Recent Bluessky Posts- Preach, brother. criticalread.substack.com/p/saturation... May 26, 2026 Michael Froomkin
- Jotwell Health: André den Exter, Speech Therapy and Juveniles: What’s in it for Health Law?, JOTWELL (May 26, 2026) (reviewing K.G.M. Fleetwood-Bird, Caught in Language. The Importance of Speech and Language Therapy for Juvenile Justice (2026)), health.jotwell.com/speech-thera.... May 26, 2026 Jotwell
- Indeed bsky.app/profile/ship... May 25, 2026 Michael Froomkin
- Jotwell Equality: Luke Herrine, How Mass Surveillance Imposes Penalties on the Unsurveilled, JOTWELL (May 25, 2026) (reviewing Nakita Cuttino, Presumption of Creditworthiness, 124 Mich. L. Rev. 449 (2025)), equality.jotwell.com/how-mass-sur.... May 25, 2026 Jotwell
- Been hoping (with no evidence) that the US regime's war on renewable energy will open a door to a similar dynamic after the fever breaks. May 24, 2026 Michael Froomkin
Author Archives: Michael Froomkin
Where Do Fish Rot From?
Posted in Iraq Atrocities
Comments Off on Where Do Fish Rot From?
Fallujah–A Blunder; Prisoner Treatment–A Crime
Juan Cole has the essential website of the moment, especially a guest commentary Former CIA Saudi Arabia Station Chief Ray Close on 'The Real Meaning of Fallujah'—defeat and likely disaster. Also a few choice words on the abuse of prisoners scandal.
Other commentary of note on the prisoner horror: Intel Dump :
So let's be clear on what's going on here. We go into Iraq to stop, among other things, human rights abuses that were being directed by the Hussein regime. Many of those abuses took place at Abu Ghraib prison, the same building at the center of this report. Iraqi guards regularly beat, humiliated, and tortured their detainees, and they reveled in their cruelty. Now, we have American soldiers doing many of the same things, allegedly at the direction of American intelligence officers who wanted these MPs to set the conditions for productive interrogation sessions. I can't condemn this conduct enough, and yet, I feel that condemning this conduct isn't enough. This is truly reprehensible stuff.
What's worse is that other American soldiers may suffer for the brutal excesses of these MPs, interrogators, and OGA (“other government agency” = CIA) employees. Reciprocity is a very real thing where the laws of wars are concerned, and we should be very concerned about retaliation against any Americans captured by Iraqi insurgents in the future. Similarly, reprisals are very real problem in war; they're often fueled by anger over mistreatment of one side's own troops. When American troops learned of the German massacre at Malmedy during the Battle of the Bulge, historical accounts said they went on a killing spree — double-tapping every German in their sights, and giving no quarter even the Germans sought it. Other historical accounts reflect this trend. I think we can expect this news to reach every quarter of the Arab world, from the hideouts of the Iraqi insurgency to the Arab street. And when it does, I think we can expect it to fire up our adversaries in a huge way. This event will do significant, lasting damage to American credibility in the eyes of the Arab world. If a lot of Arabs were on the fence about American foreign policy, they won't be after they see this report. (If you think for one minute I'm exaggerating, imagine the American response if we'd seen our POWs treated this way and had these pictures broadcast on Al-Jazeera.)
Intel Dump also notes the role that non-uniformed contractors play in this, and the need to clarify their legal duties and status.
Hullabaloo notes that Iraq POW operations will be taken over by the Guantanamo warden, which is not necessarily good news and he also notes the British angle to the prisoner mistreatment atrocity.
Then, in a class of its own, is Fafblog's explanation of how you can tell none of it really happened.
Posted in Iraq Atrocities
Comments Off on Fallujah–A Blunder; Prisoner Treatment–A Crime
The US Casualty List
We don't have a TV so even though Sinclair doesn't have a station to black out in the Miami market, I wasn't able to see Nightline's list of the US casualties in Iraq. The web site doesn't offer a stream of it, but they do have an online list of U.S. Military Deaths in War With Iraq.
It's long.
Posted in Iraq
Comments Off on The US Casualty List
But Who Has Time for This?
As an abstract matter, Lockergnome’s Price Drops RSS Feeds seem like a great idea. But who has time to monitor these on a regular basis? Not even relatively obsessive price-sensitive consumers like me, that's for sure.
More on Fallujah
It seems I wasn't real clear in the previous post. I don't mean to suggest that the right answer to the Fallujah crisis was starting a major urban campaign and killing lots of civilians. I do mean to say that:
1. If this is the end state, the seige was a blunder.
2. But, because I don't think the administration is willing to accept the likely consequences of this move — it will be seen as the weakness that it is — I fear even more what this seems likely to lead to, which is bloodier consequences in Fallujah and especially elsewhere. And I suspect that the US administration's response to those facts — when faced with possible widespread chaos as Iraqis decide the US can be driven out — will end up with more casualties on both sides. Therefore, I think that leaving in these circumstances has very bad side-effects. That doesn't mean that turning up the violence (“going in” to urban warfar) made any sense either.
3. Putting a Baathist in charge doesn't seem real smart unless he's a very unusal one. Is this a calculation that Baathists are better than Islamicists? Is the best-case exit scenario now reduced to a Saddam-like regime without Saddam? Is Saddam lite really the best we can do?
Posted in Iraq
Comments Off on More on Fallujah
Another Such Victory and We Are Undone
George W. Bush today, defending the famous flight suit speech announcing the end of major combat operation in Iraq:
“we're making progress, you bet” in bringing stability to Iraq.
What the grunts say about about today's pullout from Fallujah, turning the town over to a Baathist general (source: UK Daily Telegraph, Saddam's man takes over in Fallujah )(reg. req.):
Many ordinary marines said they did not believe the initiative would work and it could endanger their lives when they had to revert to the “plan A” of a full-scale offensive to take Fallujah.
“Honestly, I don't think they're going to be able to do it,” said Cpl Elias Chavez, 28.
“We had the insurgents cordoned off, they couldn't go anywhere, we had a chance to get them. Now they can flee wherever they want and we're still going to have to deal with them.”
He said the new force, largely made up of Fallujah residents, would be unlikely to apprehend or clamp down on anti-coalition fighters.
By leaving without defeating the insurgents, their deployment since April 5, following the killing and mutilation of four US defence contractors, “was a waste of time, of resources and of lives”.
“Everyone feels the same, especially those who know someone who was killed.”
L Cpl Julius Wright, 20, said: “Now it's going to get worse. We pulled out when we should of gone in.”
I'm with the grunts on this one. This is “progress”?
