A brief rundown

Here's some material that's run across my computer screen in the last few days:

* Elizabeth Drew has been reading the 9/11 report and found some interesting stuff in there that isn't getting nearly the attention it deserves.

* Bush claimed "more than three quarters of Al Qaeda’s key members and associates have been detained or killed" since 9/11 in his RNC acceptance speech, but as Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball of Newsweek suggest, that number is completely meaningless. Nevertheless, even conceding the Bush administration this figure, Jim Lobe says it looks like the US is losing the "war on terror."

* A war on terrorism? Ed Herman says it's better characterized as a war OF terrorism.

* You can watch the new documentary Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear, and the Selling of American Empire online, here. You can also find out more about the film or purchase a copy of it, here.

* The greatest threat to the United States is not multinational terror organizations, argues Anatol Lieven. Rather, it is the United States itself; specifically, its potent strain of nationalism.

* America is already venturing down the winding road of fascism, writes Chris Floyd.

* You might not have noticed it since the press and the bulk of the intelligentsia are focused elsewhere, but Justin Raimondo observes that the United States recently lost Iraq to the rebels.

* Sunday was an absolutely horrific day around Iraq, with more than 80 civilians killed in a spattering of car bombs and mortar attacks from insurgents and an air strike from the US military. Plus: the situation in Iraq is worse than you think and the US military's "get tough" tactics are backfiring.

* Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post reports that the command to attack Fallujah following the lynching of four contractors mercenaries in April "originated in the White House," according to some "senior U.S. officials in Iraq." Oh, and the Iraqi force that was supposed to be patrolling the city has been disbanded; it turns out that it was really helping the insurgency.

* That socialist rag the Financial Times says it's "Time to consider Iraq withdrawal."

* Seymour Hersh's new book is out. Read a two part excerpt from the Guardian.

* John Cassidy decodes the radical agenda behind the Bush administration's taxation policies.

* While scores of bloggers are pouring over the Killian memos from CBS News regarding Bush's Guard Service, US News & World Report has unearthed new, unrelated evidence that Dubya was derelict in his duty.

* A US government study has found that nearly "400,000 New Yorkers breathed in the most toxic polluting cloud ever recorded after the twin towers were brought down three years ago, but no proper effort has been made to find out how their health has been affected," the Independent reports.

* God Bless Bob Novak.