Month: August 2007

TEHRAN – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who came to power two years ago, winning 62 percent of the popular vote, is rapidly losing popularity for failure to make good on election promises to improve the lives of ordinary people by sharing Iran’s vast oil revenues with them and respect their private lives. A poll run by … Continue reading “Ahmadinejad Held to Election Promises”

BAGHDAD – New US military operations across Iraq appear to be worsening the situation. On Aug. 13 about 16,000 US and Iraqi troops began a massive new military operation north of Baghdad. According to the US military, the goal of the operation, named Lightning Hammer, is to "target insurgents who have fled a crackdown in … Continue reading “Another US Military Operation, More Unrest”

Opening a new campaign to sustain his "surge" strategy in Iraq, President George W. Bush Wednesday compared Washington’s ongoing struggle there to both World War II and the Vietnam War where, he said, Washington’s withdrawal led to disaster for "millions of innocent citizens." Speaking to the perennially hawkish Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Convention in … Continue reading “Bush Campaigns to Sustain ‘Surge’”

In the August 2007 issue of Chronicles magazine, historian Srdja Trifkovic argues persuasively that the U.S. has painted itself into a corner with its Kosovo policy; a small patch of land in the Balkans, insignificant to American interests in Europe or the Middle East, has been made into a test of the American Empire and … Continue reading “Truths and Misconceptions”

A television adaptation of Nebula Award-winning author John Kessel’s short story “A Clean Escape,” which aired on ABC’s new sci-fi anthology series titled Masters of Science Fiction, is set in a post-Apocalypse future, but it reminded me of current events. Psychiatrist Deanna Evans interrogates a distinguished but disoriented man who appears to be suffering from … Continue reading “Dangerous Delusions”

The USA’s military spending is now close to $2 billion a day. This fall, the country will begin its seventh year of continuous war, with no end in sight. On the horizon is the very real threat of a massive air assault on Iran. And few in Congress seem willing or able to articulate a … Continue reading “Let’s Face It: The Warfare State Is Part of Us”

Why Interventionism Fails There is another reason that foreign intervention has not and will never work: What would most Americans do if any foreign power was to come to our land and start to make decisions on our behalf? Answer: We would work night and day tirelessly and with all the resources and tactics at … Continue reading “Backtalk, August 23, 2007”

Updated at 11:55 p.m. EDT, Aug. 22, 2007Today, 14 Task Force Lightning soldiers were killed when their Blackhawk helicopter crashed during a night operation in northern Iraq. Military authorities believe that mechanical failure caused the crash. In a separate incident, an MND-B soldier was killed and three more were wounded during combat operations in the … Continue reading “Wednesday: 15 GIs, 154 Iraqis Killed; 175 Iraqis Wounded”

Once again, we are being teased with the possibility that the number of U.S. troops in Iraq will be reduced. According to unnamed administration officials, Gen. David Petraeus – the top U.S. military commander in Iraq – is expected to propose a partial troop pullback in his September status report to Congress. That’s the good … Continue reading “More Troop Reduction Legerdemain”

If the op-ed page of the New York Times has often served as the first battleground in America’s wars, where the arguments and counter-arguments for intervention are debated, then the past week or so has certainly brought this institutional tradition to the fore: last week, we had Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack averring that … Continue reading “Support Our Troops”