The Iraqi government and ISIS/DAASH rebels traded claims that they each had killed hundreds of men in the last few days. Independent confirmation of these reports is not available. However, at least 30 civilians were killed, and 89 more were wounded in bombings and artillery fire.
The push towards Baghdad has now completely stalled, as security forces and volunteers appear to be fighting back effectively in some areas. According to various reports, at least 349 people were killed and 33 more were wounded today. Some of the reports cannot be independently confirmed and should be taken as estimates, particularly those in occupied cities.
Rarely do you get a chance to ask a just-retired FBI director whether he had “any legal qualms” about what, in football, is called “illegal procedure,” but at the Justice Department is called “parallel construction.” Government wordsmiths have given us this pleasant euphemism to describe the use of the National Security Agency’s illegal eavesdropping on …
Continue reading “How NSA Can Secretly Aid Criminal Cases”
Due to the chaotic situation, an accurate number of casualties cannot be determined at this time. A true number may never be known, especially if ISIS/DAASH militants are able to sustain their gains. However, The United Nations believes hundreds may have already been killed and a thousand may be wounded.
TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has revealed for the first time that Iran has made a detailed proposal to the P5+1 group of states aimed at ensuring that no stockpile of low-enriched uranium would be available for “breakout” through enrichment to weapons grade levels. In an exclusive interview with IPS, Zarif described an …
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Way back in the summer of 2009, when the US withdrawal from Iraq was being touted as yet another great triumph by the Obama administration, we wrote in this space: "Was withdrawal from Iraq just another campaign promise, made to be broken – like Obama’s pledges on government secrecy and other civil liberties issues? The …
Continue reading “Iraq War III?”
Originally posted at TomDispatch. On the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, Brian Williams led off NBC Nightly News this way: “On our broadcast tonight, the salute to the warriors who stormed the beaches here in Normandy…” It’s such a commonplace of our American world, that word “warriors” for those in the U.S. military or, …
Continue reading “Drafted by the National Security State”
The debate over America’s Middle East policy has reached a new level of surreality. In the wake of President Obama’s West Point commencement address last month – in which he pledged to “ramp up” U.S. support for Syrian rebels seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad – Washington elites are exhorting the Obama administration to do …
Continue reading “Don’t Double Down in Syria”
The fighting continued today for some members of Iraq’s army, Peshmerga troops, tribal fighters and even Iranian soldiers. However, many Iraqi soldiers simply gave up. At least 120 people died, but many uncounted militants were also reported killed in air strikes. At least 30 people were wounded. Tallying casualties in the hot zone is nearly impossible and these figures are only an estimate of known casualties.
After a month of media attention-grabbing shootings in Isla Vista, California, Las Vegas, and now at an Oregon high school, President Obama devoted some time in a Tuesday Q&A session on Tumblr.com to these sad incidents, saying that we should “be ashamed” to have failed to address these tragedies. Now, failing to solve the real …
Continue reading “Cops, Gun Control, and the Myth of the US as a Bloody Warzone” 
