The New Neocons
The last futile, expensive, and grotesquely immoral war launched by the United States was authored by those ideological shape-shifters and creatures of legend, the neoconservatives (neocons for short), whose storied history has been the subject of endless books,...
McChrystal Choice Suggests Special-Ops Strikes to Continue
The choice of Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to become the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan has been hailed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and national news media as ushering in a new, unconventional approach to counterinsurgency. But McChrystal's background sends a...
Back to the Balkans
A story I read years ago culminated with the protagonist holed up in a cheap hotel in the Balkans, listening unwillingly through the paper-thin wall as the man in the room next door beat his wife. As he pummeled her, she cried again and again, "Balkan!...
Pipelineistan Goes Af-Pak
Back in March, Pepe Escobar, that itchy, edgy global reporter for one of my favorite online publications, Asia Times, began laying out the great, ongoing energy struggle across Eurasia, or what he likes to call Pipelineistan for its web of oil and natural gas...
Stop ‘Helping’ Af-Pak
From Phnom Penh to Islamabad
Last September, during the American presidential campaign, I wrote a column declaring that the United States had again invaded Cambodia, only this time "Cambodia" was Pakistan. President George W. Bush had ordered U.S. ground attacks on the Taliban inside...
Tuesday: 10 Iraqis Killed, 33 Wounded
Updated at 7:58 p.m. EDT, May 12, 2009
At least 10 Iraqis were killed and 33 more were wounded in today’s attacks. The number of casualties in a suicide bombing in Kirkuk could rise. No Coalition deaths were reported, but authorities identified the U.S. soldier who killed five fellow soldiers yesterday in Baghdad. Meanwhile, a man claiming to be Abu Omar al-Baghdadi said he was not in Iraqi custody. Also, it seems that the central government has again changed its mind on Kurdish oil sales.
read moreLawmakers Try to Block New Abuse Photos
Civil libertarians are condemning a call by two influential U.S. senators for the White House to block the impending release of photographs showing detainees being abused by U.S. military personnel at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at other U.S. detention...
