The NATO summit is off to a shaky start. It was supposed to elect a new leader, and the Obama administration backed Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen for the role. Rasmussen has been a strong supporter of the NATO mission in Afghanistan, where there are Danish troops, at a time when many European countries […]
Archives for April 2009
Top Ten Ways the US is Turning Afghanistan into Iraq
1. Exaggerating the threat. An Afghan army foot patrol was attacked by guerrillas in Helmand Province on Wednesday, according to AP. US and Afghan soldiers responded, engaging in a firefight. Then the US military called in an air strike on the Taliban, killing 20 of them. On Tuesday, a similar airstrike had taken out 30 […]
Lieberman and Wiping Countries off the face of the Map
Avigdor Lieberman, the Moldovan night club bouncer, is now foreign minister of Israel. The world has had a lot of fun laughing at the pronouncements of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who stands falsely accused of threatening to wipe Israel off the face of the map. But Ahmadinejad has protested that it would be wrong to […]
Sadr Movement Said to be Splintering
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Sadr Movement led by Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr is facing the possibility of internal factionalism, among imprisoned members and among those under Iranian influence. Muqtada al-Sadr had created two special operations units within his Mahdi Army, the League of the People of Truth (led by Sheikh Qays al-Khaz`ali) and the […]
Fitzgerald & Gould: Afghanistan, a New Beginning
Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould write in a guest op-ed for IC: “Rebuilding Afghanistan is the most cynically pro-American thing you could do anywhere in the world in terms of making it a strong ally in the best sense of the word. Not a puppet or a right-wing military dictatorship but a really good Islamic […]
US Drone Kills 10; Mahsud Threatens DC;
A US predator drone strike on a Pakistani village in Orakzai killed 10 persons on Wednesday morning. The US maintains that it struck at a Taliban compound. The leader of the Pakistan Taliban Movement, Baitullah Mahsud, again threatened on Tuesday to strike at Washington DC. He has made a string of such threats for some […]
Mosul Bomber Kills 7, wounds 38; Further Arrests of Sunnis in Fadl; British Military Departing Basra
A suicide bomber struck a police station in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, killing 7 persons (4 policemen)and wounding 38 (17 policemen). Mostly Sunni Arab Mosul remains a center of guerrilla war against the Shiite-dominated Baghdad government and troops. Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that the government of PM Nuri al-Maliki has announced the […]