|
Latest Articles: War, War, War
Obama: US Troops Out Of Iraq By August 2010
Post Date: 2009-10-20 15:01:38 by Brian S
7 Comments
(10-20) 09:57 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) -- President Barack Obama vows the United States still plans to have all American combat troops out of Iraq by next August. After a meeting Tuesday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Obama also said he was watching closely for the parliament to pass an election law that would set out the legal structure for a critical nationwide vote in January. Al-Maliki also heard that message in meetings a day earlier with Vice President Joe Biden. As Obama promised to hold to U.S. withdrawal plans, which would see all troops leave Iraq by the end of 2011, Obama also told al-Maliki that he was glad the two leaders were able to expand their talks beyond ...
The Militarization of America's Youth - US Army Experience Center (AEC): Training Kids to Kill
Post Date: 2009-10-20 11:46:36 by christine
3 Comments
“This is so cool! This is so cool!” a thirteen-year-old boy repeated as he squeezed rounds from a real M-16, picking off “enemy combatants” in a video game while perched atop a real Army Humvee. “I just came to the mall to skateboard but everyone said this was pretty cool. I just had to try it and it’s great!” The person reporting on this youthful enthusiasm was Pat Elder, who serves on the Steering Committee of the National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth. Elder also described young teenagers congratulating each other for “killing ragheads” and “wiping out hajis.” All of this fun went on at the Army Experience Center ...
Throttling Back on Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-10-20 06:24:25 by Ada
1 Comments
It was encouraging to see White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel throwing elbow punches in the Sunday political gabfests, defending the Obama’s decision to hold off on its decision on what to do about McChrystal’s flying-pie proposal to "Go Big" in a pseudo-classic counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan. It would be "reckless," he told CNN, to pour more American blood into Afghanistan without knowing what the sneeze is going on with the government we’re supporting. Journalist Gareth Porter brings news of another encouraging development. A paper on Afghanistan strategy by Daniel L. Davis, U.S. Army light colonel, offers an alternative to ...
Karl Rove: Obama Building Enemies List
Post Date: 2009-10-20 01:03:23 by sizzlerguy
0 Comments
Monday October 19, 2009 President Barrack Obama's demonization of Fox News is comparable to that of the Nixon administration's media enemies list, according to former Bush adviser Karl Rove. Rove, appearing on Fox News Sunday, said Obama is engaging in his own version of former President Richard Nixon's enemies list by shunning Fox News' questions that officials in his administration don't like. "This is a White House engaging in it's own version of the media enemies list," Rove said in response to a White House criticism of the network. "It's unhelpful for the country and undignified for the president of the United States to do so." ...
"See You Soon, If We’re Still Alive" The only two Westerners living on their own in Kandahar have been bombed, ambushed, and nearly sold to kidnappers. Here's what they've learned about the country where war just won't end.
Post Date: 2009-10-19 10:42:06 by tom007
2 Comments
For a split second the room seems to vibrate under the pressure of the shock wave. Ears ring, heads retract, and muscles contract. Your mind jump-starts: Did the explosion sound big or small? Where did it come from? You hesitate, wait for another sound, but hear nothing. You jump to your feet, grabbing a camera on the way to the terrace. Barely a half-mile away, the cloud of debris billows into the sky. The air fills with sirens, and people pour into the street, climbing on top of otherwise never-used pedestrian bridges, craning to make out something in the distance. A pickup truck piled with bloody bodies passes by from the site of the explosion as the cloud slowly descends, losing its ...
Lies Drive the Afghan War
Post Date: 2009-10-16 23:04:49 by buckeroo
22 Comments
President Barack Obama has been under tremendous political pressure to further expand the war in Afghanistan that he inherited from his predecessor. Republicans, who have become the party of war, and the military industrial complex are urging Obama to send tens of thousands of more US troops to South Asia at a time when the annual deficit will hit a staggering $1.2 trillion. After eight years of indecisive military operations costing US $236 billion of borrowed money, the new US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, just warned of the threat of `failure,' aka defeat, if he did not receive 40,000-80,000 more troops. Shades of Gen. William Westmoreland in Vietnam. Pressure ...
4 Americans die in Afghanistan blast
Post Date: 2009-10-16 18:22:04 by Jethro Tull
1 Comments
4 Americans die in Afghanistan blast Oct 16, 10:34 AM (ET) By HEIDI VOGT and TODD PITMAN KABUL (AP) - Four more American troops died in a bombing in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said Friday, as a U.N.-backed panel completed most of its investigation into whether the level of fraud in the August presidential election would require a runoff. Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States says he expects a second round vote will be required. Rising death tolls and the political crisis brought on by a fraud-marred election have prompted the Obama administration to review its entire Afghanistan war strategy. Two of the U.S. service members were killed instantly in ...
Stars and Garters and Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-10-16 06:45:58 by Ada
5 Comments
Oh my stars and garters, I agree with Tom Friedman of the New York Times about something — sort of. In an Oct. 13 opinion piece titled "Not Good Enough," Friedman argues that, "when you are mounting a counterinsurgency campaign, the local government is the critical bridge between your troops and your goals. If that government is rotten, your whole enterprise is doomed." He is correct. We can’t do counterinsurgency by propping up Hamid Karzai’s regime. Where Friedman’s thinking turns sour is when he says "we have to visibly display to the Afghan people that we expect a different kind of governance from Karzai, or whoever rules, and refuse to ...
Report: Obama Poised to Announce 45,000 Troop Escalation in Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-10-15 16:06:11 by Horse
3 Comments
The Obama Administration has reportedly told the British government that it intends to announce an escalation of another 45,000 troops in Afghanistan, potentially as soon as next week The report comes despite claims that the Obama Administration is continuing to hold talks about the strategy, though this seems to be more based on the question of whether to emphasize the failed battle against the Taliban or focus what will soon be over 100,000 troops on fighting the roughly 100 al-Qaeda members reportedly in the nation. Britain announced that it intends to send another 500 soldiers to Afghanistan to bolster its 9,000-strong force. The announcement reportedly came as a result of the US ...
Afghan desert the enemy for US armoured vehicles
Post Date: 2009-10-15 15:37:07 by X-15
3 Comments
SPIN BOLDAK DISTRICT, Afghanistan — At dawn a long line of US armoured vehicles prepared to leave Forward Operating Base Spin Boldak for a high-risk mission into uncharted territory. But they met a different kind of enemy from the one they were expecting. The troops were on reconnaissance in the remote south, along the border with Pakistan, which is largely unknown terrain for NATO forces because only the Afghan border police operate here. At the front of the convoy, Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles equipped with reinforced V-shaped bodywork to deflect explosions were tasked with opening the route for the more lightly armoured "Stryker" vans. Progress was ...
IDF To Start Handing Out New Gas Masks To Civilians In January
Post Date: 2009-10-15 11:54:41 by Brian S
0 Comments
The Home Front Command will begin distributing new gas mask kits to the civilian population beginning in January. The plan is to hand out 4.5 million kits within three years. GOC Home Front Command Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, told Haaretz, "we would have liked to distribute kits in the least amount of time to the entire population of the country, but we don't have enough kits due to budgetary constraints." The Home Front Command plans to distribute the kits to residents of the north and center, two areas thought to be at higher risk of chemical attack. Golan also said the Home Front Command had completed a plan which would improve civil defense protection in older apartment ...
Listen Up Everybody, Take a Look Here
Post Date: 2009-10-14 19:25:45 by tom007
9 Comments
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/10/14/magazine/afghan-audioss/index.html
Epitaph on Empire
Post Date: 2009-10-14 16:42:08 by ghostdogtxn
1 Comments
Perpetual War is Here - and Americans are Getting Used to it...
Post Date: 2009-10-14 14:50:06 by ghostdogtxn
16 Comments
Long Wars and Peace Prizes
Post Date: 2009-10-13 19:12:04 by Ada
4 Comments
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who has become the point man for the long-war mafia, delivered his ultimatum to President Barack Obama on Friday, Oct. 9. As has been his practice over the past several weeks, McChrystal proxy-leaked details of his demands through the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and other sources. The Journal says one of McChrystal’s proposed options calls for 60,000 additional troops, and "several officials" say the "maximum variant" is even larger. How odd it will seem to future historians that the world’s sole superpower seriously considered escalating a war in a country that is not a threat to anyone. The most insane tenet of ...
Rush is Wrong - Obama is no Pacifist .. more's the pity
Post Date: 2009-10-13 16:53:42 by ghostdogtxn
1 Comments
Afghanistan: A War of Lies
Post Date: 2009-10-13 10:30:02 by ghostdogtxn
5 Comments
Obama Sends Over 13,000 Extra US Troops To Afghan War In Unannounced Move
Post Date: 2009-10-13 06:45:03 by Mind_Virus
38 Comments
Support troops swell U.S. force in Afghanistan At least 13,000 deployments, including engineers and police, not announced By Ann Scott Tyson updated 12:21 a.m. ET, Tues., Oct . 13, 2009 President Obama announced in March that he would be sending 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. But in an unannounced move, the White House has also authorized — and the Pentagon is deploying — at least 13,000 troops beyond that number, according to defense officials. The additional troops are primarily support forces, including engineers, medical personnel, intelligence experts and military police. Their deployment has received little mention by officials at the Pentagon and the White ...
Eight Years of Big Lies on Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-10-13 05:59:57 by Ada
0 Comments
It seems like only yesterday that President George W. Bush was bragging about having brought “freedom and democracy” to 25 million Afghans, a key theme in his second inaugural address. For 8 years, the American people have been fed one big lie after another regarding Afghanistan. Now, when the Pentagon is saber-rattling to vastly increase the number of U.S. troops sent there, a refresher course on the Biggest Lies is in order. In his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, Bush frightened Americans with a bogus nuclear threat: “Our discoveries in Afghanistan confirmed our worst fears.... We have found diagrams of American nuclear power plants and public water ...
Dianne Feinstein: War Profiteer
Post Date: 2009-10-12 13:41:50 by F.A. Hayek Fan
2 Comments
President Barack Obama barely had time to graciously note his unworthiness of the Nobel Peace Prize before it was time to duck back into the Situation Room for a meeting with his advisers about how to win the war in Afghanistan. The irony of this is underscored by the apparent willingness of the administration to consider the addition of as many as 60,000 more troops, per Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request, to the occupation forces. The Taliban has regrouped and is in clear control of much of the country. Not only that, but the Afghan "government," which was never very credible to begin with, has lost any vestige of legitimacy it may once have possessed on account of the ...
Afghan Outlook Bleak as Taliban Grabs Territory
Post Date: 2009-10-12 08:38:53 by Jethro Tull
8 Comments
Afghan Outlook Bleak as Taliban Grabs Territory
Monday, October 12, 2009
Print
 APSept. 25: U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Gerrad Mitchell patrols in Afghanistan with comrades from 4th Battalion, 25th Field Artillery Regiment.
KABUL — Editors' Note: Associated Press reporter Jason Straziuso spent more than three years in Afghanistan as AP's chief correspondent. This is his final report.
My closest Afghan friend held out his Taliban-era photo. A decade younger, he had a thick black beard that the oppressive regime forced men to grow.
My friend won't grow one again. He is already thinking about when to flee.
As ...
Is McChrystal REading lewrockwell.com?
Post Date: 2009-10-12 06:19:56 by Ada
0 Comments
Not likely. But I was heartened to see that when we abandoned the military outpost in Kamdesh, Afghanistan, we destroyed the base, lighting afterburners, the smoldering waste of one more failed experiment in colonialism in our rear-view mirrors. We departed this small base days after one of the deadliest Taliban strikes against our occupation forces there. Officially, our departure had been planned for months. Any bets that the leadership will take a hit for that bit of poor planning? Not likely. Six months ago, I discussed how we could and should leave another of our ill-fated occupations. Here’s the paragraph McChrystal might have read: Lastly, it will NOT cost more to leave ...
Senator Feinstein & GOP Call for Obama to Send More Troops to Afghanistan [Full Thread]
Post Date: 2009-10-11 21:32:13 by Jethro Tull
41 Comments
Top Republican senators escalated their call Sunday for President Obama to grant Gen. Stanley McChrystal's request for more troops in Afghanistan, and one prominent Democrat warned that a failure to do so could jeopardize U.S. forces. The Obama administration is deep in deliberations over whether to build on its counterinsurgency strategy with thousands more troops in Afghanistan or focus more on taking out top Al Qaeda targets, particularly in Pakistan. The bloody clash this weekend at the Pakistan army headquarters, where commandos freed dozens of hostages early Sunday after militants attacked the facility, underscored the instability in the region. Senate Minority Leader Mitch ...
UN Inspector Scott Ritter: Fools would Bomb Iran
Post Date: 2009-10-11 21:18:24 by Horse
5 Comments
Another witness blocked from Afghan torture inquiry
Post Date: 2009-10-11 21:16:35 by Horse
0 Comments
OTTAWA — The Harper government is being accused of abusing Canada's anti-terrorism laws after revelations that another key witness is being blocked from presenting evidence for an inquiry into the Canadian military's handling of Afghan captives. The detainees were allegedly tortured after being transferred to local Afghan authorities, prompting the inquiry by the Military Police Complaints Commission. Although the government has cited national security concerns after filing a motion to prevent 22 witnesses from testifying and presenting evidence, newly released letters have revealed that at least two witnesses actually wanted to appear at the inquiry, which is scheduled to ...
Latest [Newer] 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 [Older]
|