Tag Archives: Iraq

from the Global War on Terrorism

How can you have a war against a tactic? How come whenever the president unilaterally declares war on something (terrorism, drugs, cancer) the problem gets worse?

Congress getting serious? The House on Wednesday passed, 218-203, a $50 billion bill that would pay for the wars but require that troops start to leave Iraq in 30 days. It sets a goal of ending combat by December 2008, as well as interrogations standards that would make waterboarding illegal.

The U.S. military’s operating manual for the Guantanamo prison camp has been posted on the Internet.

Veterans for peace arrested protesting their exclusion from parade.

Turkish helicopters strike inside Iraq.

Rep. Shea-Porter calls for Cheney impeachment.

Kucinich introduces articles of impeachment: Article I, Article II, Article III

Acting assistant attorney general Daniel Levin tries waterboarding before concluding it’s torture. Gets fired. Senate confirms attorney general Mukaseyl who “does not know” if waterboarding is torture. Olbermann’s commentary.

In October, 46,000 Iraqis returned home. Baghdad safer.

More than $15 million in bribes exposed in Army contracting investigations.

US diplomats refusing to serve in Iraq.

Rumsfeld flees France fearing war criminal arrest.

Sunni insurgents form alliance.

12 former Army captains & Iraq veterans write Washington Post editorial saying it’s time to get out. (See earlier NYTimes editorial by six paratroopers)

14 permanent bases getting built in Iraq.

Low-income Home Energy Assistance Program out of money. Poor out in the cold. More money requested for war. Jack Cafferty’s commentary.

US plans to send $60 billion dollars in arms to the gulf in the next decade: Israel $30 billion, Egypt $13 Billion, Saudi Arabia up to $20 Billion. (second part of this video)

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist faces terror charges. This is one of many contradictions soldiers must face when their leaders invade a country under false pretenses. You can’t imprison everybody.

Advertising Iraq

Ari Fleischer, Mr. There-is-no-question-that-Iraq-has-weapons-of- mass-destruction, is now running a $15 million dollar ad campaign to sell their war to America. His television commercials feature wounded veterans and relatives of dead soldiers. I can tell you, they don’t speak for all veterans, not for me, and not for all families either. This man speaks for me.

Hear Bill Moyer’s brief commentary on the new wave of advertising.

82nd Soldiers on Iraq

I’ll admit it. I’ve always thought the mighty eighty deuce, my old division, was head and shoulders above all others. How can it not be, when it has soldiers and NCOs smart enough, articulate enough, and courageous enough to write this. I’m so proud.

Here, you can see a representative from the pro-war media playing damage control, and here is a great comparison between the soldiers’ Op-Ed, and a recent paper by the Brookings Institute, an increasingly neo-con “think” tank, which thinks hard about how to best convince America to keep sending its children into harms way for dubious reasons.

Time to leave the illusions behind

This guest opinion was published in the Daily Iowan, Jan. 17th, 2007, and the Press Citizen, Jan. 23rd, 2007.

Time to leave the illusions behind

President Bush mentioned the Iraq Study Group report twice in his 20-minute speech touting the proposed increased troop level in Iraq. He stated that his plan to embed more American advisers in Iraqi Army units is consistent with the report.

Although that specific morsel of his new plan is indeed consistent with the report, his saying so creates the illusion of a broader consistency that simply is not there. Read more: (Daily Iowan | Press Citizen)