Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Louisiana’s petroleum refineries are out of action in the wake of Hurricane Ida. Refineries run on electricity, and electricity has been knocked out in New Orleans and environs, perhaps for another couple of weeks. Here’s the kicker: Louisiana refineries account for nearly 1/5 of America’s refining capacity. Raw crude oil […]
Biden: Afghanistan Withdrawal is “about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries”
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced the end of the war in Afghanistan. I saw the Neoconservative Bill Kristol on CNN deploring Biden’s speech for not assessing the sweep of the war. Kristol was the biggest warmonger of all the pundits in the early zeroes, arguing for invading and occupying […]
So Long, Afghanistan War: Top 6 Things we Won’t miss about our Longest Military Engagement
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Tom Bowman and Audie Cornish at NPR report that all U.S. troops are out of Afghanistan, ending America’s longest war. I teach that war every year, so I’ll still be living with it the rest of my career. But for most Americans, its end should be something to celebrate. Here […]
Ida: The Climate Emergency and Fossil Fuels, not Afghan terrorists, just Knocked out Power to America’s 4th-Largest Port
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The two big stories on Sunday, of the continued evacuation effort at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, and the landfall of Hurricane Ida on the coast of Louisiana have something in common. Both are about potential threats to the United States. America’s national security elites and arms manufacturers […]
Biden got 117,000 Afghans Out: Contrast that Time Trump Abruptly Withdrew Troops from Syria and refused to Help Kurdish Allies
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Richard N. Ojeda, an Army vet and former West Virginia state representative tweeted out an observation that I would like to reinforce: I don’t remember Donald Trump flying one Kurd to safety. He let Turkey slaughter them. They were our allies that served side by side with our troops. Where […]
Top 4 Times US Troops were Bombed under Republican Presidents and No one Resigned or was Impeached
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The silly season has descended permanently on Washington, D.C., so that minor congressmen are calling for the resignation or even impeachment of President Joe Biden over the ISIL-K bombing at Abbey Gate in the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 26. Chris Cilizza called out the Nikki Haleys, […]
US Troops caught up in ISIL-K – Taliban Civil War: Why it Proves Biden was Right to Leave
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Al Jazeera Arabic reports that ISIL-K (the so-called “Islamic state group” of Iraq and the Levant in Khorasan) claimed responsibility for the horrific bombings in Kabul on Thursday near Baron Hotel and at Abbey Gate at Hamid Karzai International Airport. According to AP, the bombings killed 60 Afghans and wounded […]
Perfect Storm: Hunger stalks 14 mn Afghans, 2 mn Children, from Taliban, War, climate-driven Drought, and Covid
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) announced a few days ago that 14 million people in Afghanistan are at risk of acute food insecurity in a matter of weeks. That is about a third of the population. It is up from 11 million last spring, when the WFP and […]
Biden tells G-7 he accepts Aug. 31 Kabul Airport Deadline as Taliban, fearing Flight of Capital and Skills, Forbid Evacuations Thereafter
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Taliban have further foreclosed U.S. options in the current effort to evacuate any remaining Americans and eligible Afghans from the country. President Biden said Tuesday that he was accepting the August 31 deadline laid down by the fundamentalist group for the US to be out of the Kabul Airport […]
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