Iraq War

Why Cheney is the Traitor, and Why we Can’t Believe Obama on Safeguards (The Ultimate Clip of Gov’t Lies)

Dick Cheney on Monday called NSA leaker Edward Snowden a traitor, and Snowden shot back that given Cheney’s own lies about Iraq, it is an honor for any American to be accused of treason by the former vice president. On Monday evening, Barack Obama came on Charlie Rose and insisted that the NSA would never […]

Afghanistan

The Government Endangered us with Foreign Quagmires; it’s the Bradley Mannings that might keep us safe (Madar)

Juan Cole

Chase Madar writes at Tomdispatch.com The prosecution of Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks’ source inside the U.S. Army, will be pulling out all the stops when it calls to the stand a member of Navy SEAL Team 6, the unit that assassinated Osama bin Laden. The SEAL (in partial disguise, as his identity is secret) is expected to tell […]

Afghanistan

America’s Murder Inc. Abroad: Engelhardt on Scahill’s Latest

Juan Cole

Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com: Chalmers Johnson’s book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire was published in March 2000 — and just about no one noticed. Until then, blowback had been an obscure term of CIA tradecraft, which Johnson defined as “the unintended consequences of policies that were kept secret from the American people.” In […]

Iraq

Iraq: A country whose Future was Stolen (Jamail)

Juan Cole

Dahr Jamail writes at Tomdispatch.com Back then, everybody was writing about Iraq, but it’s surprising how few Americans, including reporters, paid much attention to the suffering of Iraqis. Today, Iraq is in the news again. The words, the memorials, the retrospectives are pouring out, and again the suffering of Iraqis isn’t what’s on anyone’s mind. […]

Iraq War

BBC Journalists accidentally Bombed by US Air Force during 2003 Invasion of Iraq (Video)

Juan Cole

BBC crew accidentally bombed by US Air Force during 2003 invasion of Iraq: Video at Youtube:

Iraq

Iraq 10 Years Later: The Bitter Days Continue because Policy didn’t put People First (Al-Sheemary)

Juan Cole

Banen Al-Sheemary ( @balsheem), a young Iraqi-American woman and activist, writes in a guest column for Informed Comment Ten years today, I remember sitting in front of the television and watching the sky turn bright yellow because of the massive blasts. Silent, I turned away from the screen to see my parents’ reaction. Absolute silence. […]

Iraq War

Phil Donohue Recalls how he Was Fired From MSNBC for Being anti-war (Goodman Interview)

Juan Cole

At Democracy Now! Phil Donohue recalls how then General Electric-owned NBC fired him from his popular and top-rated talk show on MSNBC in spring of 2003 because it feared his voice in opposition to the Iraq War. It is great to have the whole story from Donohue. Here is what I wrote at this blog […]

Iraq

What we Did to Iraq

Juan Cole

Sunni radicals hit Baghdad Tuesday morning on the anniversary of the beginning of the US war on Iraq, killing over 50 people in attacks on soft targets (shopkeepers, pedestrians) in Shiite areas of the capital. They were signaling their continued die-hard opposition to the new Iraq, which is dominated by Shiite political parties, in which […]

Iraq

What we Lost: Top Ten Ways the Iraq War Harmed the US

Juan Cole

As the tenth anniversary of the launching of the Iraq War approaches, I’ll be making some comments about the episode at this blog, which for the years 2003-2010 intensively covered events in Iraq. A decade is long enough for some things to become clear. The first set of issues I want to discuss has to […]