Only one Iraqi was killed and two more were injured in unusually light violence. Meanwhile, during a speech to the Security Council, U.N. envoy to Iraq, Ad Melkert, warned that the political deadlock is harming infrastructure and services in the fragile country.
As President Obama pooh-poohed as old news the many WikiLeaks documents showing the sad state of the conflict in Afghanistan, the chief executive also began an entire month of crowing about keeping his campaign promise to “bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end.” But in both wars, the president’s strategies are flawed and …
Continue reading “What to Do About the Wars”
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: War With Iran We write to alert you to the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran as early as this month. This would likely lead to a wider war. Israel’s leaders would calculate that once the battle is joined, it will be politically …
Continue reading “A Warning to the President”
Seventeen months after President Barack Obama pledged to withdraw all combat brigades from Iraq by Sept. 1, 2010, he quietly abandoned that pledge Monday, admitting implicitly that such combat brigades would remain until the end of 2011. Obama declared in a speech to disabled U.S. veterans in Atlanta that “America’s combat mission in Iraq” would …
Continue reading “Obama Drops 2009 Pledge to Withdraw Combat Troops From Iraq”
Lindsey Graham, a war-supporting senator from South Carolina, said what he fears most is a Left-Right alliance against the Afghanistan War. He recognizes that such an alliance could stop war funding and force American troops to return home. But the masters of war may not have to use divide-and-rule tactics, because many war opponents on …
Continue reading “Can Americans Who Oppose War and Empire Work Together?”
I often make reference to “the War Party” in this space: it’s a convenient shorthand, one that evokes an image of something sinister, even Satanic, and this serves my rhetorical purposes well. But if we unpack the concept, and look for examples in real life, what we find is a little more prosaic than Satan …
Continue reading “The War Party”
Updated at 2:40 p.m. EDT, Aug. 3, 2010
A rare car bombing in a southern, Shi’ite city and another flag-planting attack on security forces in the capital were just two of the many attacks witnessed across Iraq today. Overall, at least 53 Iraqis were killed and 123 more were wounded. The figures are expected to rise in the Kut bombing. Meanwhile, 26 Kurdish families have crossed the frontier into Iraqi Kurdistan to escape Iranian artillery attacks against suspected Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) rebels.
A rabbi from one of the most violent settlements in the West Bank was questioned on suspicion of incitement last week as Israeli police stepped up their investigation into a book in which he sanctions the killing of non-Jews, including children and babies. Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira is one of the leading ideologues of the extreme …
Continue reading “Israeli Settlers Step Up ‘Price-Tag’ Policy”
High among the blunders of history was the “blank cheque” Kaiser Wilhelm gave Vienna, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to deal with the Serbs as they saw fit. Five weeks later, Vienna cashed the check and declared war, after Belgrade refused to submit to all 10 demands of an ultimatum. Russia mobilized; Germany …
Continue reading “GOP Blank Check for War?”
Like a bad penny, Newt Gingrich is back, this time demanding that Tea Partiers grab their muskets for the next revolution – in fact it’s a World War – looming on the horizon. While it sounds farcical, Gingrich’s usual demagoguery and naked opportunism have taken on an even more cynical and pernicious tone this time …
Continue reading “Newt Gingrich: A Menace to Society?” 
