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Latest Articles: War, War, War
A Lawless Regime
Post Date: 2009-03-26 06:34:25 by Ada
2 Comments
As we were pulling together today’s FFF Email Update, two points from two different articles struck me for their truthfulness and insightfulness. Simon Jenkins writes: “This war [Afghanistan] remains what it was from the start, aggression against a foreign state intended to punish it for refusing to hand over the perpetrators of 9/11. It was later sanitized (largely by the British) as a liberal intervention to bring democracy and gender awareness to a poor people.” Referring to the legal memos that empowered President Bush to seize omnipotent power after 9/11, Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, states: “I call it ‘Fuhrer’s law.’ What ...
GAO: More Expensive to Leave Iraq Than to Stay
Post Date: 2009-03-25 06:29:47 by Ada
1 Comments
Even Ending a War Can't Be Done on the Cheap, GAO Warns The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report today (PDF) examining the ongoing costs of the Iraq war. The report concludes that despite the enormous costs associated with fighting the Iraq war over the past six years, Congress should expect costs to actually increase as the Obama Administration moves through its so-called pullout plan. The Obama plan would reduce the current troop commitment from 138,000 to roughly 50,000, who would remain indefinitely. Yet the costs associated with withdrawing the troops and turning over the hundreds of American bases to the Iraqi government would be “significant,” the ...
Afghanistan: All About Oil?
Post Date: 2009-03-23 06:40:11 by Ada
3 Comments
After my column last week on Afghanistan was published I got an exasperated e-mail from my old friend Dave Redick, who has a fair amount of potentially pro-freedom activity underway, complaining that he had Googled the piece for the words "oil" and "pipeline" and found nary a mention. Because of that lack, he figured I had missed the real reason we Americanos want to be involved in Afghanistan and was wasting my time and peoples' attention discussing phony issues like the Taliban, al-Qaeda, supply problems, negotiations, and Afghan governance, the sort of things those really pulling the strings want us rubes to discuss while we ignore the real issues. So I thought ...
Afghanistan and Iraq: War Crimes Against Children ascribed to former President Bush
Post Date: 2009-03-22 14:03:51 by Horse
2 Comments
Torture has received the most attention among the many war crimes of the Bush administration. But those who support Bush’s pursuit of the “war on terror” have not been impressed by recriminations over torture. Worse than torture are the murders of at least 50 prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo, but again the hard-hearted are unimpressed when those whom they perceive as terrorists receive illegal extrajudicial capital punishment. The case for abusing children, however, is more difficult to support. The best kept secret of the Bush’s war crimes is that thousands of children have been imprisoned, tortured, and otherwise denied rights under the ...
What Happened to the War?
Post Date: 2009-03-20 06:58:13 by Ada
2 Comments
As of today, March 20, it has now been six years since the United States invaded Iraq. Yes, the United States still has tens of thousands of troops in Iraq, although we don’t hear much about the war any more. What happened to the war? The war should have been an issue in the election. It wasn’t. And thanks to the disaster that is the Republican revolution that wasn’t, it didn’t even have to be. We hardly heard about the war after the Democratic and Republican presidential conventions. Republicans were perfectly willing to exchange one war criminal for another. Many Democrats only opposed the war because it was a Republican war. And now that Obama is president, no one ...
AP IMPACT: Many Iraqis held by US to go free
Post Date: 2009-03-19 18:33:26 by richard9151
1 Comments
By LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writer – 12 mins ago CAMP BUCCA, Iraq – Thousands of Iraqis held without charge by the United States on suspicion of links to insurgents or militants are being freed by this summer because there is little or no evidence against them. Their release comes as the U.S. prepares to turn over its detention system to the fledgling Iraqi government by early 2010. In the six years since the war began, the military ultimately detained some 100,000 suspects, many of whom were picked up in U.S.-led raids during a raging, bloody insurgency that has since died down. The effort to do justice for those wrongly held to begin with, some for years, also runs the ...
Sources: Pentagon to stop forced tour extension
Post Date: 2009-03-18 15:14:22 by richard9151
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By PAULINE JELINEK AND KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press Writer – 37 mins ago WASHINGTON – The Army will substantially reduce use of the unpopular practice of holding troops beyond their enlistment dates and will pay $500 to those still forced to stay in the service, defense and congressional officials said Wednesday. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was expected to announce later Wednesday that he had approved the plan for cutting the use of so-called "stop loss" except in extraordinary circumstances, The Associated Press has learned. Some critics have called "stop-loss" a backdoor draft because it keeps troops in the military beyond their retirement or ...
Cheney's Mission Accomplished
Post Date: 2009-03-18 06:28:02 by Ada
1 Comments
Dick Cheney: "I guess my general sense of where we are with respect to Iraq and at the end of now, what, nearly six years, is that we've accomplished nearly everything we set out to do...." What has Dick Cheney really accomplished in Iraq? # An estimated 4 million Iraqis, out of 27 million, have been displaced from their homes, that is, made homeless. Some 2.7 million are internally displaced inside Iraq. A couple hundred thousand are cooling their heels in Jordan. And perhaps a million are quickly running out of money and often living in squalid conditions in Syria. Cheney's war has left about 15% of Iraqis homeless inside the country or abroad. That would be like 45 ...
Time to Quit Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-03-17 06:43:46 by Ada
1 Comments
It's taken far too long for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to finally admit the war in Afghanistan cannot be won. Better late than never. Kudos to Harper for facing facts and telling Canadians the truth. If the war can't be won, why risk lives of Canadian troops for nothing? Why stay in harm's way a day longer when the writing is on the wall in Afghanistan? President Barack Obama, who is sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, ought to be asking himself the same questions. We must think hard about waging an increasingly bloody war against lightly-armed mountain tribesmen who face the 24/7 lethal fury of the U.S. air force's heavy bombers, strike aircraft, helicopter ...
Biden says West "not winning" in Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-03-10 10:32:11 by christine
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U.S. Vice President Joe Biden appealed to NATO allies on Tuesday to help the United States tackle worsening security in Afghanistan, saying the alliance was struggling to deal with a threat to the West as a whole. "The deteriorating situation in the region poses a security threat not just to the United States but to every single nation round this table," Biden told representatives of the 26-country military pact during a visit to Brussels. "We are not now winning the war, but the war is far from lost," he told a news conference after three hours of talks. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer called on NATO to boost efforts before Afghan elections due in ...
US Contractor Protecting Diplomats In Iraq Killed
Post Date: 2009-03-08 17:46:00 by Brian S
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(03-08) 14:06 PDT Riverview, Mich. (AP) -- A U.S. veteran who returned to Iraq as a civilian contractor protecting American diplomats was killed by a sniper, his mother said. Justin Pope, 25, died after being shot Wednesday, Patricia Salser told The Associated Press on Saturday. He worked for Falls Church, Va.-based DynCorp International, which did not answer messages seeking comment. Detroit-area television station WJBK said Pope served two military tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and that as a civilian was assigned to protect U.S. diplomats in Kirkuk. DynCorp is one of three U.S.-based security contractors that work for the State Department in Iraq. Salser said her son joined ...
2 British soldiers killed in N. Ireland gun ambush
Post Date: 2009-03-08 09:19:59 by Disgusted
5 Comments
2 British soldiers killed in N. Ireland gun ambush The Associated Press Sun, Mar 8, 2009 (5:30 a.m.) Suspected IRA dissidents who opened fire on British soldiers and pizza delivery men outside an army base shot their victims again as they lay wounded on the ground, police said Sunday. Two soldiers died and four other people, including two men delivering pizzas, remained hospitalized with serious wounds following Saturday night's attack at the entrance to Massereene army barracks in Antrim, west of Belfast. It was the first killing of British soldiers in Northern Ireland since 1997. Its callousness, in targeting soldiers and civilians alike, appeared calculated to inflame community ...
Wikileaks cracks NATO's Master Narrative for Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-03-06 14:04:19 by PSUSA
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February 27, 2009 WIKILEAKS EDITORIAL Wikileaks has cracked the encryption to a key document relating to the war in Afghanistan. The document, titled "NATO in Afghanistan: Master Narrative", details the "story" NATO representatives are to give to, and to avoid giving to, journalists. An unrelated leaked photo from the war: a US soldier poses with a dead Afghani man in the hills of Afghanistan The encrypted document, which is dated October 6, and believed to be current, can be found on the Pentagon Central Command (CENTCOM) website oneteam.centcom.mil. [UPDATE: Fri Feb 27 15:18:38 GMT 2009, the entire Pentagon site is now down--probably in response to this editorial, ...
50,000 names carved in a wall
Post Date: 2009-03-05 23:53:04 by Jethro Tull
2 Comments
From another time
Kurds Seize Iraq Land Past Borders in Blow to U.S. Pullout Plan
Post Date: 2009-03-05 08:07:33 by Jethro Tull
5 Comments
Kurds Seize Iraq Land Past Borders in Blow to U.S. Pullout Plan Email | Print | A A A By Daniel Williams March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Just north of Mosul, Iraq’s second- biggest city, an ornamental metal gate spans the highway. Beyond it, the sunburst-on-tricolors of the Kurdistan flag proliferate in this region 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of the Kurds’ agreed-to autonomous zone in the country’s far northeast. Neither Iraqi police nor soldiers venture beyond the gate. The changed scenery reflects the slow, relentless expansion of Kurdish forces into territory far from their officially sanctioned region. The Kurds say that they are simply recovering land where they ...
Obama's Coalition of the Unwilling
Post Date: 2009-03-05 06:24:39 by Ada
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President Barack Obama met recently with the prime ministers of Canada and Britain. This week’s meeting with Britain’s Gordon Brown, who was pitching a “global New Deal,” created a minor flap when the White House downsized a full news conference to an Oval Office question-and-answer session, viewed by some in Britain as a snub. The change was attributed to the weather, with the Rose Garden covered with snow. It might have actually related not to snow cover, but to a snow job, covering up the growing divide between Afghanistan policies. U.S. policy in Afghanistan includes a troop surge, already under way, and continued bombing in Pakistan using unmanned drones. ...
Rep. John Murtha estimates it would take 600,000 troops to get Afghanistan under control
Post Date: 2009-03-04 14:00:09 by Jethro Tull
8 Comments
Murtha says Afghanistan plan lacks goal Rep. John Murtha estimates it would take 600,000 troops to get Afghanistan under control KIMBERLY HEFLING AP News Mar 03, 2009 15:09 EST Rep. John Murtha said Tuesday the situation in Afghanistan is so challenging that he estimated it would take 600,000 troops to fully squelch violence in the country. The Pennsylvania Democrat, who chairs the powerful subcommittee that funds the military, said his figure was based on the country's history of rigorous fighting and its size. "That's what I estimate it would take in a country that size to get it under control," Murtha said in an interview. Also Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert ...
Another War-on-Terrorism Success Story in Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-03-04 06:30:14 by Ada
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Another war-on-terrorism success story comes out of Afghanistan, where U.S. troops have been battling The Terrorists for some 7 years (and, if things go according to plan, will be battling Them for at least another 7 years). Heavily armed U.S. troops entered a village in Logar Province in the dead of night, raided a “compound,” and shot dead two men. U.S. officials claim that the two men were Terrorists and, therefore, that they had the right to shoot them as part of the U.S. government’s Global War on Terror. Army Major Todd Polk, who took part in the raid, explained how one of the dead man’s actions during the raid confirmed that he was in fact a Terrorist: He ...
UK lawmaker calls for inquiry into torture claims
Post Date: 2009-03-03 08:42:43 by richard9151
3 Comments
By DAVID STRINGER, Associated Press Writer – Sun Mar 1, 7:49 am ET LONDON – A senior judge should lead an independent inquiry into allegations that Britain may have been complicit in the torture and extraordinary rendition of terror suspects, a government adviser urged in a report Sunday. Alex Carlile, a House of Lords member who advises the government on anti-terrorism laws, said an independent study was necessary after repeated allegations about Britain's possible involvement in the mistreatment of detainees held in U.S. custody. Carlile was quoted as telling Britain's Sunday Times newspaper that a new inquiry should be held in private to hear classified evidence, but ...
We're really leaving Iraq
Post Date: 2009-03-02 12:23:00 by war
3 Comments
On Friday, nearly six years after George W. Bush's swaggering "Mission Accomplished" speech, a new and humbler president addressed a cheering military audience and declared an end to the Iraq War. But some observers fear that President Barack Obama's blueprint, which extends the American presence for another quarter-decade, raises the possibility of a continued U.S. entanglement in that war. In particular, Obama's plan to leave 35,000 to 50,000 support troops in Iraq between August 31, 2010 and December 31, 2011, has made the left of his party as nervous as a vegan in a butcher shop. Congressional leaders like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi have urged that the ...
Will Obama Be a President Defined by War?
Post Date: 2009-03-02 11:08:33 by war
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Barack Obama's greatest fear may be that his presidency will be overcome by war, not the economy. It's taken for granted that Obama will preside over far reaching social reform. His address to Congress last week was received as a philosophical shot across the bow of Washington. Ronald Reagan's conservative covenant is now to be reversed by Obama. Liberalism is on the march. That may all come to pass. But history reveals that war tends to bankrupt the ambitions of reformers. Active state liberals like Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson all saw the pendulum of their presidencies swing from domestic to foreign affairs. "American history ...
21st Century Paranoid Guy
Post Date: 2009-03-01 14:21:44 by Turtle
4 Comments
I recently received an email which read, in part: "Charles Lindbergh was a traitor who tried to sell out his country to the Nazis just as many leftists today would sell us out to the Islamo-Fascists." The letter was in response to my review of Philip Roth's libelous (and boring) novel, The Plot Against America, an odious attempt at an "alternate history" in which Charles Lindbergh became President in 1940, kept America out of World War II, and turned the US into the American version of Nazi Germany. To be accurate, I will refer to this writer as "21st Century Paranoid Guy." It only took several seconds to understand what the story was behind Paranoid ...
Suspected US missiles kill 7 in northwest Pakistan
Post Date: 2009-03-01 12:50:36 by christine
1 Comments
ISLAMABAD (AP) - Suspected U.S. missiles killed seven people in a Pakistani Taliban stronghold Sunday, officials said, while an attack on a military convoy and a cleric's two-week deadline for the creation of Islamic courts rattled peace talks with militants elsewhere in the country's northwest. The missile strike underscored the Obama administration's unwillingness to abandon a Bush-era tactic said to have killed several key al-Qaida figures, despite persistent Pakistani protests. The Muslim nation has used both peace pacts and military offensives to deal with insurgents along its border with Afghanistan, and it warns that the missile attacks dent civilian support for its ...
How Mom sent a guy to Gitmo
Post Date: 2009-02-28 07:28:46 by Ada
2 Comments
She thought her article was satire, but U.S. officials didn't get the joke. My mother is a terrorist! Or at least that's what certain unidentified U.S. interrogators seem to suspect. It all stems from a satirical article called "How to Build Your Own Home H-Bomb" that my mother, Barbara Ehrenreich, wrote with two coauthors 30 years ago. The article, published in Seven Days magazine, was chock-full of helpful tips for would-be nuclear bomb makers. For instance, it advised those struggling to enrich uranium to make "a simple home centrifuge. Fill a standard-size bucket one-quarter full of liquid uranium hexafluoride. Attach a six-foot rope to the bucket handle. Now ...
Obama's Troop Drawdown Decision Will End Iraq War in Late 2010, Officials Say
Post Date: 2009-02-27 12:59:10 by Jethro Tull
7 Comments
The Iraq war will come to an end on Aug. 31, 2010, senior officials said, following President Obama's decision to end all counter-insurgency missions by that time. Obama told top leaders in Congress on Thursday that he will transition the mission in Iraq to training, advising and engaging in limited counter-terrorist operations, according to congressional sources. The president is expected to deliver a speech Friday at the Marine base in Camp Lejeune, N.C, in which he will order the immediate drawdown of the 142,000 Marines and Army personnel in Iraq. Obama's decision reflects his belief that "there have been real advances" in the country and, as result, the U.S. ...
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