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By Miriam Pawel
$18.48
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By Dana Johnson
$15.95
$23
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Turkey has dramatically ramped up its cross-border campaign against Kurds in Iraq with an airstrike involving as many as 50 warplanes. The Turkish military says the assault was aimed at Kurdish rebels seeking refuge in Iraq and not “people living in northern Iraq or local groups not engaged in enemy activity.”
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collegeprofiles.com
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A 42-year-old Navy chaplain has been sentenced for a range of sexual crimes committed at the Quantico Marine base and the Naval Academy. In one episode, Lt. Cmdr. John Thomas Matthew Lee forced oral sex on a 20-year-old midshipman. So much for moral superiority.
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A day after the release of the National Intelligence Estimate assessment on Iran’s purportedly halted nuclear weapons program, President Bush once again demonstrated his well-practiced ability to repurpose facts or opinions to better serve his administration’s aims.
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By Joe Conason — The ascension of George W., according to many Bush loyalists, was a return of mature and wise foreign policy. Tell that to the ailing Middle East, whose future is now being pondered in a U.S. meeting that seems destined to fail.
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By Amy Goodman — The Democrats have gotten in bed with torturers, those who support cruel treatment of military prisoners and some who may have authorized such abuse.
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AP photo / Gerald Herbert
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By Chris Hedges — All great empires and nations decay from within. By the time they hobble off the world stage, overrun by the hordes at the gates or vanishing quietly into the pages of history books, what made them successful and powerful no longer has relevance.
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AP photo / Murad Sezer
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By Scott Ritter — The former weapons inspector and military intelligence officer argues that Turkey, once dismissed as the “sick man of Europe,” will be ignored by the West at its own peril.
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defenseindustrydaily.com
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Roughly 20,000 soldiers who aren’t on the military’s list of combat wounded have signs of brain injury, according to an analysis of Army, Navy and Veterans Affairs data conducted by USA Today. The Pentagon’s official tally of troops who’ve suffered brain trauma in combat is 4,471—one-fifth the total gleaned from military records.
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Bilal Hussein, an AP photographer whom the U.S. military has accused of collaborating with insurgents, has been detained in Iraq for 19 months and may soon be tried by an Iraqi court. The Associated Press, apparently fed up with trying to reason with the military, has released the results of its own exhaustive investigation, which found the charges against Hussein to be “false” and “meaningless.”
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James Harris and Josh Scheer —
Truthdig speaks with Sharon Weinberger, whose book “Imaginary Weapons” looks into why the Pentagon has spent billions of dollars on fantastical weapons programs, some of which defy the laws of physics.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — It’s time that we subject the Iraq war to the same cost-benefit analysis that we are called upon to impose on other government endeavors. We are supposed to repeal or revise domestic programs that don’t work. Shouldn’t a troubled war policy be treated the same way?
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current.com
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If the combined power of thousands of Buddhist monks staging a nonviolent protest isn’t enough to oust Burma’s oppressive junta, one American hero (cue movie trailer voice-over) is coming to fight for democracy in a faraway land—or at least stick his nose in another nation’s business.
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By Joe Conason — The Pentagon has launched a preventive strike against a target that military chiefs presumably regard as one of the most active current threats to U.S. and world security—namely, the office of the vice president of the United States.
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nytimes.com
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The FBI, which is still investigating Blackwater’s Sept. 16 killing rampage in Baghdad, has determined that at least 14 of the 17 shootings were unjustified and in violation of deadly-force rules. The Justice Department is looking into whether to press charges, if it even has the authority, which means that Blackwater could very well get away with murder.
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AP photo / Gerald Herbert
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By Robert Scheer — “The war on terror” made me do it. That’s the excuse that works for George W. Bush to rationalize his assaults on the rule of law, from arbitrary arrest to torture. So why not try some war-on-terror obfuscation to bail out his president-dictator buddy over in Pakistan?
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Since shortly after Project Blue Book was ordered closed in 1969, the U.S. government has officially ignored claims of UFO sightings, but an international group of former military officers and government officials says it’s time to take the potential national security threat seriously.
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AP photo / Brennan Linsley
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By Chris Hedges — The last, best hope for averting a war with Iran lies with the United States military. We will be saved or doomed by our generals.
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usafa.af.mil
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By David Antoon — Retired Air Force Col. David Antoon investigates the evangelical Christian takeover of the military, where proselytizing has become institutionalized and religious ideology threatens to supersede the values of the Constitution.
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The Pentagon is evaluating how it can streamline the process that allows recruits with criminal records to serve in the military. The proposed action is the latest in a series of cash bonuses and relaxed requirements that are meant to help the military cope with its recruitment problem. We can think of a much more effective measure to get young men and women to sign up for military service: End the war in Iraq.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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The Air Force has decided to ground all 676 F-15 fighter jets in service because of a recent crash that is thought to have originated from a mechanical defect that may have caused the plane to break up in flight.
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nytimes.com
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By Todd Gitlin — Was the Bush administration’s fevered response to 9/11 made easier by primal American myths of victimization and fear, as Susan Faludi argues in her provocative new book?
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Despite a military crackdown that led to the death and capture of countless civilians, Buddhist monks are once again protesting in Burma, though in much smaller numbers than before. Still, human rights and democracy advocates consider it a promising development.
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AP photo / Junji Kurokawa
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By Robert Scheer — Not to stoke any of the inane conspiracy theories running wild on the Internet, but if Osama bin Laden wasn’t on the payroll of Lockheed-Martin or some other large defense contractor, he deserves to have been. What a boondoggle 9/11 has been for the merchants of war, who this week announced yet another quarter of whopping profits made possible by George Bush’s pretending to fight terrorism by throwing money at outdated Cold War-style weapons systems.
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Truthdig speaks with Sharon Weinberger, whose book “Imaginary Weapons” looks into why the Pentagon has spent billions of dollars on fantastical weapons programs, some of which defy the laws of physics.
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This week’s Mosaic Intelligence Report looks at the U.S.‘s newly imposed sanctions against Iran’s military—the first time, the Link TV report points out, that the U.S. has sought to punish another country’s military this way. Could America’s latest move constitute a prelude to war? Iranian officials have reacted angrily, saying the sanction strategy is “doomed to failure.”
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On Friday night, not long after Russian President Vladimir Putin invoked the historical specter of the Cuban missile crisis in reference to President Bush’s planned missile shield in Europe, the U.S. successfully carried out another missile defense test off the coast of Kauai.
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By Chalmers Johnson — The best-selling author of “The Sorrows of Empire” takes a look at David Halberstam’s critical history of the Korean War.
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The State Department will implement new measures to guard against a repeat of last month’s Blackwater slaughter of 17 Iraqi civilians, but some of the new rules, including more cultural awareness training, feel like a Band-Aid on a serious head wound. In addressing this issue, the Iraqi government has chosen to make a point of its sovereignty, and so far the U.S. has done little to allay the Iraqi concerns.
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aftonbladet.se
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The White House’s latest request ($46 billion) for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was greeted with fighting words by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: “President Bush should not expect Congress to rubber-stamp his latest supplemental request. We’re not going to do that.” For those keeping track at home, Bush has now asked for $196.4 billion so far for the budget year that began in October.
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politico.com
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Hillary Clinton may be the front-runner, but her campaign has been doing a bit of damage control in Iowa over the senator’s vote to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization, a move critics believe is a prelude to war with Iran. Clinton sent out a mass mailing explaining her vote and insisting that she opposes military action “without full Congressional approval.”
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guardian.co.uk
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The British government’s Foreign Affairs Committee will look into charges by a number of sources, including human rights groups and a retired U.S. general, that sovereign British land has been used as a CIA “black site” prison. The island of Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, has been leased to the United States and is the site of an American military base but remains British territory.
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nytimes.com
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Determined to show just how adolescent they can be, U.S. representatives in Baghdad have expressed dissatisfaction and suspicion over a pair of power plants that Iranian and Chinese companies plan to build in Iraq. One American military official described the contracts this way: “As you know, it’s not always as it appears.”
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sunsearch.info
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The Turkish parliament has authorized military incursions into Iraq in order to track down rebels who, the Turkish government has long claimed, use Iraqi Kurdistan as sanctuary.
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wikipedia.org
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Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former top commander in Iraq, has issued a devastating critique of the “incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders” in planning and executing the Iraq war, which he called a “catastrophic failure.” Sanchez also warned that the president’s “surge” might “stave off defeat” but will not lead to victory.
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inthesetimes.com
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Fifteen Iraqi women and children found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time Thursday when the U.S. launched a series of airstrikes to back up ground operations targeting suspected insurgents.
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4president.org
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How does the Bush family, including First Twin Jenna Bush, handle all the critical media coverage about George W.? According to Jenna, they “don’t watch too much television.” And, when asked by Time reporter Carolyn Sayre why she isn’t serving in Iraq, she insisted, ” ... It’s not even a practical question.” Oh.
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AP photo / LM Otero
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James Harris and Josh Scheer —
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Philip Coyle knows a thing or two about the “staggering” amounts of money the U.S. funnels into the military-industrial complex, and why it is so difficult to stanch the profiteering.
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Patrick Chappatte, NZZ am Sonntag —
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If one were to ask President Bush to make sense of his strategy in Iraq, he would likely suggest that by providing stability, the Iraqi government could work toward reconciliation and an end to sectarian bloodletting, but according to several key Iraqi leaders, that just isn’t going to happen. Better, they argue, to focus on the basics of governing and providing services that Iraqis continue to suffer without.
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AP Photo / Ivan Sekretarev
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Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is busily offering olive branches, and even pledging to resign his military post in the near future, during the final hours before Saturday’s presidential election. It looks like his strategy may work, as the election is expected to result in victory for Musharraf, even as his legitimacy as a candidate is being contested and reviewed by the nation’s top court.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Would conservatives and Republicans support the war in Iraq if they had to pay for it? This is the immensely useful question that Rep. David Obey, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, put on the table this week by calling for a temporary war tax to cover President Bush’s request for $145 billion in supplemental spending for Iraq.
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The House voted 389 to 30 to pass a bill that would make private contractors working for the U.S. government in Iraq subject to United States law. It’s the second time Congress has attempted to apply some sense to the legal vacuum created by the Bush administration and its Coalition Provisional Authority, which pushed through what amounts to blanket immunity for mercenaries.
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israellobbybook.com
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The editor of the provocative new bestseller by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt asks the authors (pictured above) whether their book is good for the Jews and good for America.
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bernama.com
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Burma’s top military general has agreed to meet with imprisoned opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, provided she drops her “attitude” and meets other conditions. Meanwhile, the government says it has arrested 2,093 protesters and bystanders (Burmese law prohibits gatherings of five or more), while the BBC puts the figure closer to 10,000.
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rawstory.com
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Last Friday, National Guard Spc. Ciara Durkin was found dead on her U.S. base in Afghanistan with a single gunshot wound in her head. Now, her family is looking for answers and wondering why the U.S. military isn’t offering details about the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death.
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By Joe Conason — The controversy over what Rush Limbaugh meant when he uttered the phrase “phony soldiers” last week isn’t just another broadcast sideshow. As the political power of conservatism declines, the symbolic authority of figures such as Limbaugh is likewise shrinking.
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news.yahoo.com
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Burma’s military government has intensified its crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, abducting people from their homes in the middle of the night. U.S. Embassy personnel have found some Buddhist monasteries completely deserted while others have been closed off by soldiers.
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foreignpolicy.com
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The Washington Post has it on good authority that Pakistan is losing its war against Taliban and al-Qaida forces operating within its borders, due in no small part to Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s tenuous hold on power.
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