NIAMEY – Since January, various groups of Tuareg rebels in Mali have come together in an attempt to administer a new northern state called Azawad. While this was announced on April 6, the rebel grouping’s control of the region remains questionable, and the roots behind the conflict complex. After the colonial French departed in 1960, …
Continue reading “Mali Heading Closer to Civil War”
Listen to Rep. Paul deliver this address. This month, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki announced the addition of some 1,900 mental health nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers to its existing workforce of 20,590 mental health staff in attempt to get a handle on the epidemic of suicides among combat veterans. Unfortunately, when presidents …
Continue reading “We Were Right About the Costs of War”
Look at these photographs. See the eager faces among the children at the school — they could be anyone’s kids at any moment in America. And the baby, so precious and new, reflecting the light of his proud parents, the hope of everyone around him. Now imagine that the school is attacked by Predator drones …
Continue reading “Waking Up to the Drones”
“The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.” – James Madison Drones — unmanned aerial vehicles — come in all shapes and sizes, from nano-sized drones as small as a grain of sand that can do everything from conducting surveillance to detonating explosive charges, to massive “hunter/killer” …
Continue reading “The Empire Strikes Back: Attack of the Drones”
The Supreme Judicial Council said the trial against Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi will begin as planned on Thursday, but only three of more than 150 cases tied to Hashemi will be addressed. At least eight Iraqis were killed and 30 more were wounded.
He has few constraints (except those he’s internalized). No one can stop him or countermand his orders. He has a bevy of lawyers at his beck and call to explain the “legality” of his actions. And if he cares to, he can send a robot assassin to kill you, whoever you are, no matter where …
Continue reading “The Obama Contradiction”
The US embassy in Beijing is a pretty happening place of late. First the police chief of a major city tries to defect and implicates the wife of a top Chinese leader in a murder plot. The police chief, one Wang Lijun, leaves the next day, is spirited away by the authorities – and Bo …
Continue reading “China’s ‘Reformist’ Crooks”
“Today, Afghanistan and the U.S. initialed and locked the text of the strategic partnership agreement,” said President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi. “This means the text is closed….” Why “lock” or “close” the future of Afghanistan to 30 million ordinary Afghan citizens? While the world may accept that the U.S. and Afghan governments have some …
Continue reading “The UN May Have Silenced the Afghan Public”
Just days after the Kurdish Regional Government called on the United States to cancel an order of fighter jets headed to Iraq, the K.R.G. approved for its own use all types of weapons. Baghdad quickly warned the Kurds that their possession of tanks and warplanes is against the Iraqi constitution. Meanwhile, new violence at least three Iraqis killed and 17 more wounded.
Several of Iraq’s top politicians met today in Arbil to discuss the political impasse that threatens to destroy Iraq’s coalition government. Meanwhile, at least 11 Iraqis were killed and 10 more were wounded.
