JPPJ News and Opinion

The US and Pakistan’s Aerial Bombing Will Kill Civilians and Make More Terrorists

2009-05-18T17:48:00.000-07:00

From Voices for Creative Nonviolence

May 13, 2009

by Abdul Malik Mujahid

During the last thirty years of wars in Afghanistan, Afghan civilians have had one safe place to escape to: Pakistan.

They fled the Soviet invasion. They fled civil wars. They fled US bombing. Pakistan took care of millions of these Afghan refugees.

Now that safe haven with its lush green valleys is burning with bombs. And the hosts, the people who themselves welcomed Afghan refugees, at times literally into their homes or into campsites on their farms, are on the run. They are streaming out of Swat, Dir, and Buner, and registering as refugees in Mardan and the fertile valleys of Pakistan. The UN says about two million Pakistanis have been displaced during the last year of drone attacks, bombing and fighting.

Pakistan is bombing its own land and its own people who are caught between the Taliban and the Americans.

Whomever I talk to among Pakistanis, it seems, there is an emerging consensus. They hate both the Taliban who blast schools and the Americans who bomb Madrasahs. Both kill civilians.

The Soviets could not win by bombing Afghanistan, although even today, bomblets and mines left over by the Soviets kill and injure 60 Afghans a month. Read article

Cost of Iraq war will surpass Vietnam's by year's end

2009-04-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

From the Los Angeles Times

If Congress approves the latest funding request, as expected, the Iraq war will have cost about $694 billion, making it the second most expensive conflict in U.S. history behind World War II.

By Julian E. Barnes
April 11, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- The amount of U.S. money spent on the Iraq war will surpass the cost of Vietnam by the end of the year, making it the second most expensive military conflict in American history, behind World War II, according to Pentagon figures provided Friday.

If Congress approves the supplemental funding request submitted this week by the Obama administration, the cost of the war will rise by $87 billion for 2009, including a previous supplement approved during the Bush administration.

Added to the amount spent through 2008, it would mean the Iraq war will have cost taxpayers a total of about $694 billion. By comparison, the Vietnam War cost $686 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars and World War II cost $4.1 trillion, according to a Congressional Research Service study completed last year. Read story

Rage Is Good

2009-03-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

by TOM HAYDEN
The Nation

March 6, 2009

Hopefully, the demonstrations planned on Wall Street April 4 by United for Peace and Justice and other groups will contribute to the global uprising. Our president and Congress need the pressure.

The world has turned against American hegemony before: against the Vietnam war, against the World Trade Organization and against the invasion of Iraq. On all three occasions, the world was right and Washington was wrong.
On this occasion, the global economy is being devastated by the Wall Street crash. Hundreds of millions are are hurtling into extreme poverty, export industries are collapsing, currencies being destabilized.
As the conservative French president Nicolas Sarkozy says, "Laissez-faire, c'est fini." (Laissez-faire is finished.)
As nations blame Wall Street and move to protect their people, the protests need not be anti-American nor anti-Obama. Sarkozy cannot be accused of being anti-US. Neither are Iceland nor Ukraine. The global opposition might just may be what we need, an organized populist counterforce to the business and banking lobbies entrenched in Washington. Read article

2008-03-16T20:03:00.000-07:00

Patrick Cockburn: Iraq is a country no more. Like much else, that was not the plan

The death rate in Baghdad has fallen, but it is down to ethnic cleansing

Sunday, 16 March 2008

'It reminds me of Iraq under Saddam," a militant opponent of Saddam Hussein said angrily to me last week as he watched red-capped Iraqi soldiers close down part of central Baghdad so the convoy of Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, might briefly venture into the city.

Five years after the invasion of Iraq, the US and the Iraqi governments claim that the country is becoming a less dangerous place, but the measures taken to protect Mr Maliki told a different story. Gun-waving soldiers first cleared all traffic from the streets. Then four black armoured cars, each with three machine-gunners on the roof, raced out of the Green Zone through a heavily fortified exit, followed by sand-coloured American Humvees and more armoured cars. Finally, in the middle of the speeding convoy, we saw six identical bullet-proof vehicles with black windows, one of which must have been carrying Mr Maliki.

Read article

2008-03-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

Read this and weep. Amy

Open Letter to Three Iraqi Women from an Oregon Mother

Published by steve March 3rd, 2008 in Blog

From a Marine Mom (Member of MFSO - Oregon)

The steam has long since dissipated from my coffee cup as I strain to write this letter to the three of you. You don’t know me, and one of you will never have an opportunity to read this letter, but you have each left your mark upon my soul. Though I do not know your names you will recognize who you are and I speak to you woman to woman and mother to mother and mother to child.

Before I begin, if you don’t already know it, the US military can train a man to kill but cannot train that man how to handle it when he does. For this reason amongst many others my Marine son, John, who touched your lives in Iraq, (and through him, so did I), is in treatment along with other veterans of this and earlier wars. They are ten wounded warriors, five from the Iraq war and five from that earlier American fiasco, Vietnam.

John has bonded most closely with one of these older Vietnam vets, “Old Man”, he calls him. Like my son, Old Man is a first timer in the program. The reason I am telling you about Old Man is that it took him thousands of bottles of alcohol, dozens of jobs, seven marriages and forty years to accept that he had never recovered from his war time experiences. They never recover really I want you to know that.

So I am reaching out to you three Iraqi women because, while we didn’t realize it at the time, our paths have crossed, tragically and we are connected now. This connection has provided me with certain details about your lives that I feel I have to share if only that some small light may be shed on dark places.

There was a firefight in Baghdad, a 360 degree battle with the Marines taking fire from all around and overhead. You were there, not as a participant, just a civilian, and you are my first connection though I learned of you last because my son couldn’t tell me about you until recently.

Training had the Marines firing back reflexively at anything that moved, vehicles, stray dogs a blur of a shirtsleeve. The Marine who fired upon your husband and two children was almost 100 yards away and he jerked his weapon up in horror at the end of the burst and watched your family fall.

You didn’t know it at the time but he watched you run out to your family. He saw you in your light blue wrap as you went from one body to the other. He tried to avert his eyes as you picked up your dead child and then the other and wailed in your grief. He tried to look away but that light blue color was always in his peripheral vision, pulling at him drawing him back.
It might have been five, seven even ten minutes when, in what John described as the coldest thing he’d ever seen, that young Marine could bear your grief no more and killed you. So you see, we are connected because my son saw you die.

Does it matter to you about this man who killed you and your family? Perhaps not, but he hailed from what we call the Deep South. At 6’5” healthy and solid muscle he looked the perfect Marine. Though he returned from Iraq in one piece, he has not fared well since that day in Baghdad. Within months of returning stateside, he amassed multiple alcohol related assault charges and engaged in all the self destructive behavior typical of combat veterans.

Finally, in what John calls Karma, he plunged over a beachside cliff and lay in a coma for months. If not Karma, perhaps self imposed penance but he is only now relearning how to speak.

To the mother in Fallujah who also lost her family. Not long ago I met a Lance Corporal who had determined during the siege on your city that he and his men must enter your home in search of combatants. He prepared and set a timed charge to blow a new doorway in the side of your building. He gathered intelligence assessing the situation and finally gave the order to blow the charge, and his men darted through the newly opened breach and he followed closely behind.

You will remember him because when he entered to find your husband and children dead from the blast, you were standing there crying out, “lemad’a, lemad’a” (why, why?). You will remember him because when he saw what he had done his knees buckled and the blood drained from his twenty-two year old face. You will remember him because he fell back against the wall and clutched at his chest and gasped for breath.

You saw his reaction. You watched him try and shoulder the enormity of the order he had given and when his eyes finally met yours you placed your hand on his cheek and said, “masha, Allah” (God’s will). You should know that your compassion, your understanding and yes, your forgiveness that day destroyed him.

Please know that he would give his life to undo what he did. Please know that he works hard to end our occupation of your country. Please know that I have thought of you every day since he told me your story.

Now to you little girl of Ramadi, you cannot be more than six now, if that. With luck you do not remember that October day in 2004 when your parents died. With luck you are far away from Iraq now. To you I feel the closest connection, the greatest responsibility and the deepest agony. You see your father wanted only to rescue you. He wanted only to grab you from your dead mother’s arms, and he gave his life trying because he loved you so much.

My son and his sergeant did not understand. They mistook your father’s actions as a threat to their comrades and fired upon and killed your father. So you see we are connected because my son killed your father.
Please know that when the men of weapons platoon found you, scared and crying, that many of them including John fell apart. You undid them. You and your scared wide brown eyes and dark curls brought many of them to their knees.

They took your picture that day. You are a tiny bundle of pink and blue flowers and puffy sleeves set against the digital camouflage jacket of John’s sergeant who did not set you down for hours. Please know that John keeps your picture though he looks at it rarely because it hurts so much to remember.

What can I say to you? That I am sorry goes without saying. Does it help that my son suffers because of that day? Does it matter to your life that he will carry your image with him forever? Probably not, I don’t see how it can, but I will tell you that I love you.

As one American woman to you three Iraqi women, I am sure you cannot welcome this connection but I feel it nonetheless. Taking your families from each of you has also lost my son to me, for he will never be the same. In this way we are forever deeply connected. To each of you, Assalamu alaikum, peace be upon you.

A Marine mom

Police and Army Getting Sidelined

2008-01-23T09:45:00.000-08:00

Inter Press Service
By Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail*

BAQUBA, Jan 21 (IPS) - New military operations in Diyala province north of Baghdad have exacerbated a growing conflict between U.S.-backed Sunni fighters on the one hand and Iraqi army and police forces on the other.

The U.S. military commenced a large military operation Jan. 8 in the volatile Diyala province. Seven U.S. battalions led an offensive to push out fighters affiliated with 'Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia' from the area.

In the current operation, U.S., Iraqi, and local fighters have faced no serious resistance. U.S. military commanders admitted shortly after operations began that anti-occupation fighters were likely tipped off, and fled the area. But the operation has thrown up conflicts within the ranks.

"The military forces comprise the coalition forces, Iraqi police and army, and the popular forces (commonly called Kataib)," political analyst Akram Sabri told IPS in Baquba, capital of Diyala province. "It was found that the local forces are more truculent fighters who can always be relied on. This has made the coalition forces increasingly reliant upon these fighters to the extent that they will one day likely be joined to Iraqi police and army."

The Kataib Sabri speaks of are what the U.S. military calls "concerned local citizens". Most are former resistance fighters, now being paid 300 dollars a month to stop attacking occupation forces and to back them instead.

The groups, which the U.S. military claims are 82 percent Sunni, are viewed as a threat by the government in Baghdad led by U.S.-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The PM has said these groups will never become part of the government security forces. But while seen with suspicion at many places, these forces are also being welcomed in some.

Read article

Success in Iraq? Not for Iraqi Women

2008-01-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

Alternet.org Blog posting

Posted by Siun , Firedoglake at 4:22 AM on December 26, 2007.

"Let's make sure all of our candidates know that we are not distracted by the bright shiny surge success chatter. "

Reporters and too many politicians continue claiming that happy days are here again in Iraq. Golly, that surge has been soooo successful - and things are going just swell. In fact, US soldiers have even been told to treat approaching Iraqi civilians as ... civilians!

"Effective immediately, assume all civilian vehicles are friendly," it read.

The order admonished soldiers throughout Iraq to yield to civilian drivers, allow vehicles to pass, and avoid firing their weapons as they escorted convoys of concrete barriers, generators, water and food to U.S. military outposts.

And talk is growing of not only withdrawing the "surge" troops in 2008, but perhaps more:

Gen. George Casey, the Army's chief of staff and the former senior commander in Iraq, has been particularly frank about the state of the Army.

"We're deploying at unsustainable rates," General Casey said three weeks ago during remarks to an audience at the Brookings Institution in Washington. The Army agreed to a buildup of troops a year ago with the understanding that it was temporary, he said. "We can't sustain that. We have to come off of that, and we're working that very hard."

In the rush to distract voters from the real issues of the Iraq occupation, I suspect we will hear more tales of success and improvement in Iraq.

Yet for Iraqis, conditions continue to spiral down.

Read article and view video

Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson, How to Sink America

2008-01-22T16:34:00.000-08:00

posted January 22, 2008 3:27 pm

Within the next month, the Pentagon will submit its 2009 budget to Congress and it's a fair bet that it will be even larger than the staggering 2008 one. Like the Army and the Marines, the Pentagon itself is overstretched and under strain -- and like the two services, which are expected to add 92,000 new troops over the next five years (at an estimated cost of $1.2 billion per 10,000), the Pentagon's response is never to cut back, but always to expand, always to demand more.

After all, there are those disastrous Afghan and Iraqi wars still eating taxpayer dollars as if there were no tomorrow. Then there's what enthusiasts like to call "the next war" to think about, which means all those big-ticket weapons, all those jets, ships, and armored vehicles for the future. And don't forget the still-popular, Rumsfeld-style "netcentric warfare" systems (robots, drones, communications satellites, and the like), not to speak of the killer space toys being developed; and then there's all that ruined equipment out of Iraq and Afghanistan to be massively replaced -- and all those ruined human beings to take care of.

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Covering Up the Coverage - The American Media’s Complicit Failure to Investigate and Report on the Sibel Edmonds Case

2008-01-22T16:29:00.000-08:00

Published on Monday, January 21, 2008 by The Brad Blog
by Daniel Ellsberg

For the second time in two weeks, the entire U.S. press has let itself be scooped by Rupert Murdoch’s London Sunday Times on a dynamite story of criminal activities by corrupt U.S. officials promoting nuclear proliferation. But there is a worse journalistic sin than being scooped, and that is participating in a cover-up of information that demands urgent attention from the public, the U.S. Congress and the courts.For the last two weeks — one could say, for years — the major American media have been guilty of ignoring entirely the allegations of the courageous and highly credible source Sibel Edmonds, quoted in the London Times on January 6, 2008 in a front-page story that was front-page news in much of the rest of the world but was not reported in a single American newspaper or network. It is up to readers to demand that this culpable silent treatment end.

Just as important, there must be pressure by the public on Congressional committee chairpersons, in particular Representative Henry Waxman and Senator Patrick Leahy. Both have been sitting for years on classified, sworn testimony by Edmonds — as she revealed in the Times’ new story on Sunday — along with documentation, in their possession, confirming parts of her account. Pressure must be brought for them to hold public hearings to investigate her accusations of widespread criminal activities, over several administrations, that endanger national security. They should call for open testimony under oath by Edmonds — as she has urged for five years — and by other FBI officials she has named to them, as cited anonymously in the first Times’ story.

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Pentagon, Big Pharma: Drug Troops to Numb Them to Horrors of War

2008-01-18T11:13:00.000-08:00

By Penny Coleman, AlterNet
Posted on January 10, 2008, Printed on January 10, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/72956/

In June, the Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health
acknowledged "daunting and growing" psychological problems among our
troops: Nearly 40 percent of soldiers, a third of Marines and half
of National Guard members are presenting with serious mental health
issues. They also reported "fundamental weaknesses" in the U.S.
military's approach to psychological health. That report was
followed in August by the Army Suicide Event Report (ASER), which
reported that 2006 saw the highest rate of military suicides in 26
years. And last month, CBS News reported that, based on its own
extensive research, over 6,250 American veterans took their own
lives in 2005 alone -- that works out to a little more than 17
suicides every day.

That's all pretty bleak, but there is reason for optimism in the
long-overdue attention being paid to the emotional and psychic cost
of these new wars. The shrill hypocrisy of an administration that
has decked itself in yellow ribbons and mandatory lapel pins while
ignoring a human crisis of monumental proportion is finally being
exposed.
Read article

Drift to War

2007-11-26T18:09:00.000-08:00

October 2007 - Paul Rogers Oxford Research Group

There was a decrease in US military casualties in Iraq during October. A decline in civilian casualties was also claimed by the US military authorities but other agencies, including Iraqi government sources, were less positive. These other reports were more plausible given the huge increase in the use of air power by the US military – there were more than three times as many air strikes in the first ten months of 2007 as in the whole of 2006.

In any case, even if the security situation in Iraq was showing some small sign of improvement, attention shifted a thousand miles to the east where even the violent conflict in south east Afghanistan was overshadowed by political developments in Pakistan.

The return of the former Prime Minister Benzir Bhutto had been expected to see a consolidation of power in the hands of General Musharraf in combination with Mrs Bhutto and her party. In the event, a suicide bomb attack on her motorcade on the day of her arrival indicated the problems that would be faced and Mrs Bhutto returned to her residence in Dubai before the end of the month.

As the security situation in the border districts with Afghanistan deteriorated, General Musharraf endeavoured to take direct control of the country, leaving the US attempts to broker a Musharraf/Bhutto coalition in disarray. By the end of the month it looked highly unlikely that the forthcoming elections would be held, especially as many key members of opposition political parties were being detained by security forces on behalf of the Musharraf regime.

Further Sanctions against Iran

In the United States, the situation in Pakistan caused concern but this scarcely impinged on the 2008 presidential election campaign. Indeed, it was the issue of Iran that became steadily more prominent during the course of October, with the Bush administration announcing a further round of sanctions at the end of the month. These appeared to pre-empt further international discussions and, on the surface, appeared mainly directed at Iran’s presumed nuclear weapon programme. The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice concentrated on this, saying that “the international community cannot just sit idly by until we face unpalatable choices. A nuclear weapon in the hands of the Iranian regime would be deeply destabilizing in the world’s most volatile region.” Read article

World's future hinges on peace between faiths, Islamic scholars tell Pope

2007-10-12T10:31:00.000-07:00

Inayat Bunglawala: The Challenge of Muhammad

Riazat Butt, religious affairs correspondent and Martin Hodgson
Thursday October 11, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

The future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians, Islamic scholars told the Pope today.

In a letter addressed directly to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, 138 prominent Muslim scholars said that finding common ground between the world's biggest two religions was not "simply a matter for polite ecumenical dialogue".

The letter, which is entitled A Common Word between Us and You, says: "Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world's population. Without peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no meaningful peace in the world. The future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians."

The 29-page document argues that the basis for this understanding can be found in the common principles of the religions: "Love of the one God, and love of the neighbour".
Read article

Shifting Targets: The Administration’s plan for Iran.

2007-10-10T21:57:00.000-07:00

Annals of National Security
Shifting Targets
The Administration’s plan for Iran.
by Seymour M. Hersh
The New Yorker
October 8, 2007

In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran. “Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people,” Bush told the national convention of the American Legion in August. “The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased. . . . The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And, until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops.” He then concluded, to applause, “I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities.”

The President’s position, and its corollary—that, if many of America’s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians—have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on “surgical” strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism. Read entire article

Iraq Divided: Why they fight

2007-10-02T21:51:00.000-07:00

September 28, 2007 5:11 p.m. PT

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

The fact that the Senate on Wednesday voted in favor of a measure -- albeit a non-binding one -- that would divide Iraq into sectarian regions shows how out of touch our well-meaning lawmakers are with what Iraqis, who make up what President Bush repeatedly refers to as a sovereign, democratic nation, want.

Fortunately, there are those who know the hearts of Iraqis, such as Raed Jarrar, a political analyst and consultant to the D.C.-based American Friends Service Committee's Iraq Program. In a recent piece he co-wrote for alternet.org, Jarrar said that those defining the civil war within Iraq as a religious conflict alone miss the point. Iraq's war is over control of the country and its energy supplies, not over Allah.

Jarrar writes, the "Bush administration, with the support of Congress, has taken the same side as Iran's hardliners and the same side as the Sunni fundamentalist group called al-Qaida in Iraq. All are working ... against the wishes of a majority of Iraqis." Indeed, a poll conducted by Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland show that the majority of Iraqis (61 percent) want a stronger central government, a wish supported even by Kurds, who already have their own region.

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'A Coup Has Occurred'

2007-10-01T10:32:00.000-07:00

By Daniel Ellsberg
September 26, 2007 (Text of a speech delivered September 20, 2007)

Editor’s Note: Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department analyst who leaked the secret Pentagon Papers history of the Vietnam War, offered insights into the looming war with Iran and the loss of liberty in the United States at an American University symposium on Sept. 20. Below is an edited transcript of Ellsberg’s remarkable speech:

I think nothing has higher priority than averting an attack on Iran, which I think will be accompanied by a further change in our way of governing here that in effect will convert us into what I would call a police state.

If there’s another 9/11 under this regime … it means that they switch on full extent all the apparatus of a police state that has been patiently constructed, largely secretly at first but eventually leaked out and known and accepted by the Democratic people in Congress, by the Republicans and so forth.

Will there be anything left for NSA to increase its surveillance of us? … They may be to the limit of their technical capability now, or they may not. But if they’re not now they will be after another 9/11.

Read the entire transcript

Bush's New War Drums for Iran

2007-08-24T12:48:00.000-07:00

By Ray McGovern
August 21, 2007 ~~ Consortiumnews.com

It is as though I’m back as an analyst at the CIA, trying to estimate the chances of an attack on Iran. The putative attacker, though, happens to be our own president.

It is precisely the work we analysts used to do. And, while it is still a bit jarring to be turning our analytical tools on the U.S. leadership, it is by no means entirely new. For, of necessity, we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) have been doing that for almost six years now—ever since 9/11, when “everything changed.”

Of necessity? Yes, because, with very few exceptions, American journalists lose their jobs if they expose things like fraudulent wars.

The craft of CIA analysis was designed to be an all-source operation, meaning that we analysts were responsible—and held accountable—for assimilating information from all sources and coming to judgments on what it all meant. We used information of all kinds, from the most sophisticated technical collection platforms to spies to open media.

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Iraq War Resisters to Get Boost from Veterans Group

2007-08-24T12:34:00.000-07:00

Aaron Glantz
OneWorld US

Mon., Aug. 20, 2007

SAINT LOUIS, Aug 20 (OneWorld) - Members of a leading Iraq war veterans' organization voted this weekend to launch a campaign encouraging U.S. troops to refuse to fight.

U.S. Army medic Augustin Aguayo filed for conscientious objector status and refused a second tour of duty in Iraq. © aguayodefense.org

The decision was made at the group's annual membership meeting, held this weekend in Saint Louis, Missouri alongside the annual convention of the Veterans for Peace organization.

"Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) decided to make support of war resisters a major part of what we do," said Garrett Rappenhagen, a former U.S. Army sniper who served in Iraq from February 2004 to February 2005.

"There's a misconception that they're cowards," Rappenhagen said. "Most war resisters have already gone on a tour in Iraq. They've seen the war firsthand and have come to the conclusion that it's morally wrong. This is something we all should support. So to break that timidness of how we view war resisters in America, IVAW decided to embrace them."

To underscore that point, the veterans group elected Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia chair of its board of directors. In the winter of 2003, Mejia was the first soldier to refuse to return to fight in Iraq after an initial tour in the war zone.

Read entire article

The War as We Saw It

2007-08-24T12:01:00.000-07:00

Op-Ed Contributors

By BUDDHIKA JAYAMAHA, WESLEY D. SMITH, JEREMY ROEBUCK, OMAR MORA, EDWARD SANDMEIER, YANCE T. GRAY and JEREMY A. MURPHY
Published: August 19, 2007 New York Times

Baghdad

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.

Read entire article

House Passes Lee Bill to Ban Permanent Bases in Iraq

2007-07-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

Wednesday July 25, 2007
Contact: Nathan Britton (202) 225-2661

(Washington, DC) – Today, by a vote of 399-24, the House passed legislation introduced by Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) to prevent permanent military bases in Iraq and bar U.S. control over Iraqi oil resources.

Lee’s bill, H.R. 2929, declares that it is the policy of the United States not to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq and not to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq and prohibits the use of funds for these purposes.

The following is Congresswoman Lee’s statement from the House floor:

“What this legislation does is simple. It does what the Iraq Study Group and other experts have recommended that we do. It makes a clear statement of policy that the U.S. does not intend to maintain an open ended military presence in Iraq and that we won’t exercise control over Iraqi oil, and it backs that policy up with the power of the purse.

“Putting Congress on record with this clear statement helps take the targets off our troops’ backs and it support our goals of handing over responsibility for security and public safety to Iraqi forces.

Benchmark Boogie: A Guide to the Struggle Over Iraq's Oil

2007-07-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

By Antonia Juhasz, AlterNet. Posted July 14, 2007.

Your guide to the ongoing dance between Bush, the Congress, and the Iraqi government; an update on the current status of the proposed oil laws; and some steps you can take to stop the hijacking of Iraq's oil.

What does a war for oil look like? American troops going into battle with tanks waving "Exxon Mobil" and "Chevron" flags right behind? Are the flags then planted squarely in the ground and the oil beneath officially declared war bounty? Well, some members of the Bush administration and U.S. oil companies may have favored such an approach. But the device ultimately chosen to win this war for oil is only slightly more subtle: a law, to be passed by the Iraqis themselves, which would turn Iraq's oil over to foreign oil companies.

The president's benchmark

The U.S. State Department Iraq Study Group began laying the foundations for the new law prior to the invasion of Iraq. Its recommendations, released only after the invasion, were quickly enshrined in a draft oil law introduced to the interim Iraqi government by the U.S.-appointed interim prime minister of Iraq, Ayad Allawi (a former CIA operative).

The Bush administration has spent four years trying to force successive Iraqi governments to pass the law, referred to as either the "hydrocarbons" or "oil" law. While it has gone through several permutations, the basics have remained the same and have followed the original prescriptions set out by the State Department.

The law would change Iraq's oil system from a nationalized model -- all but closed to U.S. oil companies -- to a privatized model open to foreign corporate control. At least two-thirds of Iraq's oil would be open to foreign oil companies under terms that they usually only dream about, including 30-year-long contracts. (For details of the law, see my March 2007 New York Times Op-Ed, "Whose Oil Is It, Anyway?")

Read complete article

Shahristani: Iraq oil unions not legit

2007-07-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

United Press International® News. Analysis. Insight.™ Energy - Briefing Published: July 25, 2007 at 6:33 PM

WASHINGTON, July 25 (UPI) -- Iraq's oil minister said Iraq's oil unions are not legitimate and have no more standing in the debate over the oil law than an ordinary citizen.

"There are no legal unions in Iraq," Hussein al-Shahristani said Wednesday in response to a question about various factions' positions on the controversial oil law. "Those people who call themselves representatives of the oil workers have not been elected to the position."

Shahristani spoke to UPI by phone from Baghdad.

The lone remaining law from the Saddam Hussein regime kept by U.S. occupying powers and the successive Iraqi government is the one that bans worker organizing in the public sector.

Despite that, workers have come together and leveraged their power. Since 2003 they've blocked numerous attempts to privatize management of both oil and other facilities and stopped work over disputes -- most recently early last month over the oil law and other unmet demands.

Earlier this month workers in the southern, oil-rich town of Basra marched in protest against the oil law and demanded Shahristani's resignation.

The law would govern exploration and development of Iraq's 115 billion barrels of proven reserves and unknown reserves to be found in under-explored areas. But the law is stuck over central government vs. regional/local control over certain oil fields. And the unions, along with other political elements, have led the charge that the law allows for contracts they see as too friendly to foreign oil companies.
--
Ben Lando, UPI Energy Correspondent

Insurgents form political front to plan for US pullout

2007-07-25T08:47:00.000-07:00

Leaders of Iraqi groups say attacks will go on until Americans leave
The Guardian | Seumas Milne in Damascus | Thursday July 19, 2007

Insurgents from the 1920 Revolution Brigades training at Beiji, north of Baghdad.

Seven of the most important Sunni-led insurgent organisations fighting the US occupation in Iraq have agreed to form a public political alliance with the aim of preparing for negotiations in advance of an American withdrawal, their leaders have told the Guardian.

In their first interview with the western media since the US-British invasion of 2003, leaders of three of the insurgent groups - responsible for thousands of attacks against US and Iraqi armed forces and police - said they would continue their armed resistance until all foreign troops were withdrawn from Iraq, and denounced al-Qaida for sectarian killings and suicide bombings against civilians.

Benchmark Boogie: A Guide to the Struggle Over Iraq's Oil

2007-07-19T11:59:00.000-07:00

AlterNet | By Antonia Juhasz, | Posted July 14, 2007.

The president's benchmark

Saving Iraq

2007-07-11T21:46:00.000-07:00

The Nation| article | posted June 27, 2007 (web only)
Robert Dreyfuss

Last week, a fierce critic of the Bush Administration's war in Iraq went, perhaps, a bridge too far. Pauline Baker, president of the Fund for Peace, flatly predicted that there is no hope for Iraq, other than its collapse and fragmentation. Upon issuing a report that described Iraq as the second most unstable "failed state" after Sudan, Baker told the Washington Post, "We have recommended...that the administration face up to the reality that the only choices for Iraq are how and how violently it will break up."

And she's not the only one. Many opponents of Bush's adventure in Iraq, from left to center-right, have thrown up their hands. Most notorious, Senator Joe Biden, Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations and former Ambassador Peter Galbraith have written off Iraq, either predicting or encouraging its breakup into mini-states. Countless others have concluded that ethnic and sectarian divisions in Iraq have hardened into permanent hatreds. And there are those who--sadly or gleefully, depending on their point of view--declare definitively that Iraq was never really a nation. Instead, they say, it is an artificial creation that never existed except in the minds of British imperialists like Winston Churchill and Gertrude Bell.

Such sentiments are being challenged by a nascent bloc of Iraqi nationalists who, against all odds, are working to put together a pan-Iraqi coalition that would topple the US-backed government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Maliki's ruling alliance includes separatist Kurdish warlords and Iranian-backed Shiite fundamentalists, both of whom want to carve out semi or wholly independent statelets. Although it has not yet jelled, Maliki's opposition--which includes Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, as well as Christians, Turkmen and others--is within striking distance of creating a functioning parliamentary majority. Read more

A Culture of Atrocity

2007-06-21T15:49:00.000-07:00

Truthdig.com Posted on Jun 18, 2007 By Chris Hedges

AP Photo / Karim Kadim

Mohammed Saleem, 18 months old, and four family members were killed when U.S. forces opened fire on their vehicle in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood in June 2004 during fighting between Americans and followers of a radical cleric.

All troops, when they occupy and battle insurgent forces, as in Iraq, or Gaza or Vietnam, are swiftly placed in what the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton terms “atrocity-producing situations.” In this environment, surrounded by a hostile population, simple acts such as going to a store to buy a can of Coke or driving down a street means you can be killed. This constant fear and stress leads troops to view everyone around them as the enemy. The hostility is compounded when the enemy, as in Iraq, is elusive, shadowy and hard to find. The rage that soldiers feel after a roadside bomb explodes, killing or maiming their comrades, is one that is easily directed over time to innocent civilians who are seen as supporting the insurgents. It is a short psychological leap, but a massive moral one. It is a leap from killing—the shooting of someone who has the capacity to do you harm—to murder—the deadly assault against someone who cannot harm you. The war in Iraq is now primarily about murder. There is very little killing. American Marines and soldiers have become, after four years of war, acclimated to atrocity.

Break Time Is Over: Building Nonviolent Resistance to the 2008 Iraq War Supplemental

2007-06-19T21:45:00.000-07:00

By Jeff Leys Voices for Creative Nonviolence June 18, 2007

On August 6, Congress begins its month long recess. August 6 also marks the start of Year 62 After Hiroshima-when the U.S. initiated its nuclear first strike policy against the people of Hiroshima. And it marks Year 17 After Iraq Sanctions, when the brutal economic sanctions regime against Iraq was first imposed by the international community.

On August 6, the Occupation Project will launch a reinvigorated campaign of sustained nonviolent civil disobedience / civil resistance to end Iraq war funding. Office occupations-both legal and extralegal-will commence at the offices of Representatives and Senators who refuse to publicly pledge to vote against any additional funding of the Iraq war. Occupations will continue at least through the end of September. The Occupation Project will work in conjunction with campaigns organized by Declaration of Peace, National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, CODEPINK, Veterans for Peace, Grassroots America for Us and others.

Iraqi Unionists in Washington, D.C., to Protest U.S. Oil Drain from Iraq

2007-06-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

by James Parks, Jun 6, 2007 afl-cio now blog news


Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, president of Iraq’s Electrical Utility Workers Union (in light scarf) leads a May Day march in Basra.

The U.S.-backed government has proposed a new law in Iraq that would permit what the oil industry calls “production-sharing agreements” that could put 70 percent of the profits from oil sales in the hands of rich oil companies and leave the Iraqi people with little to run their country.

The plan, which was supported by the U.S. State Department as early as 2003, also has the backing of the International Monetary Fund and some powerful Iraqi political leaders. In fact, the rapid opening up of Iraqi oil for “private investment” is one of the benchmarks in the Iraq funding bill, which Congress passed and President Bush signed recently.

Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, president of the Electrical Utility Workers Union, General Federation of Iraqi Workers, made it clear workers are fighting the law:

The oil law is a bad for the Iraqi people. It is not fair or equitable. It’s just another name for privatization. Read more

The Pentagon v. Peak Oil: How Wars of the Future May Be Fought Just to Run the Machines T.hat Fight Them

2007-06-17T19:42:00.001-07:00

By Michael T. Klare. June 14, 2007. TomDispatch.com

Sixteen gallons of oil. That's how much the average American soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan consumes on a daily basis -- either directly, through the use of Humvees, tanks, trucks, and helicopters, or indirectly, by calling in air strikes. Multiply this figure by 162,000 soldiers in Iraq, 24,000 in Afghanistan, and 30,000 in the surrounding region (including sailors aboard U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf) and you arrive at approximately 3.5 million gallons of oil: the daily petroleum tab for U.S. combat operations in the Middle East war zone.

Multiply that daily tab by 365 and you get 1.3 billion gallons: the estimated annual oil expenditure for U.S. combat operations in Southwest Asia. That's greater than the total annual oil usage of Bangladesh, population 150 million -- and yet it's a gross underestimate of the Pentagon's wartime consumption. Read more

Iraqi Lawmakers Pass Resolution That May Force End to Occupation

2007-06-06T19:55:00.000-07:00

By Raed Jarrar and Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted June 5, 2007.

While Washington lawmakers play procedural games with an out-of-control executive branch, Iraqi legislators are working to bring an end to the occupation of their country.

While most observers are focused on the U.S. Congress as it continues to issue new rubber stamps to legitimize Bush's permanent designs on Iraq, nationalists in the Iraqi parliament -- now representing a majority of the body -- continue to make progress toward bringing an end to their country's occupation.

The parliament today passed a binding resolution that will guarantee lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the U.N. mandate under which coalition troops now remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal in December. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose cabinet is dominated by Iraqi separatists, may veto the measure.

Read article

What Congress Really Approved: Benchmark No. 1: Privatizing Iraq's Oil for US Companies

2007-05-27T16:08:00.000-07:00

By Ann Wright
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor

Saturday 26 May 2007

On Thursday, May 24, the US Congress voted to continue the war in Iraq. The members called it "supporting the troops." I call it stealing Iraq's oil - the second largest reserves in the world. The "benchmark," or goal, the Bush administration has been working on furiously since the US invaded Iraq is privatization of Iraq's oil. Now they have Congress blackmailing the Iraqi Parliament and the Iraqi people: no privatization of Iraqi oil, no reconstruction funds.

This threat could not be clearer. If the Iraqi Parliament refuses to pass the privatization legislation, Congress will withhold US reconstruction funds that were promised to the Iraqis to rebuild what the United States has destroyed there. The privatization law, written by American oil company consultants hired by the Bush administration, would leave control with the Iraq National Oil Company for only 17 of the 80 known oil fields. The remainder (two-thirds) of known oil fields, and all yet undiscovered ones, would be up for grabs by the private oil companies of the world (but guess how many would go to United States firms - given to them by the compliant Iraqi government.) Read complete article

Grassroots Peace Movement Decries Vote to Continue the Iraq War and Occupation

2007-05-25T13:19:00.001-07:00

United for Peace and Justice, the nation's largest antiwar coalition, flooded Capitol Hill with phone calls calling on Congress to vote no on another $96 billion for the war in Iraq. "We know the switchboards have been jammed and Congress is hearing the message from voters loud and clear: Stop funding this war and bring the troops home. The problem is, most members of Congress are not listening to the people who elected them," said UFPJ National Coordinator Leslie Cagan.

UFPJ Legislative Coordinator Sue Udry commented on the feedback she has heard from those phone calls, "People have been dismayed to realize that Democrats and Republicans who have opposed the escalation of the number of troops in Iraq will still fund that escalation. Those who have decried the president's mismanagement of the war, are now willing to fund that mismanagement, with absolutely no accountability."

"The antiwar movement will not be silenced by this setback -- we will continue to organize and make our voices heard.

This Congress has the power to end the war and they must find the political will to accomplish what they were elected to do," said Judith Le Blanc, Co-Chair of UFPJ. The Congress now has set the framework for the next stage of struggle to end the war. UFPJ has called for its member groups to organize grassroots actions at congressional district offices, and even at the homes of those in Congress who have not stood firm in this round of Congressional wrangling. The antiwar movement will focus on local activities over the Memorial Day weekend, including peace contingents in parades, Iraq war veterans doing war reenactments in Manhattan, peace vigils and picnics.

UFPJ will hold a national assembly of its member groups in Chicago, June 22-24, to plan continued action and organizing against the war and occupation in Iraq.

Curfew Begins to Choke Samarra

2007-05-25T12:56:00.000-07:00

Inter Press Service

Ali al-Fadhily*

SAMARRA, May 22 (IPS) - At least 10 residents have died as the result of a curfew imposed by the U.S.-backed Iraqi government, local doctors say.

Residents in this city of 300,000 located 125km north of Baghdad have been struggling to find food, water and medical supplies. Vehicles have been banned from entering or leaving the city since May 6.

The Iraqi government and the U.S. military imposed a strict curfew on the city that day after a suicide car bomb killed a dozen police officers, including police chief Abd al-Jalil al-Dulaimi. Samarra has been a hotspot of resistance to the U.S. occupation of Iraq since close to the beginning of the occupation in March 2003.

After the attack, U.S. and Iraqi forces encircled the city and sealed off all entrances with concrete blocks and sand bags.

Local people told IPS that the main bridge in the city has been closed, ambulances have not been allowed to reach people, and residents are facing an increasingly dire situation.

"We are being butchered here by these Americans," Majid Hamid, a schoolteacher in Samarra told IPS. "People are dying because we lack all of the necessities, and our government seems to be so happy about it." Read complete article posted on Dahr Jamail's website

Iraq's Hydrocarbon Law – in whose interests?

2007-05-02T21:11:00.000-07:00

By Ewa Jasiewicz, PLATFORM 23 April 2007 at www.niqash.org

niqash is produced by an Arab-German-Kurdish team in Berlin and Amman. It is published in English, Arabic, and Kurdish. The project is funded by the German Foreign Ministry and supported by the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation.

A Hydrocarbon Law which advocates a radical restructuring of Iraq's oil industry was approved by the Iraqi cabinet in February. If passed by parliament, the law will mark a milestone in Iraqi history – a shift of Iraq's massive reserves from public to private hands. It could see private companies develop and profit from Iraq's oil for 15-30 year periods with virtually no possibility for the Iraqi state to renegotiate contractual terms and conditions.

The first draft of the oil law was produced to a timeline set by the International Monetary Fund. The IMF ordered, as a condition of debt relief, the issuance of an oil law by December 2006. This law had to open up Iraq oil (for the first time in over 30 years) to long-term investment by foreign oil companies. Finally produced in July 2006, the first to review it and comment on it were 9 multinational oil companies, the British government and US government. It would be eight months before the vast majority of the Iraqi parliament would even see it. Read complete article

2007-04-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

Iraq: A Blueprint for Peace

by Karen Button

Beirut - “The US talks about withdrawal after bringing Iraqi security forces up to speed, yet has paid militias, allowed mercenaries, and, with few exceptions, ignored the blatant abuses and torture committed by Iraqi forces. They have ignored rampant corruption within all ministries, the most egregious resulting in a medical crisis and a judicial joke. They have also committed their own atrocities, ensuring that the new Iraq is riddled with violence, fear, and contempt for the occupying forces.”

Thus starts a new peace plan entitled Planning Iraq’s Future: A detailed project to rebuild post-liberation Iraq. The 250-page book was written over the past two years by 108 Iraqis that consciously included Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, Assyrian Christians, Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, and other minorities. Two-thirds of the Iraqis still reside inside the country, the other third, outside. Read complete article

Protester attempts necessity defense

2007-04-26T17:54:00.000-07:00

By Margaret Friedenauer Staff Writer, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

A judge Wednesday continued a case against a local man charged with trespassing in an act of civil disobedience protesting the Iraq war.

Rob Mulford will get a chance to argue in front of District Court Judge Raymond Funk that he should be able to present a “defense of necessity” in his arrest when he refused to leave Sen. Ted Stevens’ Fairbanks office Feb. 20. Mulford and others arrived at Stevens’ office during open hours to read names of U.S. troops and Iraqis that have died in Iraq. Most of the protesters left when asked by office staff at closing time. But Mulford continued reading names, refused to leave and was arrested for trespassing.

Mulford, as part of the group Veterans for Peace, was taking part in the Occupation Project at the time of his arrest. The project, active in 25 states, is a campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience aimed at ending the war. Read article

The last thing the Middle East's main players want is US troops to leave Iraq

2007-04-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

By Hussein Agha. The Guardian, Wednesday April 25

Across the region, ordinary people want the Americans out. But from Israel to al-Qaida, political groups and states have other ideas

Overt political debate in the Middle East is hostile to the American occupation of Iraq and dominated by calls for it to end sooner rather than later. No less a figure than King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, arguably the United States' closest Arab ally, has declared the occupation of Iraq "illegal" and "illegitimate". Real intentions, however, are different. States and local political groups might not admit it - because of public opinion - but they do not want to see the back of the Americans.

www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2064685,00.html

Are We Politicians or Citizens

2007-04-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

By Howard Zinn TomPaine.com April 16, 2007

Howard Zinn is the author, most recently, of A Power Governments Cannot Suppress. This article was originally published in The Progressive.

As I write this, Congress is debating timetables for withdrawal from Iraq. In response to the Bush Administration’s “surge” of troops, and the Republicans’ refusal to limit our occupation, the Democrats are behaving with their customary timidity, proposing withdrawal, but only after a year, or eighteen months. And it seems they expect the anti-war movement to support them.

That was suggested in a recent message from MoveOn, which polled its members on the Democrat proposal, saying that progressives in Congress, “like many of us, don’t think the bill goes far enough, but see it as the first concrete step to ending the war.”

Ironically, and shockingly, the same bill appropriates $124 billion in more funds to carry the war. It’s as if, before the Civil War, abolitionists agreed to postpone the emancipation of the slaves for a year, or two years, or five years, and coupled this with an appropriation of funds to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. Read article

You Can't Hurt a Troop By Defunding a War

2007-04-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

By David Swanson. afterdowningstreet.org, April 8, 2007

When Senator Russ Feingold and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid propose cutting off the funding for the war, they are proposing the only thing that can possibly benefit U.S. troops. In fact, there is no way to make any sense of the idea that they could possibly be hurting U.S. troops. The funding is not for the troops.

When President George Bush claims that the money is for the troops, he is quite simply lying. The funding is not for the troops.

When Senator Barack Obama or Senator Carl Levin claims to want to pressure Bush to end the war, while at the same time promising to fund the war forever in the name of funding the troops, we are being told something that cannot possibly make any sense. The funding is not for the troops. It is for the war. You can't end the war while providing it. You can't hurt a troop by denying it. Read article

Give Us Some Real Political Leaders

2007-03-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

By Ali al-Fadhily. Inter Press Service

BAGHDAD, Mar 15 (IPS) - Many Iraqis are now looking to local political leadership to fill wide gaps in a fractured government that is failing to provide security and basic needs.

"Iraqis feel lost amongst too many political currents that blew their country away with their narrow sectarian and personal interests," Mohammad Jaafar, a Baghdad-based politician formerly involved in the interim government told IPS.

"I am ashamed to say that I am or even was an Iraqi politician after all the damage to our country that we caused. It is entirely our fault and there is no question about that." Read article

Whose Oil Is It, Anyway?

2007-03-13T10:50:00.000-07:00

By Antonia Juhasz. New York Times

TODAY more than three-quarters of the world’s oil is owned and controlled by governments. It wasn’t always this way.

Until about 35 years ago, the world’s oil was largely in the hands of seven corporations based in the United States and Europe. Those seven have since merged into four: ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP. They are among the world’s largest and most powerful financial empires. But ever since they lost their exclusive control of the oil to the governments, the companies have been trying to get it back Read article [You will need to log in at NYTimes]

Outsourcing Walter Reed.

2007-03-06T10:54:00.000-08:00

By Philip Mattera. TomPaine.com

Reports of substandard conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center have outraged the country. But that anger should not be directed only at the callous Army officials running the facility.

The full story behind the scandal involves a misguided program to “reinvent government” through outsourcing, a company that botched the delivery of ice to victims of Hurricane Katrina and a giant hedge fund led by a former member of President Bush’s cabinet. The private sector has indirectly had a hand in converting the once legendary Walter Reed into a symbol of the shameful treatment of people who have been maimed in the service of their country.

The dismal state of some facilities at Walter Reed cannot be directly attributed to poor performance by a contractor. After all, it has been only a few months since a politically connected firm called IAP Worldwide Services started taking over many of the management functions at the medical center. Read article

Targeting Tehran

2007-03-05T11:03:00.000-08:00

By Michael Klare. The Nation.
At this critical moment when most Americans seek to extricate US forces from the fighting in Iraq as swiftly as possible, George W. Bush appears determined to construct a new rationale for intervention whose logical conclusion is not withdrawal but a wider war, possibly involving attacks on Iran later this year. Like an inveterate gambler who has lost every previous round and now faces insolvency, Bush seems poised to wager everything on one last throw of the dice. Before more lives are put at risk in this reckless bid, the flimsy props of Bush's new rationale must be exposed to rigorous scrutiny and strict limits placed on his warmaking capacity.
Read article