A fascinating investigation by Michael Hastings in Rolling Stone – this is one journalist (and friend) with a fine record of uncovering secrets – on the internal American dialogue over military intervention in Libya. A key theme, repeated over and over again by various officials, is the desire by elements within the Obama administration to…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
How to make money on the back of failure in the 21st century
Here’s how the war economy works. Get in the military. Learn about “terrorism”. Preach “counter-insurgency” tactics to a gullible establishment and media. Talk about understanding local cultures while at the same time backing kill/capture methods that routinely fail/murder innocents/kidnap the wrong person (hello Afghanistan, latest report here and here). A perfect example of this person…
The dangers faced by Jews in Iraq post Wikileaks
Disturbing news from Baghdad, via McClatchy: An Anglican priest here says he’s working with the U.S. Embassy to persuade the handful of Jews who still live in Baghdad to leave because their names have appeared in cables published last month by WikiLeaks. The Rev. Canon Andrew White said he first approached members of the Jewish…
Just how many private security forces will remain in Iraq?
Feral Jundi explains: What is interesting about this is that DoS has been getting some pressure from folks in Congress as to how many security contractors will be on the ground in Iraq in the near future. So this number is coming directly from DoS as a projection for 2012. That number is 5,000 security…
This is what American “reconstruction” looked like in Iraq
Former Foreign Service Officer at the US State Department, Peter Van Buren, has written a book about the disastrous Iraq invasion, of which he was a part. It’s an (almost) comical account of the gross ineptitude of the occupation and the massive amount of money wasted. Tax-payer money: Very few people outside the agricultural world…
What legitimate civil disobedience against a war criminal looks like
Bravo: On Monday 26 September, three members of Veterans For Peace and a member of Code Pink confronted Donald Rumsfeld at a Boston stop of his book tour. I attempted to make a citizen’s arrest. Police hustled all four of us out, while a hostile rightwing crowd shouted and jeered. To get in, we had…
Welcome to lack of US transparency over wasted billions on disaster capitalism
Yes: The internal records of a congressionally mandated panel that reported staggering estimates of wasteful U.S. wartime spending will remain sealed to the public until 2031, officials confirmed, as the panel closed its doors on Friday. The Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan was established by Congress in 2008 and spent three years…
Washington happy to arm thugs, despots and crooks (yet still talk democracy)
Really: American arms merchants enjoyed a dominant year in 2010 as the United States was responsible for selling more than half of all weapons worldwide. Although U.S. arms exports actually declined last year, compared to 2009, the dramatic drop in global arms deals resulted in American suppliers controlling 53% of the market (up from 35%…
We fight more battles but care little about those people in the firing line
Imperial nations love to fight wars – and Barack Obama has only increased the American military footprint – but it comes with a heavy cost (via ProPublica): Private contractors injured while working for the U.S. government in Iraq and Afghanistan filed a class action lawsuit in federal court on Monday, claiming that corporations and insurance…