allow U.N. weapons inspectors to return."

"Al-Qaeda may have lost its Afghan power base but it has survived as a deadly threat."

"The U.S. commander of the war in Afghanistan said Sunday that American forces have made new advances against the last known major pocket of al-Qaida resistance but have yet to find any sign of Osama bin Laden or other leaders of the terrorist network."

"The whereabouts of the world's most wanted man is still the biggest question in the war on terror."

"The very Afghan forces that American fighters depend on to lead them into alien territory are again splintered and making noises of a return to the country's long-running civil war. The U.S. assault has brought long-feuding Afghans into closer proximity, leading to fears that, at any time, they will start shooting at one another and not at the intended enemy."

"Rivalries between Afghan factions are threatening to undermine the American-led effort against al-Qaeda as hundreds of former Northern Alliance troops pour into eastern Afghanistan to assist in the battle."

"The exiled king of Afghanistan denounced the US-led war on terror in his country as 'stupid and useless' in an interview with Italian daily La Stampa published on Thursday."

"As fighting raged, U.S. officials and Afghan commanders said al-Qaida sympathizers — including some from Pakistan — had crossed into the mountains to join the fight. Afghans said enemy forces may now number 1,000."

and

"The U.S. operations over the hills have sparked resentment among some villagers, who fear that innocent civilians — including wives and children of fighters — were being killed. Resentment is also high in Surmad, because U.S.-led forces detained the police chief just before the offensive began."

"After five years of oppression, Afghan women have in theory regained their rights, but in Kabul their new-found freedom seems elusive as the majority continue to wear the all-enveloping burqa which was mandatory under the Taliban."

"Military officers are privately criticizing U.S. tactics in the battle of Gardez, saying war commanders should have used air strikes for days or weeks before sending ground forces against 800 enemy troops in Afghanistan."

"Tony Blair faced the prospect of a Cabinet revolt over military action against Iraq yesterday after ministers claimed that America could drag Britain into a new Gulf war."

"US forces are active in the biggest array of countries since the second world war. Troops, sailors and airmen are now established in countries where they have never before had a presence. The aim is to provide platforms from which to launch attacks on any group perceived by George Bush to be a danger to the US."

"Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit has urged the United States to focus on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict instead of tackling Saddam Hussein's Iraq."

"Georgia said on Thursday militants from Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network were in rebel Abkhazia, raising the specter of military action by Georgian forces under the banner of the U.S.-led war on terrorism."

When do we start bombing?

"Faulty information — much of it provided by Afghans unfamiliar with the terrain — may have been responsible for losses on the first day of Operation Anaconda — the biggest offensive of the Afghan war."

"Under the shadow of U.S. threats against Baghdad, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan conducted one-day talks with a high-level Iraqi delegation on Thursday, saying he would press for the return of U.N. arms inspectors."

"The Pashtuns of northern Afghanistan are fleeing their villages by the thousands now, telling tales of murder and rape and robbery."

"Traditional political enmities and tribal rivalries have allowed the Taliban to regroup around Gardez in eastern Paktia province in Afghanistan, from where they will coordinate guerrilla operations in many parts of the country."

"The failure of a US-led assault on al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan demonstrates its lack of understanding of power struggles among warlords."

"The countdown to war against Iraq began yesterday when America presented satellite evidence to the United Nations showing that Saddam Hussein had misused humanitarian aid to bolster his army."

"Some had talked of wrapping up the operation in eastern Afghanistan in little more than 24 hours. Some thought the Taliban and al-Qa'ida forces of no more than a couple of hundred would take to their heels and flee once the mighty US ground forces flexed their muscles."

"Western governments are discussing plans to double the international military force in Afghanistan and deploy troops outside the capital, Kabul, as concern grows about deteriorating security."

"Iranian Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar said on Wednesday President Bush's description of Iran as part of an 'axis of evil' may undermine the country's political reform process."

"For all America's success early in the Afghan campaign - and its continued confidence that it will vanquish foes surrounded in the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan - Al Qaeda and Taliban holdouts are nevertheless displaying the traits that make this global terrorist network more daunting than others: a relatively sophisticated, well-trained and financed organization that draws on ongoing grass-roots support and a fanatical willingness to fight to the death."

"With the Bush administration pressing its case that Iraq is secretly continuing to develop nuclear, chemical, and biological weaponry - and US attacks appearing increasingly likely - Iraqi officials have agreed to hold talks with the UN."

"Don't expect sweetness and light from the US government's latest religious phase."

See also: lyrics to Pat McCurdy's song God.

God loves democracy more than aristocracy
God hates Iraqians, Russians, Jews and Libyans

God is good, God is great
God don't like the welfare state
God drives a Chevrolet

God made petroleum to make my Winnebago run
God made plants and trees
We can waste them as we please
God loves the strong and tall
God loves white folks most of all
God loves the USA

"Britain and the US are engaged in a joint strategy designed to apply pressure on Saddam Hussein to allow UN weapons inspectors into Iraq while preparing public opinion for military action against the country."

"As it attempts to hunt down the remaining elements of al Qaeda and the Taliban, the U.S. military is relying heavily on a shaky coalition of Afghan militia groups to do much of the ground fighting."

Countdown to blowback.

"Sensitive to the public's reaction to the growing dangers, White House officials drew up a communications plan meant to persuade Americans that al-Qaida fighters have suffered worse casualties and that America is winning."

"With competing warlords threatening the peace in Afghanistan, the United States and its allies are considering doubling the number of foreign peacekeepers, perhaps under U.S. command, diplomats said on Tuesday."

"Eight Americans have been killed and 40 more GIs wounded in the U.S. offensive against regrouping Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters that began with airstrikes late Friday in eastern Afghanistan, Pentagon officials said Monday."

"American allies in the war on terrorism, including Pakistan and Uzbekistan, abused human rights at home last year, as did Russia and China, the government says."

"Both the Northern Alliance and the ultra-conservative Taliban it ousted in Afghanistan with U.S. help committed many serious human rights abuses over the past year, the State Department said on Monday."

"President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt brought a mixed message to the Bush administration Monday. He is urging caution in considering any attack on Iraq while supporting the US campaign against terrorism."

"For months, US-led forces in Afghanistan have fought what many experts dubbed a new "Afghan model" kind of war, combining air power, proxy forces, and US special operations units.

Now, suddenly, the US and its allies are in the fray of an old-fashioned ground war, as they try to root out Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants dug into caves in snow-covered mountains south of Gardez."

"Even as American troops and allied Afghan fighters conduct their heaviest assault so far this year against a determined group of Taliban and Al Qaeda forces, surging ethnic tensions and jockeying warlords are undermining dreams of unity and peace elsewhere in Afghanistan."

Franks: "First, let me say that our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and the friends of the service members who have lost their lives in our ongoing operations in Vietnam. Certainly, that sacrifice is appreciated by this nation."

"As the United States opens more fronts in its war on terrorism, calls are increasing in Congress for the Bush administration to better define the new military missions — and give some idea how long they might last."

"An American helicopter was shot down over eastern Afghanistan, raising casualties in the largest ground operation of the 5-month-old war, Pentagon sources said Monday."

Afghans describe the battle:

"They (U.S. forces) made a big mistake. They went ahead without making trenches, without reinforcing their positions. And then they were cut off. They retreated really badly."

"Our command was really bad. The American command was really bad. We didn't think about all the aspects of the battle before we attacked."

"The Sept. 11 attacks initially brought Europe and the United States closer together, with spontaneous outpourings of sympathy on the streets of Europe and pledges of solidarity from the corridors of power. But nearly six months on, the transatlantic allies are at odds over how to deal with key international issues highlighted by the attacks on New York and the Pentagon."

"The apparent convergence of so many Taliban and Qaeda men, at a time when the United States had begun an all-out effort to smash the two groups, posed what could be almost the greatest conundrum of the war: How it was possible for such a large number of fugitives, including Arab men distinguished by their language and customs, to gather openly in Zormat, a town that lies less than 20 miles from Gardez, a busy provincial capital, and then move into the nearby mountains, without attracting an earlier pursuit by American and Afghan forces?"

"Northern Afghanistan, once the bastion of a single warlord, is now the stage for an increasingly violent struggle as the same rivals that helped reduce the country to rubble race against time to expand their power base."

"The Bush administration hopes to use concern over terrorism to build support in Congress for direct aid to the Colombian government to fight leftist rebels, officials say."

"The flight of the Taliban from Kabul last year was so sudden and the collapse of their defenses in their Kandahar stronghold so dramatic that it created the impression that the war was all but won. The battles over Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz and Tora Bora appeared to have given way to sporadic and occasionally ill- planned raids against small groups of Al Qaeda fighters. The war that began with such a bang appeared to end with a whimper.

But that was something of an illusion. While it is true that life has been returning to normal in the main Afghan cities, it is also true that much of the vast country is a no man's land. That is certainly the case in the Paktia, Paktika and Khost provinces in eastern Afghanistan."

"Robert Baer, the ex-CIA man in Iraq during the failed uprising in 1995, says the US is not in a position to strike against Iraq because it does not understand anything about the country."

"Afghanistan's bloodthirsty chieftains united to beat the Taliban -- but they are now turning on each other."

"New cracks emerged in the US political unity behind the war on terrorism last night, after allied troops engaged in the largest ground offensive since attacks in Afghanistan began."

"A day-by-day account of how Osama bin Laden eluded the world's most powerful military machine."

"Thinking big, President Nixon raised the idea of using a nuclear bomb against North Vietnam in 1972, but Henry Kissinger quickly dismissed the notion."

Trent Lott responds: "How dare anyone criticize the prosecution of a war while we're at war." Huh?

"The opium poppy harvest in Afghanistan this year is likely to return to levels seen before the ousted Taliban banned the crop, the United Nations reported Thursday."

"Despite Washington's hard line towards Iraq, the United States is comfortably the world's largest consumer of Iraqi crude oil and depends on Baghdad for some 9 percent of its oil imports."

"Bush officials say it is not matter of if Hussein must go, but when, and how."