|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By Nomi Prins
$13.22
$22
$20
|
|
|
|
Secretary of Defense (CC BY 2.0)
|
By Nick Turse, TomDispatch —
The official American reaction to the coordinated attacks in Kabul, the Afghan capital, as well as at Jalalabad airbase, and in Paktika and Logar Provinces, reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of guerrilla warfare.
|
AP / Karim Kadim
|
Anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has returned home to Iraq from his self-imposed exile in Iran, delivering a speech urging support for the new Maliki government and resistance against the U.S.—but not necessarily through armed struggle.
|
AP / Allauddin Khan
|
A new report issued by the London School of Economics claims that Pakistan’s intelligence agency is not only funding and training Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan but also holds sway in the insurgency’s leadership council.
|
AP / Karim Kadim
|
A series of deadly bombings in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq struck a party headquarters, two mosques and other sites, in apparent retaliation for a U.S.-Iraqi raid five days earlier that killed the two top leaders of the country’s insurgency.
|
Flickr / So Cal Metro
|
Seemingly taking a cue from Iraqi anti-insurgency manuals, U.S. border agents opened fire on a man as he attempted to drive through the border checkpoint at the Tijuana-San Ysidro crossing, fleeing officials after he failed to present legal identification.
|
U.S. Army / PFC Ali Hargis
|
One of the most criticized decisions made by the U.S. back in 2003 when it stumbled into Iraq like a drunk Mel Gibson at a bar mitzvah was the disbanding of the Iraqi army. All these years later, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is reinstating 20,000 of Saddam Hussein’s officers. (continued)
|
U.S. Army / Sgt. Matthew Moeller
|
By William Pfaff — The best way to deal with an insurrection is not to go in the first place. The second-best way is to get out as quickly and gracefully as possible.
|
AP / Anja Niedringhaus
|
By Robert Scheer — The most idiotic thing being said about America’s involvement in Afghanistan is that the best way to protect the 68,000 U.S. troops there now is by putting an additional 40,000 in harm’s way.
|
defenselink.mil
|
There are already about 62,000 American troops in Afghanistan, and more may be sent to combat the Taliban and contain insurgent violence, according to Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said Tuesday that the next couple of weeks could be telling in terms of how many more troops the U.S. might deploy.
|
U.S. Army / Sgt. Zach Otto
|
After an initial bulk-up in the number of troops in Afghanistan earlier this year, the commander of NATO forces in that country is preparing to ask for 20,000 more international troops as part of the ongoing war against the perpetually resurgent Taliban.
|
AP photo / B.K. Bangash
|
President Barack Obama and his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari, will have a lot to talk about when Zardari visits the White House on Wednesday, what with al-Qaida and the Taliban stirring up trouble of late and sparking concerns over the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
|
AP photo / Marko Drobnjakovic
|
Arriving soon after the deadliest suicide bombings in the last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made her first visit to Iraq in her new position, assuring Iraqis in Baghdad that they have the United States’ continued support despite the Obama administration’s focus on Afghanistan and talk of troop withdrawal.
|
|
By Amy Goodman — President Barack Obama met recently with the prime ministers of Canada and Britain, two NATO allies looking for a way out of Afghanistan even as the U.S. is talking escalation.
|
|
By Marie Cocco — We seem to have spent our way—to the tune of $864 billion—into allowing our friends the Pakistanis to enter into a peace treaty, or something that looks like it, with the Taliban.
|
DoD / Michael L. Casteel
|
Victory in Afghanistan? That’s “neither feasible nor supportable,” according to the outgoing commander of British forces there, who tells The Times of London that the Taliban “seems relatively impervious to losses.” The Afghan government must instead reach some political settlement with more moderate insurgents, concluded Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith.
|
AP photo / Dusan Vranic
|
By Patrick Cockburn — Gen. Petraeus’ oft-declared uncertainty about the future stability of Iraq is genuine. It is the Shiites and their Iranian backers, not the Americans, who are the true victors in the Iraqi war.
|
news.ninemsn.com.au
|
An attack on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen killed 16 Wednesday, though it failed to breach the inner walls of the building complex. The act, which has been claimed by the group Islamic Jihad, is probably a response to both an internal Yemeni crackdown against insurgent groups and the U.S. global “war on terror.”
Posted on Sep 17, 2008
READ MORE 
|
AP photo / Shakil Adil
|
Pakistan will have a new president, Asif Ali Zardari. The widower of slain Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto has successfully continued along his wife’s path, drawing upon the support of her allies to emerge the victor by a wide margin in the election held to replace Pervez Musharraf, who stepped down as president in mid-August.
|
AP photo / Anja Niedringhaus
|
By Anna Badkhen — Many Iraqis struggle every day to find work, but a shortage of jobs, superimposed on a tradition of using personal connections to do business, has led to what Iraqis complain is an explosion in corruption and graft among their nation’s officials.
|
AP photo
|
The demise of Manuel “Sureshot” Marulanda has been rumored many times before, but this time the Colombian army has announced that the long-time leader of the rebel group FARC is dead and has challenged FARC to disprove the report. Sources close to Marulanda have yet to confirm the news.
|
warnewsradio.org
|
In this first installment in her series of stories from Iraq for Truthdig, veteran foreign correspondent Anna Badkhen reports about the civilian costs of war, life under occupation and the precarious state of a Baghdad burger joint.
|
AP photo / Jerome Delay
|
As the U.S. government is learning much too late, democracy is not a one-size-fits-all application that can be lifted from one culture and grafted onto another. Here, UK reporter Ian Black from the Guardian Unlimited takes a look at what’s really going on politically and culturally in Iraq according to a prominent historian and his Iraqi contacts.
|
|
Harry Harrison, The South China Morning Post —
|
abc.net.au
|
Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has criticized the tough talk coming out of Washington and the presidential campaign as counterproductive. President Bush and Barack Obama, among others, have recently raised the possibility of attacking targets in Pakistan without necessarily consulting that nation’s government.
|
|
Vice President Dick Cheney is on a tear these days, standing up for his pal Alberto Gonzales, the Bush administration’s failed Iraq policy and his place in the executive branch (or not). But just when you thought you’d heard it all, Cheney came out with a shocking admission: He now knows he was wrong about the insurgency being in its “last throes.”
|
army-technology.com
|
Imagine if helicopters were firing on civilians in downtown Omaha or Manhattan, and that might come close to the scene in a busy section of downtown Baghdad on Tuesday, when Black Hawk and Apache helicopters zoomed in and battled insurgent forces.
|
|
Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his militia to redouble efforts to oust U.S. forces and called on Iraq’s army and police to join him. The U.S. military, meantime, said 10 American troops were killed over the weekend, including six on Sunday.
|
chinadaily.com
|
As if the Iraqi insurgency situation wasn’t bad enough, now an al-Qaida chapter based in Iraq is causing additional trouble with homegrown rebel groups—and calling on Osama bin Laden for assistance.
|
|
Yet another deadly attack on Iraqi pilgrims underscored the importance of this weekend’s talks between international officials about insurgent violence in Iraq. A suicide bomber in Baghdad on Sunday targeted a truck carrying Shiites going home from a pilgrimage, leaving 19 dead and 25 wounded.
|
|
More American troops are being deployed to hot spots of insurgent activity near Baghdad, Gen. David Petraeus announced Thursday. Petraeus, just beginning his tenure as U.S. military commander in Iraq, called for future negotiations with anti-government groups as well as those in support of the new Iraqi regime.
|
|
The week’s deadly trend of sectarian aggression accelerated Friday and Saturday. Yet another car bomb claimed 12 lives Saturday in Ramadi. Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki pledged to avenge the deaths of 14 police officers found slain in Baquba on Friday.
|
|
By Kasia Anderson — The proliferation of conflicting, even contradictory, media accounts of Tuesday’s explosion in Ramadi is reaching head-spinning proportions. The mystery deepened Wednesday, a full day after the BBC and other news outlets originally reported that 18 children were killed and 20 others injured by a car bomb as they gathered to play football in the western Iraqi city.
|
|
Breaking story: The BBC originally reported the deaths of at least 18 Iraqi boys who were lining up to play football today in Ramadi. However, the BBC story has apparently changed: The headline now reads “Confusion over Iraq soccer blast,” and the article cites an American official who claims that U.S. troops carried out a “controlled explosion” near a football field in the volatile western city.
|
greatestcities.com
|
Private Saudi Arabians have allegedly donated millions of dollars to Sunni insurgents in Iraq, according to the Iraq Study Group and Iraqi officials. It’s an open secret that Iran has supported Shiite militants, causing some to worry that Iraq’s sectarian strife could develop into a regional quagmire.
|
telegraph.co.uk
|
A classified U.S. government report leaked to The New York Times says the insurgency in Iraq has funds to sustain itself annually, thanks to oil smuggling, kidnapping and other nefarious activities. What’s more, the report finds insurgents may have enough money left over to finance terrorist activity outside Iraq—all while spending less in a year than the U.S. spends per day.
|
|
Opium production in Afghanistan is at the highest level ever recorded and shows an increase of 50 percent from last year. The increase in opium cultivation is a result of the resurgence of Taliban rebels. The head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, said in a statement: ?The southern part of Afghanistan was displaying the ominous hallmarks of incipient collapse, with large-scale drug cultivation and trafficking, insurgency and terrorism, crime and corruption.?
|
|
Baghdad’s morgue received 1,595 bodies last month, 16% more than in May, showing that the pace of killing has actually increased since the death of terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
This is some of the most disheartening news to come out of Iraq in a long time. It’s yet more proof that we’re fighting a Vietnam-like insurgency that can survive and even prosper after the death of its leaders.
Posted on Jul 5, 2006
READ MORE
|
Joao Silva / The N.Y. Times
|
The city of Ramadi, epicenter of the Iraqi insurgency, has already been reduced to such ruins that constantly under-fire American forces are planning to bulldoze three blocks in the center of the city and create a mini Green Zone in an attempt to gain the upper hand on the insurgents.
|
|
The acclaimed journalist (and Truthdig contributor), who has spent the last three years in Iraq, explains how his street smarts, Arabic skills and Middle Eastern looks afforded him a view of the Iraqi insurgency almost unparalleled among Western journalists. Check out the Buzzflash interview.
Posted on Jul 5, 2006
READ MORE
|
|
The Times (U.K.) reports that the Iraqi government is ready to announce a sweeping peace plan that includes amnesty for legitimate resistance fighters. Under the plan, there would be a U.N.-approved timeline for withdrawal of foreign troops; a halt to U.S. operations against insurgents; and compensation for attack victims….
Posted on Jun 23, 2006
READ MORE
|
|
Speaking at a press conference today about the Iraqi uprising, the vice president said, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we’ve encountered….”
Problem is, Cheney’s statement seems patently false…
|
AP
|
Beheading videos were the favored means of propaganda of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and this new one was clearly made to quash hopes his death would hamper the insurgency.
|
|
The death of the Al Qaeda leader is likely to downgrade sectarianism in the medium term, an expert on terrorism tells the Washington Post. “But,” he added, “the dynamic of sectarian violence is probably past the point of no return.”
|
From Interventionmag.com
|
Just 12 days into April, 33 soldiers have been killed—a figure that surpasses American military deaths for all of March. For several months, U.S. soldiers’ deaths had been on the wane, but they now are rising quickly, especially in the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency.
|
|
The sectarian violence continues unabated.
Also, a N.Y. Times reporter returns to Iraq after a year away and immediately sizes up the difference between an anti-U.S. insurgency and a civil war (although he doesn’t use that word).
|
From the NY Times
|
The New York Times uncovers the story of a top-secret detention center in Baghdad where American jailers “used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball.”
|
|
The Iraqi army now has ZERO battalions capable of fighting the insurgency without U.S. support. (The one battle-worthy battalion that the White House was so proud of has been downgraded.)
|
|
By Molly Ivins — I do hope this is responsible criticism that aims for cures, not defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure.
|
View older articles:
1 2 >
View the most popular tags overall?
|
|
Terracide and the Terrarists: Destroying the Planet for Record Profits
Newsletter 
Like Us
Follow Us
Get Our Feed
