Tag Archives: War Without End

U.S. officials: No credible evidence that terrorists trained Shahzad

No credible evidence has been found so far that the Pakistani-American man accused in the Times Square bombing plot received any serious terrorist training from the Pakistani Taliban or another radical Islamic group, six U.S. officials said Thursday.

“There is nothing that confirms that any groups have been found involved in this for certain,” one U.S. official told McClatchy . “It’s a lot of speculation at this point.”

Faisal Shahzad may have, at the most, had “incidental contact” with a terrorist organization, and he may have been encouraged to act, said one of the officials, who declined to elaborate further. (Read more from news.yahoo.com)

Who will question our wars?

A couple weeks ago, I attended my first Republican district convention. I missed 2008’s, having been deployed to Afghanistan’s Kunar Province on my third combat tour with the Army.

I’d hoped to speak in favor of a friend’s amendment to the party platform, which would have tempered its implicit support for American militarism.

Neither Iraq, nor Afghanistan, are mentioned in the platform. Instead, there is support for “the proliferation of democratic principles around the world,” and praise for military technology and our troops. As is usually the case, the misguided motives of empire hide behind a fawning over its servants.

Sadly, the opportunity to speak was denied when two-thirds of delegates (exactly enough, we were told) voted to suspend the rules and adopt the existing platform without discussion. I suspect they were motivated by exhaustion rather than censorship. Hours of slogans about limited government, the philosophy of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution had taken their toll. So I make my point here: (Read more from desmoinesregister.com)

NOTE: This column no longer seems to appear on the Des Moines Register’s website, but you can read it here.

Afghan ‘Exit Strategy’ Won’t Involve Removing Any Troops

A NATO summit in Estonia has culminated with the much-hyped “road map,” an exit strategy for the alliance from Afghanistan after nearly a decade of war. It will detail the alliance’s new strategy for the conflict and, as is so often the case, lower the bar for what constitutes ’success’ in the nation.

Amazingly, initial indications are that the “exit strategy” won’t involve actually removing any troops, but instead will hand over select provinces to the Karzai government while keeping the NATO troops there too for support. This “handover” is expected to last decades, though officials were quick to note it was “not calendar-driven.” (Read more from news.antiwar.com)

Southern Avenger: Confused Confederates

This post will likely be shocking to some of my readers who see the Civil War as the just war. For a more extensive re-examination of it, read Thomas DiLorenzo’s The Real Lincoln.

For anyone who thinks the Civil War is justified by the abolition of slavery, I will say that slavery was abolished peacefully everywhere else in the world (see Emancipation Reform of 1861 in Russia). There was no reason to kill 600,000 young men to do it here.

New Zealand rated most peaceful, U.S. 83

Americans pining for a peaceful existence might consider moving to New Zealand, the most peaceful nation on Earth, according to the 2009 Global Peace Index released Tuesday by an Australian-based research group that counts former President Jimmy Carter, Ted Turner and the Dalai Lama among its endorsers.

The U.S. is 83rd on the roster, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace that rated the relative tranquility of 144 nations according to 23 “indicators” – including gun sales, the number of homicides, the size of the military, the potential for terrorism and the number of people in jail.

. . . .

After New Zealand, the top 10 most peaceful nations are Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Sweden, Japan, Canada, Finland and Slovenia. In the bottom 10 are Zimbabwe, Russia, Pakistan, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Israel, Somalia, Afghanistan and, in last place, Iraq.

Traditional U.S. allies generally fared well on the list: Germany is at 16, Australia at 19, Spain (28), South Korea (33), Britain (35) and Italy (36).

Libya, Nicaragua, Jordan, Cuba, China, Peru and Ukraine all are rated more peaceful than the United States. Rwanda is rated 86, Syria 92, Iran 99 and Mexico 108. (Read more from washingtontimes.com)

The FBI Sucks at Photoshop

This week, the FBI released a “digitally-altered” image showing what Osama Bin Laden possibly looks like now that he’s older.

While the FBI claims to have used “cutting-edge” technology to create the image, a Spanish politician has noticed that the poster is a modified version of his campaign photo — he now finds his face in America’s most wanted list.

While on the surface it’s an amusing misstep by intelligence agencies, Gaspar Llamazares, the former leader of Spain’s United Left coalition, calls the move “shameless.” (Read more from mashable.com)