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Tag: Iraq


AP/Google/Connie Zhou

The Terror Con

The name of the game is threat inflation, and no one has been better at it than the folks at Booz Allen Hamilton, the inventors of the new boondoggle called cyberwarfare.

Posted on Jun 18, 2013 READ MORE



White House/Chuck Kennedy

On Civil Liberties, Comparing Obama With Bush Is Easy—and Mostly Wrong

Rather than hyping the terrorist threat, like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, President Obama has repeatedly framed a calmer—if equally resolute—attitude toward Islamist extremism.

Posted on Jun 14, 2013 READ MORE



AP/Kin Cheung

One American Who Isn’t for Sale

Whistle-blower Edward Snowden worked for a private company that got 98 percent of its $5.8 billion last year from the taxpayers, who are the same folks being spied upon.

Posted on Jun 11, 2013 READ MORE



AP/J. Scott Applewhite

China Benefits From Bush’s Folly

What the Chinese have demonstrated is that in the modern world, to the conquerors do not go the spoils.

Posted on Jun 3, 2013 READ MORE



B.S. Wise (CC BY 2.0)

More Than 1,000 Iraqis Killed in May

The United Nations reports more than 1,000 deaths due to political violence in Iraq in May, the highest monthly total in years.

Posted on Jun 1, 2013 READ MORE



bunky pickle (CC BY 2.0)

The Cold War Redux?

Did Washington just give Israel the green light for a future attack on Iran via an arms deal? Did Russia just signal its further support for Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime via an arms deal? Are the Russians, the Chinese, and the Americans all heightening regional tensions in Asia via arms deals?

Posted on May 30, 2013 READ MORE



DoD/MC1 Chad J. McNeeley

America’s Misguided Pivot to Asia

China certainly is no military threat to the continental United States, or to its security, economy or major national interests.

Posted on May 28, 2013 READ MORE



White House/Pete Souza

Declaring the 9/11 Era Over

President Obama wisely avoided the phrase “mission accomplished” in his major speech last week about the “war on terror,” but columnists aren’t obliged to be so circumspect: It is time to declare victory and get on with our lives.

Posted on May 27, 2013 READ MORE



AP/Ivan Sekretarev

Revenge of the Bear: Russia Strikes Back in Syria

Not since the end of the Cold War in 1991 has Russia asserted itself so forcefully beyond its borders.

Posted on May 20, 2013 READ MORE



AP/ Hasan Sarbakhshian, File

What Will Tighter Restrictions on Trade in Iran Do?

A bipartisan team of U.S. senators has introduced a bill that would expand sanctions against Iran by targeting an estimated $100 billion worth of the country’s foreign currency reserves that are parked in overseas accounts.

Posted on May 20, 2013 READ MORE



AP/Karim Kadim

Flaring Violence Kills 130 People in Iraq in Three Days

Gunmen killed an anti-terrorism policeman and his family in Baghdad on Saturday; kidnappers abducted eight policemen on a highway to Jordan and Syria; and attackers shot dead a Sunni cleric in the country’s Shiite-majority south.

Posted on May 18, 2013 READ MORE



AP/vk.com

Note Reportedly Says Marathon Attack Blowback Against U.S. Aggression

A note that Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is said to have left on an interior wall of the boat where police found him after the April 15 attacks claimed responsibility for the bombings and described them as retribution for the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying the Boston dead were “collateral damage” in the same way Muslims are in the American-led conflicts.

Posted on May 16, 2013 READ MORE



The U.S. Army (CC BY 2.0)

Where Has All the Money Gone?

After an extensive examination of government spending data and contracts, I estimate that the Pentagon has dispersed around $385 billion to private companies for work done outside the U.S. since late 2001, mainly in the military baseworld.

Posted on May 15, 2013 READ MORE



U.S. Marine Corps./Gunnery Sgt. Michael Kropiewnicki

The Military’s 40-Year Experiment

On June 30, 1973, a 24-year-old plumber’s apprentice became the last American forced into the armed services before the military draft expired.

Posted on May 10, 2013 READ MORE


Another Trap

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Posted on May 10, 2013 READ MORE



U.S. Navy/MC2 Edwin L. Wriston

U.S. Weighs Syrian Intervention, Despite the Consequences

The present debate in the United States over making policy for a Middle East that has been profoundly changed by the events of the past three years unhappily echoes past policies that failed.

Posted on May 7, 2013 READ MORE



U.S. Marine Corps./Lance Cpl. Juanenrique Owings

Burning Questions About Intervention in Syria

For all the armchair generals advocating U.S. military intervention in Syria, I have a few questions.

Posted on May 6, 2013 READ MORE


The Bush Library

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Posted on May 5, 2013 READ MORE



Klearchos Kapoutsis (CC BY 2.0)

Iraqi Officials Fear Full Blown Civil War

After the deadliest month of political fighting in five years, Iraq appears to be sliding rapidly into a new civil war that “will be worse than Syria,” leaders say.

Posted on May 4, 2013 READ MORE


Dubya’s Library Card

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Posted on May 4, 2013 READ MORE



White House (Archive)

What Might Be Missing From Bush’s Presidential Library

Not so fast, please: There are a few salient questions that George W. Bush (or at least his library) ought to address before the rehabilitation begins.

Posted on May 2, 2013 READ MORE



Pregnant Anti-War Soldier Sent to Prison

“Ultimately, the success of the nation depends on the character of its citizens.” So said George W. Bush in his speech at the dedication of his presidential library in Texas last week.

Posted on May 1, 2013 READ MORE



geyergus (CC BY-ND 2.0)

Chemical Weapons: ‘A Retold Drama Riddled With Plot Holes’

“In any normal society,” writes a skeptical Robert Fisk of the media and government blowup over the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government, “the red lights would now be flashing.”

Posted on May 1, 2013 READ MORE



Kim Alaniz (CC BY 2.0)

The Life and Death of Words, People and Even Nature

After Roman legions invaded Egypt, during one of the battles waged by Julius Caesar against the brother of Cleopatra, fire devoured most of the thousands upon thousands of papyrus scrolls in the Library of Alexandria. A pair of millennia later, during George W. Bush’s crusade against an imaginary enemy in Iraq, most of the books in the Library of Baghdad were reduced to ashes.

Posted on May 1, 2013 READ MORE


Bush Painting

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Posted on May 1, 2013 READ MORE


Bush’s Library

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Posted on May 1, 2013 READ MORE



White House/Pete Souza

Syria: U.S. Guns, Goggles and Military Intervention All on the Table

Seeking to clarify his “red line” position on the Syrian government’s possible use of chemical weapons, President Obama said Tuesday that he would consider a “range of options,” but he also urged patience.

Posted on Apr 30, 2013 READ MORE


Bush Legacy

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Posted on Apr 30, 2013 READ MORE


Dubya’s Library

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Posted on Apr 29, 2013 READ MORE



Jeff Vespa/WireImage

Truthdigger of the Week: Jeremy Scahill

With his new book “Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield,” Jeremy Scahill brings the last decade of the American government’s clandestine war making into the clearest possible focus.

Posted on Apr 27, 2013 READ MORE


A Cronkite Moment for the Blowback Era

You are not allowed to honestly discuss the Central Intelligence Agency’s concept of “blowback” without putting yourself at risk of being deemed a traitor to country.

Posted on Apr 26, 2013 READ MORE


Stains on a Legacy

In retrospect, George W. Bush’s legacy doesn’t look as bad as it did when he left office. It looks worse.

Posted on Apr 26, 2013 READ MORE


Bush Library Shhh

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Posted on Apr 26, 2013 READ MORE


Presidential Library

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Posted on Apr 26, 2013 READ MORE



AP/Karim Kadim

Iraq Still Uses Fake Bomb Detectors

A British businessman was convicted Tuesday of fraud for selling fake bomb detectors for as much as $40,000. Despite being “completely incapable of detecting explosives,” as police Detective Superintendent Nigel Rock put it, the devices are still in use.

Posted on Apr 24, 2013 READ MORE


The Secret Story of Obama’s Assassination of Americans in Yemen

In an hourlong special on “Democracy Now!” on Tuesday, author and Nation magazine war correspondent Jeremy Scahill tells the story of the radicalization of Islamic cleric and American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki and the U.S. government’s subsequent pursuit and assassination of him and his son.

Posted on Apr 23, 2013 READ MORE



Nation Books

Filling the Empty Battlefield

With “Blowback,” Chalmers Johnson aimed to paint a portrait of how America’s informal empire and its historically unprecedented garrisoning of the world looked to others, and so explain why animosity and blowback were building globally. Now we have a secret history of 21st-century American war in Jeremy Scahill’s latest book, “Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield.”

Posted on Apr 23, 2013 READ MORE



AP/Brendon Smialowski

277 Million Boston Bombings

The horror of Boston should be a reminder that the choice of weaponry can be in itself an act of evil.

Posted on Apr 23, 2013 READ MORE



Shutterstock photo of Boston.

Catastrophe and the Value of Silence

After an explosion like those in Boston, it is indeed hard to hear one’s own internal monologue, much less meditate on such horrific events.

Posted on Apr 19, 2013 READ MORE



U.S. Air Force/Staff Sgt. Dallas Edwards

Leaving Behind Our Loyal Afghans

More than 8,000 interpreters are employed by the United States military, and many thousands of other Afghans are working for the occupiers.

Posted on Apr 17, 2013 READ MORE



AP/Julio Cortez

A Lesson in Empathy From Glenn Greenwald

“I’m up for us ‘All Being Bostonians Today’. But then can we all be Yemenis tomorrow & Pakistanis the day after?” Greenwald’s Guardian colleague Gary Younge wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

Posted on Apr 17, 2013 READ MORE



Edd Turtle

Shell Shock Lite

It didn’t take much. No battles. No dead bodies. I spent just three and a half weeks as a contractor in Iraq, when the war there was at its height, rarely leaving the security of American military bases.

Posted on Apr 17, 2013 READ MORE



Flickr/Cliff (CC-BY)

WikiLeaks’ New Release: The Kissinger Cables and Bradley Manning

WikiLeaks has released a new trove of documents, more than 1.7 million U.S. State Department cables dating from 1973-1976 that it has dubbed “The Kissinger Cables.”

Posted on Apr 10, 2013 READ MORE



Shutterstock illustration of a drone.

Anonymous Murder From a Safe Distance

War is war and murder is murder. The law draws the distinction. The American armed drone is a weapons system of war, not of policemen.

Posted on Apr 9, 2013 READ MORE


Heritage

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Posted on Mar 29, 2013 READ MORE



Giacomo Carena (CC BY-ND 2.0)

American Anniversaries From Hell

Consider the plethora of blood-soaked little anniversaries that Americans could observe, if they cared to, from a decade-plus of the former Global War on Terror.

Posted on Mar 28, 2013 READ MORE


Cheney

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Posted on Mar 27, 2013 READ MORE



mrbill78636 (CC BY 2.0)

Hundreds of Thousands More Like Tomas Young

Almost half of the 2.2 million troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan report problems on returning home, but the attention and care many receive from the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs are not enough, a report published Tuesday finds.

Posted on Mar 27, 2013 READ MORE



AP/Emilio Morenatti

U.S. Breaks Promises to Iraqi and Afghan Refugees

Of the 1.5 million Iraqi refugees who have fled the country, only about 80,000, or 5 percent, have been resettled here in the U.S.

Posted on Mar 27, 2013 READ MORE



Exothermic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Living With No Future: Iraq, 10 Years Later

According to the Bush administration, the siege of Fallujah was carried out in the name of fighting something called “terrorism.” And yet, from the point of view of the Iraqis I was observing at such close quarters, the terror was strictly American. But governments are rarely referred to in the same terms.

Posted on Mar 27, 2013 READ MORE


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