military

By Juan Cole President Barack Obama announced on Thursday that he will send 300 Green Beret Army special operations soldiers to Iraq. They will be detailed to Iraqi National Army Headquarters and brigade HQs and their primary task will apparently be intelligence-gathering and helping with the Iraqi National Army response to the advances of the […]

Iraq

Absolutely Nothing: A Veteran’s Savage Indictment of the Iraq War

contributors

Tragically, all we’ve fought for in Iraq, all that 4,500 American lives were shed to gain, is on the cusp, potentially, of vanishing. – Mitt Romney, “Ideas Summit,” 6/13/2014 All we fought for in Iraq. All we fought for in Iraq is on the cusp…

Barack Obama

When will they ever Learn? America on Brink of another Military Engagement

contributors

By William R. Polk America appears once again to be on the brink of a war. This time the war is likely to be in Syria and/or in Iraq. If we jump into one or both of these wars, they will join, by my count since our independence, about 200 significant military operations (not all […]

censorship

Egypt: 15-Yr. Sentence for Hero of Tahrir Revolution, blogger Alaa, 24 others

contributors

By Joe Stork, Human Rights Watch (Beirut) – A Cairo court on June 11, 2014, sentenced the prominent Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah and 24 others to 15 years in prison and LE100,000 fines (US$14,000) on a range of charges stemming from their involvement in a peaceful protest on November 26, 2013, in Cairo. Police […]

Afghanistan

US Military Fail: Long Asian Land Wars a Route to Disaster since 1963

contributors

By Tom Engelhardt via Tomdispatch.com The United States has been at war — major boots-on-the-ground conflicts and minor interventions, firefights, air strikes, drone assassination campaigns, occupations, special ops raids, proxy conflicts, and covert actions — nearly nonstop since the Vietnam War began. That’s more than half a century of experience with war, American-style, and yet […]

Iraq

Iraq: 450,000 have fled al-Anbar as Gov’t Deploys Militias against al-Qaeda

contributors

Euronews reports: “Security slips further in Iraq as car bombs hit Baghdad” Ahmad Hadi gives the background at Niqash.org Members of an extremist Shiite Muslim militia have been recruited to fight Sunni Muslim rebels and militias in Iraq’s Anbar province. But for some Baghdad-based fighters the battle is taking place too close to home: They’re […]

Africa

Is the US Mil. Training of African Special Ops a prelude to disaster?

contributors

By William R. Polk With everyone’s attention focused either on the European elections, President Obama’s speech at West Point or the Ukraine, a story by Eric Schmitt in The International New York Times of Tuesday, May 27, 2014 may not have caught your attention. I believe, however, that it provides an insight into some of […]

Islam

Israeli PM Netanyahu Vows never to Return Occupied E Jerusalem to Palestinian Residents

contributors

On Jerusalem Day Netanyahu vows never to divide the city (via AFP) Tens of thousands of religious Jews waving Israeli flags marched into mainly Arab east Jerusalem Wednesday as the country celebrated the anniversary of its capture in the 1967 Six-Day War. Fearing clashes, police closed the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque… —– related video: PressTV: […]

Apartheid

Turkish Court asks Interpol to arrest 4 Israeli ex-Generals for Gaza Aid Ship Murders

contributors

Turkish court orders arrest of Israeli top brass over Gaza ship raid (via AFP) A Turkish court on Monday ordered the arrest of four former Israeli military chiefs over a deadly 2010 maritime assault, in a move which could jeopardise reconciliation efforts between the countries. The court in Istanbul will ask Interpol to issue… […]