As the United States withdraws the last of its 50,000 troops after a nearly nine-year military occupation of Iraq, visiting Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki had one final request: billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. weapons for his ragtag armed forces. A longstanding Soviet and later Russian ally, Iraq under former president Saddam Hussein never had …
Continue reading “Iraq Switches Allegiance to US Weapons Systems”
In 18 days, the last of the remaining U.S. forces will have left Iraq. So far, no fanfare has heralded this significant event, which has been quiet and orderly — nothing like the “shock and awe” of the initial invasion in March 2003, or the furor and tumult that marked the nearly nine-year occupation afterward. …
Continue reading “Iraq: No Comfort in Being Right”
Early Friday morning, shots rang out to herald the first days of the holiday season. Men were shot in Walmart parking lots in California and Missouri, and gunfire was reported outside of a Fayetteville, N.C., mall as shoppers were gathering to enter. Newscasters were almost giddy in their reaction to the wave of “shocking” stories …
Continue reading “Don’t Be a Tool This Christmas”
Hannah Gurman on the city’s health issues
For at least the past two decades, political leaders in the United States and Israel have warned that Iran was on the threshold of building a nuclear weapon. From what we’ve been hearing lately from the media, Iran is once again … on that threshold. Touting thousands of pages of carefully vetted intelligence, menacing satellite …
Continue reading “Iraq All Over Again?”
The confessions of 22 men charged with killing thousands of Iraqis, mostly police and army recruits, were broadcast during a news conference on Iraqi state television today. The men, who are also accused of ties to al-Qaeda and the now-illegal Ba’ath Party, were arrested in late 2007 with about 200 other men. At least one Iraqi was killed and eight more were wounded in new attacks.
At least eight Iraqis were killed and seven more were wounded in the latest violence. Several of the attacks appeared to target specific individuals, including security personnel and a human rights worker.
Overall, at least 12 Iraqis were killed and 24 more were wounded in the latest reports of violence. However, U.S. military officials are denying one incident in which witnesses claim that U.S. soldiers fired on civilians in Yusufiya. In political news, one lawmaker came out in support of semi-autonomy for Basra, while the vice president denounced plans to expand Iraq’s prison system.
A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows that 80 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the way their government works and 31 percent are angry about it, an all-time high. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the central problem with government is simple: Government officials spend other people’s resources and not their …
Continue reading “Spending Other People’s Money Usually Leads to Bad Results”
How about a moment of silence for the passing of the American Dream? M.R.I.C. (May it rest in carnage.) No, I’m not talking about the old dream of opportunity that involved home ownership, a better job than your parents had, a decent pension, and all the rest of the package that’s so yesterday, so underwater, …
Continue reading “This Is What Defeat Looks Like” 
