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By James Andrew Miller, Tom Shales
$14.91
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By Gore Vidal
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U.S. Air Force / Master Sgt. Scott Reed
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By Scott Ritter — Key to Barack Obama’s surge is his expansion of targeted assassinations taking place under the guise of unmanned aerial drones operating in the Af-Pak region.
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Something just doesn’t add up about the stated logic of sending 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, says Jamal Dajani, who has a theory about the president’s real reason for escalating the war.
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U.S. Air Force / Staff Sgt. Stephen J. Otero
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By Eugene Robinson — Even if the surge works, why wouldn’t al-Qaida—or some like-minded group—simply set up shop in Somalia? Or in Yemen, another failing state?
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AP / Charles Rex Arbogast
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By Peter Z. Scheer — The other “peace candidate” in the 2008 Democratic primary isn’t thrilled with the president’s order to radically escalate the war in Afghanistan, no matter if there’s an exit strategy: “What are we going to learn in 18 months that we haven’t already learned in the last eight years?”
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AP / Charles Rex Arbogast
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The other “peace candidate” in the 2008 Democratic primary isn’t thrilled with the president’s order to radically escalate the war in Afghanistan, no matter if there’s an exit strategy: “What are we going to learn in 18 months that we haven’t already learned in the last eight years?”
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Monte Wolverton, Cagle Cartoons —
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Patrick Corrigan, The Toronto Star —
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Flickr / SEIU International
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Rep. Dennis Kucinich writes, “An escalation of the war in Afghanistan at a time of such economic dislocation and hardship raises questions about America’s priorities. ...”
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U.S. Marine Corps / Cpl. Artur Shvartsberg
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Thanks to high-level leaks, we now know semiofficially that President Obama plans to deploy 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, that he will announce a time frame for withdrawal and that his exit strategy (as well as Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s) depends on the expansion of the dysfunctional Afghanistan National Army. (continued) Update
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White House / Pete Souza
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President Obama won’t unveil his plans for Afghanistan until next week, but military officials tell the AP he intends to escalate the war by sending up to 35,000 additional troops. Press secretary Robert Gibbs said the plan would include an exit strategy, but that’s little consolation for the doves who got Obama elected. (continued)
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By Eugene Robinson — It is wrong to sacrifice troops without military goals that are clear, achievable and worthwhile. And what goals in Afghanistan remotely satisfy those criteria?
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U.S. Marine Corps / Cpl. Daniel Martin Moman
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Karl W. Eikenberry, a former top-ranking general who once commanded allied forces in Afghanistan and now leads America’s diplomatic mission in Kabul, has reportedly urged President Obama to delay any escalation of the war until Hamid Karzai ... (continued)
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AP / David Guttenfelder
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By Scott Ritter — President Obama may have won the Nobel Peace Prize, but if he allows himself to be bullied into supporting Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s foray into Afghanistan, he will reveal himself as the worst kind of warmonger.
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Patrick Corrigan, The Toronto Star —
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U.S. Army / Staff Sgt. Adam Mancini
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President Obama is expected to order 4,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, on top of the 17,000 previously announced and 38,000 already there. This latest batch of personnel is reported to be departing in June with a mission to train Afghan forces.
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AP pool photo / Aleksey Nikolskyi
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By Scott Ritter — The president must be getting bad advice. Why else would he offer not to build a missile defense system he doesn’t want in exchange for Russia’s help with an Iranian nuclear weapons program that doesn’t exist?
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U.S. Army / Staff Sgt. Adam Mancini
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The president will withdraw 12,000 troops from Iraq over the next six months, but where will he send them? Back to America? Ski trip to Aspen? Or perhaps he’ll just airlift the veterans to Afghanistan, where a similar number of reinforcements has been promised over a similar period.
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DoD / Sgt. Zach Otto, U.S. Army
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President Obama’s desire to escalate the war in Afghanistan, a sore spot for the progressives and anti-war folk who helped elect him, took a major step forward Tuesday when the White House announced plans to raise troop levels in Afghanistan by 50 percent over the next few months.
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USAF / Michael B. Keller
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By Scott Ritter — Iraq is not Vietnam, yet there are parallels between the two wars. The American military dominated the battlefield in both conflicts, and yet America the nation emerged the loser in each. A “decent interval” is now needed for American troops to withdraw.
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One of JFK’s “best and brightest” died wondering how the Vietnam War could have gone so wrong. Now, in an important new book, we have some answers.
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By Joe Conason — If the prospect of appointing Hillary Clinton as secretary of state irritates the Obama base, what will they make of keeping the man who has executed President Bush’s policies at the Pentagon?
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By Eugene Robinson — No, it’s not your imagination: The “debate” about Iraq, and I use the word loosely, becomes ever more surreal as the occupation drags on.
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By Marie Cocco — Back in 2006, the Iraq Study Group said that all U.S. combat brigades in Iraq should be out by now. They also warned that an escalation, or “surge,” “would not solve the fundamental cause of violence in Iraq.”
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By Joe Conason — John McCain says that when it comes to Iraq, Americans should look to the future, but that’s to be expected of such an enthusiastic supporter of the disaster.
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By Joe Conason — Within the next two weeks, the number of American troops killed in Iraq is likely to reach 4,000, assuming that the average number of fatal casualties per day remains steady. It is an arbitrary number, given meaning by the fact that the nation may briefly take notice, but a day will come in this presidential campaign when Sen. John McCain must explain what he thinks we have gained by the sacrifice of those men and women.
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AP photo / Khalid Mohammed
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By Scott Ritter — The former U.N. weapons inspector examines the president’s claims about the “surge” and says what the media and Congress won’t: It is not a strategy, it is an escalation, one that will not prevent the coming collapse of Iraq. There are no solutions just waiting to be found, and the only sensible thing to do is leave. Now.
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By Joe Conason — As America marks the first anniversary of the troop escalation in Iraq, at least one thing has become clear. Although the “surge” is failing as policy, it seems to be succeeding as propaganda.
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AP photo / Dusan Vranic
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By Scott Ritter — From Hillary Clinton to Mitt Romney, the candidates have no shortage of solutions for the Iraq mess, but their shallow rhetoric reveals an ignorance of the increasingly fractured and disastrous reality.
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By Eugene Robinson — The next six months in Iraq are crucial—and always will be. That noise you heard Monday on Capitol Hill was the can being kicked further down the road leading to January 2009, when George W. Bush gets to hand off his Iraq fiasco to somebody else.
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AP Photo / Charlie Riedel
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By Eugene Robinson — Here’s a surprise: Remember how we were told that if we just waited until the fall, we’d see that George W. Bush’s “surge” was working in Iraq? Well, now it turns out that we shouldn’t expect answers in September after all.
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While the Bush administration has repeatedly referred to the Democrats’ timetable for withdrawal from Iraq as a recipe for failure, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has praised the measure. He’s also urged an assessment of the troop escalation by this summer—sooner than supporters of the “surge” would like—and indicated support for a withdrawal as outlined by the Iraq Study Group, which he was once a part of.
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By Eugene Robinson — Walls don’t unite, they divide. Contrary to Bush’s rosy estimation of the “surge,” the news that the U.S. is ghettoizing Baghdad is a sign of how chaotic the situation has become.
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Despite a week of horrific violence in Iraq, President Bush reaffirmed on Friday his belief that the surge was working, while Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki insisted two days later that his country was not in a state of civil war. In the latest round of attacks Sunday, 70 people were killed, including 23 members of a religious minority.
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John McCain characterized antiwar Democrats as shortsighted political opportunists Wednesday during a speech at the Virginia Military Institute in which he repeatedly invoked the specter of “another 9/11.” With unimpressive fundraising and disappointing polling, the senator has made Iraq his signature issue in an effort to appeal to Republican primary voters.
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If you missed John McCain’s recent damage control session on “60 Minutes,” here are the highlights. The senator tried to blame his ill-conceived springtime-in-Baghdad campaign on his shoot-from-the-hip style. The straight-talk express, with nonstop service to a concession speech.
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washingtonpost.com
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John McCain will attempt to resurrect his struggling presidential campaign by launching a coordinated effort to reaffirm his support for the Iraq war. While his rosy take on “progress” in Baghdad just blew up in his face, the candidate has effectively painted himself into a corner.
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In an effort to meet the demands of the administration, Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to send 12,000 National Guard troops to Iraq, according to a report from NBC News. In other news, the Pentagon said Monday that roughly 4,500 troops would soon redeploy without getting their full year off.
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By Joe Conason — Sen. John McCain invaded a Baghdad market with a small army this week, determined to sell the surge. But Americans and Iraqis know better: No matter how many soldiers are sacrificed to delay the fact, the war is lost.
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nytimes.com
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Merchants at a Baghdad market have objected to Sen. John McCain’s assertion that his recent visit was evidence of the U.S. troop surge working. Unlike the typical Iraqi shopper, the Republican congressional delegation that visited the Shorja market Sunday was protected by 100 U.S. soldiers, attack helicopters, body armor and, just to be safe, a contingent of snipers.
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telegraph.co.uk
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Sen. John McCain stood by his optimistic view of the surge on Sunday after visiting a Baghdad market under heavy guard with a group of Republican lawmakers wearing body armor. Southwest of Baghdad, six American soldiers were killed by roadside bombings.
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CNN’s John Roberts refutes John McCain’s idealized presentation of Iraq a day after the senator said the U.S. troop surge was working. McCain tried to claim that the media are stuck in a time warp of three-month-old bad news, but it turns out he was either misinformed, mistaken or lying about the results of the surge in Baghdad.
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By Joe Conason — Every dismal anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq has come to resemble the last, at least for anyone still listening to George W. Bush. So redundant were the president’s remarks that they scarcely registered on the front pages.
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AP Photo / Jerome Delay
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By Robert Scheer — The man who once famously took a sledgehammer to Saddam Hussein’s statue now says “the Americans are worse than the dictatorship.” That’s a growing sentiment in George W. Bush’s Iraq, where a majority of people view attacks on coalition forces as acceptable.
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The president has announced plans to send an additional 4,400 troops to Iraq, on top of the 21,500 combat troops he’s already authorized. Bush has requested $3.2 billion to pay for the increase, putting the ball in the Democrats’ court.
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A new antiwar campaign takes its inspiration from the late, great Molly Ivins, one of Truthdig’s most popular writers. In the last column she wrote before dying, Molly had this plea: “Raise hell…. Hit the streets to protest Bush’s proposed surge…. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, ‘STOP IT, NOW!’ ”
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon has agreed to a request from our man in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, to send an additional 2,200 military police. Gates said the number would not count against the 21,500 combat troops or the 2,400 support troops Bush plans to send. Earlier, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England said the number of support troops could jump to 7,000.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — When it comes to ending the war in Iraq, Democrats have a tougher fight than many had expected. If recent battles on the Hill and in the press are any indication, it’s likelier to be a long hard slog than a quick rout.
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Benghazi: Dissecting Congressional Follies, Media Coverage and ‘Cover-Up’ Charges
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