One of the nation’s leading legal rights groups is calling on the U.S. Congress to make major changes in the USA PATRIOT Act to reverse parts of the hurriedly passed law that have been found unconstitutional or have been abused to collect information on innocent people. On Dec. 31, 2009, three provisions of the PATRIOT …
Continue reading “ACLU: Let Spy Laws Fade Into the Sunset”
With the usual fanfare, the Obama administration has proclaimed a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan. On the surface, it does not amount to much. But if a story by Bill Gertz in the March 26 Washington Times is correct, there is more to it than meets the eye. Gertz reported: "The Obama administration …
Continue reading “Another War Lost?”
Updated at 8:55 p.m. EDT, Mar. 30, 2009
Calm may have returned to central Baghdad, but violence continued over much of Iraq. At least 15 Iraqis were killed and 19 more were wounded in various attacks. No Coalition deaths were reported, but a U.S. soldier was convicted of murdering four Iraqis in his care, and sentenced to 35 years in prison. Also, the British will hand over their base at the Basra airport to U.S. forces tomorrow.
Let’s start by stopping. It’s time, as a start, to stop calling our expanding war in Central and South Asia “the Afghan War” or “the Afghanistan War.” If Obama’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke doesn’t want to, why should we? Recently, in a BBC interview, he insisted that “the ‘number one problem’ …
Continue reading “The Great Afghan Bailout”
The idea that anything has really changed, at least in the realm of foreign policy, with the ascension of Barack Obama to the White House, is now completely debunked by the administration’s latest pronouncement on the "Af-Pak" war, and I quote from the "white paper" that accompanied the President’s spiel: "The ability of extremists in …
Continue reading “Af-Pak Fever”
Obama embarks on another march of folly, says Ray McGovern
Justin Raimondo on the Obamaites at war
Alan Bock on the new Af-Pak strategy
Updated at 6:35 p.m. EDT, Mar. 29, 2009
At least 10 Iraqis were killed and 72 more were wounded, mostly in bomb blasts across the country. Rioting and arrests continued in Baghdad’s Fadhil neighborhood. No Coalition deaths were reported, but British troops are on a general suicide watch even though they have begun their drawdown. Also, a U.N. report is expected to suggest a number of power-sharing options for the multi-ethnic, oil-rich Kirkuk province.
The argument for deeper U.S. military commitment to the Afghan War invoked by President Barack Obama in his first major policy statement on Afghanistan and Pakistan Friday – that al Qaeda must be denied a safe haven in Afghanistan – has been not been subjected to public debate in Washington.
