Month: February 2009

Updated at 9:53 p.m. EST, Feb. 28, 2009At least three Iraqis were killed and another 19 were wounded in the latest attacks. One Marine was killed in a non-combat incident in Anbar. U.S. President Barack Obama outlined his Iraq drawdown plans yesterday, but instead of planning their trips home, some U.S. servicemembers may already have … Continue reading “Saturday: 1 Marine, 3 Iraqis Killed; 19 Iraqis Wounded”

While most mainstream press reaction to President Barack Obama’s whopping 3.5-trillion-dollar 2010 budget has naturally focused on its far-reaching – even historic – implications for the U.S. domestic economy, experts here say it also marks at least the beginning of potentially important shifts in U.S. foreign policy. The budget, which will now be taken up … Continue reading “Diplomatic, Aid Spending Set to Rise Under Obama Budget”

President Barack Obama has given military commanders a free hand to determine the size and composition of a residual force in Iraq up to 50,000 troops, apparently including the option of leaving one or more combat brigades or bringing them from the United States, after the August 2010 deadline for the ostensible withdrawal of all … Continue reading “Drawdown Plan May Leave Combat Brigades in Iraq”

EAST JERUSALEM – The continuing efforts by Israel’s presumptive next prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to assemble a rightwing-dominated government have sparked serious concern about the effects such a government might have on peace efforts with the Palestinians. In addition, the fact that Netanyahu has invited Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the openly anti-Arab Yisrael Beiteinu party, … Continue reading “Israel’s Lurch to the Right Could Be Far Indeed”

RAMALLAH – Red-faced and unusually tongue-tied Israeli officials were forced to try and explain to U.S. Senator John Kerry during his visit to Israel last week why truckloads of pasta waiting to enter the besieged Gaza strip were not considered humanitarian aid while rice was. Kerry, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, visited … Continue reading “In Gaza, Rice Is Aid, Pasta Not”

A front page article on the New York Times starts out with the sentence:  "The budget that President Obama proposed on Thursday is nothing less than an attempt to end a three-decade era of economic policy dominated by the ideas of Ronald Reagan and his supporters."  Not so much. Ronald Reagan, despite his carefully crafted … Continue reading “Erasing Red Ink: Slash the Defense Budget”

Not everyone present at an open meeting of the UN Security Council this week was happy to hear our new UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, say that the Change-You-Can-Believe-In administration "will seek an end to Iran’s ambition to acquire an illicit nuclear capacity." End Iran’s "ambition"? To acquire an "illicit" capacity? Understandably upset, Iranian ambassador, Mohammad … Continue reading “The Future of the IAEA”

I‘m still shocked, even though I shouldn’t be, when people call me a pacifist. They look at the facts that I write regularly for Antiwar.com and that I oppose every war the U.S. government is involved in, as well as virtually every war the U.S. has been in since the revolutionary war. (I’m not sure … Continue reading “Peacemaking at a Raiders’ Game”

Updated at 4:01 p.m. EST, Feb. 27, 2009The official plans for a U.S. drawdown in Iraq were announced this morning, just as the military revealed that enemy fire brought down two U.S. helicopters last month, and President Obama announced his new ambassador to the country. One U.S. soldier died yesterday in Baghdad. Otherwise, the prayer … Continue reading “Friday: 1 US Soldier, 5 Iraqis Killed; 4 Iraqis Wounded”

"Real men go to Tehran!" brayed the neoconservatives, after the success of their propaganda campaign to have America march on Baghdad and into an unnecessary war that has forfeited all the fruits of our Cold War victory. Now they are back, in pursuit of what has always been their great goal: an American war on … Continue reading “Return of the War Party”