US to Counter Growing Taliban Violence
In a surprise shake-up last month, Robert Gates, the US defense secretary, dismissed Army General David McKiernan as the most senior US and Nato commander in Afghanistan and selected McChrystal as his replacement, saying it was time for "fresh thinking".
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US State Attorneys General Defending Israeli War Crimes
In response to a series of reports by human rights organizations and international legal scholars documenting serious large-scale violations of international humanitarian law by Israeli armed forces in its recent war on the Gaza Strip, 10 U.S. state attorneys general sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defending the Israeli action.
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Health Care Activists Lament Single-Payer Snub
Frustrated by the exclusion of government-financed medical care from the debate to revamp the nation's troubled health system, advocates of a "single-payer" plan are increasingly turning to demonstrations and civil disobedience as a way to get their message across.
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Why US Still in Iraq?
However one frames the debate, it is apparent to any fair minded and rational person that the invasion of Iraq, based as it was on misinformation at best, lies and deceptions at worst, was a mistake and should never have occurred.
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Hold Torturers Accountable
While Congress is sidetracked by who said what to whom and when, our nation finds itself at a crossroads on the issue of torture. We are at a point where we must decide if torture is something that is now going to be considered justifiable and reasonable under certain circumstances, or is America better than that?
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Bankruptcy for GM Would Tax Experts
The decline of General Motors may be putting thousands of auto workers and managers out of work, but it will be putting a lot of lawyers to work.
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Who will do Justice to Victims of US Invasion of Iraq?
Iraqis killed, maimed, turned into refugees, and made homeless as a direct or indirect result of the 2003-U.S. invasion are in millions. Who will do justice to them?
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Review of CIA Memos Divides Congress
Sequestered in rooms buried deep within the Capitol and requiring top-secret clearances to enter, members of the House and Senate intelligence committees have spent the past week leafing through documents at the heart of Washington's latest who-knew-what-and-when saga.
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Iran's Missile Test Message to Obama, Netanyahu
Iran's latest missile test may have less to do with advancing its military capability than with getting a last word in on Monday's conversation between U.S President Barack Obama and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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Unsurprising Psychic Toll of War in Iraq
By this point, we should not be surprised to realize that the media, after a brief flurry of coverage, quickly dropped the story of John Russell, the Army sergeant being treated for mental issues, who gunned down five colleagues at a stress clinic in Baghdad earlier this month.
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Guantánamo Prison Built on Lies
As the Obama administration prepares to relaunch Dick Cheney and David Addington’s reviled military commissions (with claims that they will be used for less than 20 of the 241 prisoners still held), senior officials have been largely silent about the eventual fate of the rest of the prisoners, with the exception of a few recent remarks indicating that they are also thinking of pressing for a form of "preventive detention" for 50 to 100 of the prisoners.
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US Disease of Permanent War
The embrace by any society of permanent war is a parasite that devours the heart and soul of a nation. Permanent war extinguishes liberal, democratic movements. It turns culture into nationalist cant. It degrades and corrupts education and the media, and wrecks the economy.
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13 People Who Made Torture Possible
The Bush administration's Torture 13. They authorized it, they decided how to implement it, and they crafted the legal fig leaf to justify it.
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Distorting Public Opinion on Torture Investigations
Last Friday, CNN hosted a panel debate on torture and investigations with two conservatives and two liberals (Daily Kos' David Waldman and Center for American Progress' Erica Williams). Waldman did a genuinely masterful job of arguing the case against torture and for investigations -- you can watch the five-minute segment here -- but, bizarrely, the representative for CAP joined in with the two conservatives against Waldman to insist that there be no investigations. This is what she said:
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Criticism of US Foreign Policy
America has commitments all over the world, but we proved unable to defend ourselves against the assault of 9/11. By allowing empire to trump defense, what Bacevich calls the "national security state" failed miserably.
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Critics Call Obama's Tribunals 'Bush Lite'
In an apparent reversal, Barack Obama is reviving the Bush administration's much-criticized military tribunals for Guantanamo Bay detainees, shocking those who expected the president to end them completely.
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Horror, Stress of Iraq Duty Led US Sergeant to Kill Comrades
Soldier's killing spree left five dead – adding to the grim total of murders by US veterans as the military is accused of failing its battle-scarred personnel.
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Barack Obama War Criminal-in-Chief
Certain conclusions are now inescapable, even this early in the miraculous, transcendent Age of Obama. Insofar as those who regularly follow political matters are concerned, and especially with regard to those people who write about politics and foreign policy -- which is to say, insofar as commentators and reporters in the mainstream media and on blogs are concerned -- to continue to believe that Barack Obama represents any kind of "improvement" over the abomination of George W. Bush is not an innocent error. To persist in delusions of this kind requires that one intentionally and deliberately blind oneself to evidence that assaults us every day.
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Obama Picks Up Where Bush Left Off
Barack Obama is aggressively stepping up the war in Afghanistan. He's intensified the cross-border bombing of Pakistan and he is doubling the number of U.S. troops to 68,000 by 2010. He's also a strong proponent of pilotless drones even though hundreds of civilians have been killed in bombing raid blunders.
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Military Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo
The 'Black Shirts' of Guantanamo routinely terrorize prisoners, breaking bones, gouging eyes, squeezing testicles, and 'dousing' them with chemicals.
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US Mistake of Afghanizing Pakistan
As Pakistan begins an all-out air and land assault on its own people and its president asks America for drones, we must ask: Can Pakistan succeed in defeating the Taliban when America has not?
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Obama’s Talk of Transparency Not Applicable
Obama has been in power more than 100 days, which is time enough to judge the man’s intentions for the American empire. The signs are not good. Liquidation is clearly not on his agenda.
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Get Ready for Abu Ghraib, Act II
Five years ago, people around the world were sickened by photographs that surfaced showing U.S. troops abusing Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Act I resulted in an avalanche of congressional hearings, 15 Pentagon probes and courts-martial. More than 400 U.S. troops - but no senior officials - went to jail or were otherwise punished. Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act to try to prevent future atrocities.
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Mixed Signals about Nukes
It’s not on the front pages of what is left of U.S. newspapers. The headlines are dominated by violence in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, by Miss America’s semi-nude photo scandal, and by the Chrysler fiasco. But just about everyone who is anyone is talking about nuclear weapons this week.
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Lawmakers Try to Block New Abuse Photos
Civil libertarians are condemning a call by two influential U.S. senators for the White House to block the impending release of photographs showing detainees being abused by U.S. military personnel at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at other U.S. detention facilities in the Middle East and elsewhere.
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Republicans Play New Fear Card
Still thinking that Americans are the easily frightened people that George W. Bush manipulated, the Republicans have pulled out a new “war on terror” fear card, spreading alarm about the possible transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to U.S. prisons.
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From Arab Woman to America
I hate everything you represent, everything you stand for, everything about you...EVERYTHING. I fucking hate you.
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Obama Readies Troops as Afghans Pile up Body Parts
As rage spreads in Afghanistan after US bombing that killed up to 130 people, unnamed Pentagon officials are spinning another cover-up. Defiant Obama moves ahead with troop increase.
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US Foreign Policy Caused the Taliban Problem
U.S. officials are now concerned not only with a Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan but also a Taliban takeover in Pakistan. These problems, however, were caused by the U.S. Empire itself.
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Losing Hearts, Minds, Lives in Afghanistan
Afghanistan is in an uproar following U.S. airstrikes that may have killed more than 100 civilians in the western part of the country. Reports from Farah province said that on Thursday a mob of several hundred protesters chanted anti-American slogans and threw rocks outside at provincial governor's office before being disbursed by police gunfire. In Kabul, outraged lawmakers called for new laws to clamp down on foreign military operations. Ahead of talks with President Obama in Washington, Afghan President Hamid Karzai bluntly said the deaths were "unjustifiable and unacceptable."
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US Hides behind Iran Sanctions Threat
Whereas United States President Barack Obama promised in his new year message to Iran that he was committed to a new diplomacy that "will not be advanced by threats", a month later this is precisely what is happening. This is in light of new White House-backed legislation in the US Congress that aims to impose "crippling sanctions" on Iran by targeting its energy imports.
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Obama’s Afghan-Ignorant Policy Guide
With much ballyhooing, Bruce Riedel led a team that conducted the Obama administration’s "review" of Afghan policy. As is known, the team’s deliberations produced a wonder of either naiveté or stupidity, or perhaps both: 21,000 more U.S. troops to control a country the size of Texas, and a logistical system running vital U.S.-NATO resupply lines through hostile territory in Pakistan and – with Russia’s gleeful support for keeping America bleeding in Afghanistan – the Commonwealth of Independent States. The question must be asked how a man as intelligent as Riedel came up with a plan that amounts to massively reinforcing failure.
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Democracy at Gunpoint Guarantees US Defeat
An account from the Taliban side of the Afghanistan war, which was published in the New York Times on May 5, provides devastating evidence of the failure that almost certainly will eventually overtake the United States and NATO. It is a long interview with a young Taliban “logistics tactician” who has been speaking with Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah of the Times for many months about the Taliban view of the war, and about what he sees as their inevitable victory.
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Fighting High-tech War with Low-tech Mule
US Marines and soldiers are training to fight in Afghanistan, where mules and donkeys can haul supplies and weapons to places where Humvees and helicopters can't easily go.
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US Soldiers in Afghanistan Told to Hunt People for Jesus
New video evidence has surfaced showing that US military forces in Afghanistan have been instructed by the military's top chaplain in the country to "hunt people for Jesus" as they spread Christianity to the overwhelmingly Muslim population. Soldiers also have imported bibles translated into Pashto and Dari, the two dominant languages of Afghanistan. What's more, the center of this evangelical operation is at the huge US base at Bagram, one of the main sites used by the US military to torture and indefinitely detain prisoners.
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UAE 'Torture' Scandal Sparks Outrage in US
As more videotapes emerge documenting the torture inflicted on numerous victims by Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a prince of the United Arab Emirates, the controversy is beginning to jeopardize the UAE's relationship with the United States [1], a country that absolutely loathes torture and demands real accountability for those who do it:
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How Many Innocents Will Die for Illusion of US Safety?
Almost like clockwork, the reports float up to us from thousands of miles away, as if from another universe. Every couple of days they seem to arrive from Afghan villages that few Americans will ever see without weapon in hand.
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Unclenching American Fist toward Iran
"If countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us," President Barack Obama said upon assuming the presidency, and this phrase has become a new mantra in Washington: If only the mad mullahs would play with us, we would be ready and willing.
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Ugly Truth about Foreign Aid in Afghanistan
Vast sums of money are being lavished by Western aid agencies on their own officials in Afghanistan at a time when extreme poverty is driving young Afghans to fight for the Taliban. The going rate paid by the Taliban for an attack on a police checkpoint in the west of the country is $4, but foreign consultants in Kabul, who are paid out of overseas aids budgets, can command salaries of $250,000 to $500,000 a year.
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US Combo of Torture, Impunity Thrives in Iraqi Prisons
Part of the deadly serious problem with the Obama administration's position on (not) holding accountable CIA torturers, their lawyers and the Bush administration officials who authorized and ordered all of these crimes is this: It sends a message to other governments that if Washington does it, we can too. Especially governments completely created by the US government.
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Culture of Unpunished Sexual Assault in US Military
Sexual assault of women serving in the U.S. military, while brought to light in recent reports, has a long tradition in that institution.
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Iraq's Wrecked Environment
The ecological effects of war, like its horrific toll on human life, are exponential. When the Bush administration (parts one and two) and its congressional allies sent troops to Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime, they not only ordered these men and women to commit crimes against humanity, they also commanded them to perpetrate crimes against nature.
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Obama Has Missed His Moment
Barack Obama has squandered his presidency. He had a fleeting moment to challenge the casino capitalism and financial recklessness of our economic and political elite.
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Chasing Ghosts in Afghanistan
There were two important hearings regarding Afghanistan on the Hill last week -- in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and at the Congressional Progressive Caucus' (CPC) third forum examining the war. Both raised critical questions about the current strategy of escalation -- questions Congress should take to heart as it considers the $83 billion war supplemental in coming weeks.
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How US Torture Came To Iraq
According to the Taguba report, torture by military units in Iraq was implemented after the Gitmo commander General Miller visited Iraq in August/September 2003 and recommended that the military police should be used in setting the conditions for intelligence exploitation of the prisoners. The pictures from Abu Ghraib were the result of that visit.
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Clinton on Wrong Track
Hilary Clinton has changed her views on Iraq so many times that she would make a leopard that changed his spots jealous. Let’s look at the quote she made on October 10, 2002 about Iraq:
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Torture Killed more Americans than 9/11
US interpreter who witnessed torture in Iraq shot herself with service rifle.
"The reason why foreign fighters joined al-Qaeda in Iraq was overwhelmingly because of abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and not Islamic ideology," says Major Matthew Alexander, who personally conducted 300 interrogations of prisoners in Iraq.
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Horrific Crimes Take Toll on Cops
Detective Nate Cogburn's last few months have been filled with the stuff of nightmares.
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Failure of US Economic System End to ‘Outsourcing’
The U.S. economy is now in a deflationary spiral caused by dumping of cheap foreign goods without equal export of U.S. goods; the deflation was triggered when construction of houses had to be terminated. These matters and the reason outsourcing must be terminated will be discussed.
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US to Release Photos of Abuse by American Personnel
The Obama administration agreed late Thursday to release dozens of photographs depicting abuse by U.S. personnel during the Bush administration of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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