Posts Tagged ‘War On Terror’
The Secret War Against Afghanistan’s Space Invaders
If only it was like a video game…
Lauren Davis writes on io9.com:
Adam Richardson has added pixelated alien invaders to actual war photos from Iraq and Afghanistan. And when the Space Invaders descend on a war zone, they find that they have more to contend with more than laser cannons.
Anti-war Soldier Faces 10 Years in Jail
From the Sydney Morning Herald:
A British soldier who faces up to 10 years in jail for speaking out against the war in Afghanistan will go before a military judge this week to discover if he will remain in an army jail while he awaits trial.
In an escalation of the Ministry of Defence’s legal action against him, Lance Corporal Joe Glenton, 27, was arrested and charged last week with five counts of disobeying lawful commands and standing orders in relation to his public opposition to the war expressed at an anti-war rally last month.
He had already been charged with desertion for refusing to return to fight in Afghanistan.
[Read more at the Sydney Morning Herald]
The Real Deficit Hawks: Where’s the Outrage Over the Defense Budget?
David Sirota writes on Salon:
Let’s say you’re a congressperson or “tea party” leader looking to champion deficit reduction — a cause 38 percent of Americans tell pollsters they support. And let’s say you’re deciding whether to back two pieces of imminent legislation.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the first bill’s spending provisions cost $100 billion annually and its tax and budget-cutting provisions recoup $111 billion annually, thus reducing total federal expenditures by $11 billion each year. The second bill proposes $636 billion in annual spending and recoups nothing. Over 10 years, the first bill would spend $1 trillion and recover $1.11 trillion — a fantastic return on taxpayer investment. Meanwhile, the second bill puts us on a path to spend $6.3 trillion in the same time.
Save $110 billion, or…
Meet the New Boss
From Nick P. at Black Sun Gazette:
We’re almost a full year into the Obama regime, and over a year past his election. There is significant disconnect between the rhetoric and the reality. I was widely pilloried for not joining in the choruses of “hope and change.” While I acknowledge that most Americans voting for a black man for President represents something, I disagree with most people about what it represents.
If nothing else, having a black president highlights what black people living in urban areas run by black Democrats already know — black Democrats are dangerous hustlers, charlatans of the highest order who prey on their own people. Illusions in Obama quickly shatter in light of the reality. Despite repeated attempts by craven apologists of Obama to represent him as some…
Afghanistan and the “Other” Vietnam War
From Truthout:
When discussing the Vietnam War or comparing it to America’s other conflicts, such as the current one in Afghanistan, the “other” Vietnam War is rarely mentioned. This is very unfortunate, because it might be just the correct path to pursue in seeking a peaceful solution.
And much like President Barack Obama, who inherited the hostilities in Afghanistan, then-President Johnson inherited the Vietnam War. As the war dragged on, some personal aides claimed Johnson was never more ecstatic over Vietnam than when pledging to send billions of dollars to help toward construction and agricultural projects and the economic growth of Southeast Asia and the Mekong River region.
[Read more at Truthout]
Top Obama Advisors Want More Troops In Afghanistan
The New York Times reports on the march to perpetual war in Afghanistan occurring within the Obama administration:
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton are coalescing around a proposal to send 30,000 or more additional American troops to Afghanistan.
Officials said that while Admiral Mullen and Mrs. Clinton were generally in sync with Mr. Gates in supporting an option of about 30,000 troops, there were variations in their positions and they were not working in lock step.
Blackwater Accused of Bribing Iraqi Officials
The New York Times reports:
Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.
Blackwater approved the cash payments in December 2007, the officials said, as protests over the deadly shootings in Nisour Square stoked long-simmering anger inside Iraq about reckless practices by the security company’s employees. American and Iraqi investigators had already concluded that the shootings were unjustified, top Iraqi officials were calling for Blackwater’s ouster from the country and company officials feared that Blackwater might be refused an operating license it would need to retain its contracts with the State Department and…
Massive Defense Spending Leads to Job Loss
From Truthout:
There is a major national ad campaign, funded by the oil industry and other usual suspects, to convince the public that measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and slow global warming will result in massive job loss. This ad campaign warns of slower growth and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, possibly even millions of jobs, if some variation of the current proposals being debated by Congress get passed into law.
In fact, standard economic models do show that measures designed to reduce GHG by raising energy prices will lead to some cost in terms of slower economic growth. And slower economic growth implies fewer jobs, although the impact will almost certainly be less than indicated in these scare stories.
[Read more at Truthout]
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FBI Memos Flagged The Green Party As A Terrorist Group
Gawker has a copy of an internal FBI memo, a couple years old, created in response to the threat of animal-rights terrorism in Georgia.
Interestingly the Green Party is identified as a possible terrorist threat to be watched.
2014 or Bust: The Pentagon’s Building Boom in Afghanistan Indicates a Long War Ahead
From Truthout:
In recent weeks, President Obama has been contemplating the future of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. He has also been touting the effects of his policies at home, reporting that this year’s Recovery Act not only saved jobs, but also was “the largest investment in infrastructure since [President Dwight] Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s.” At the same time, another much less publicized U.S.-taxpayer-funded infrastructure boom has been underway. This one in Afghanistan.
While Washington has put modest funding into civilian projects in Afghanistan this year — ranging from small-scale power plants to “public latrines” to a meat market — the real construction boom is military in nature. The Pentagon has been funneling stimulus-sized sums of money to defense contractors to markedly boost its military infrastructure in that country.
In fiscal…
Criminal Convictions of 22 CIA Agents in Italy
From Salon:
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA’s kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
The criminal conviction of 22 CIA agents (and 2 Italian intelligence officers) by an Italian court yesterday — for the 2003 kidnapping of an Islamic cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, off the street in Italy and his “rendition” to Egypt to be tortured — highlights several vital points:
First, illustrating how these matters are typically distorted by the U.S. establishment media, note that CNN — in the very first paragraph of its story — claims that the CIA agents were convicted “for their role in the seizing of a suspected terrorist in Italy in 2003.” What did Nasr allegedly do that warrants that “terrorist” label? Did he participate in the 9/11 attacks, or plan attacks on “the American homeland” or U.S. civilians? No. According to CNN, this is…
Lawsuit Accuses Psychologist of Ignoring Guantanamo Torture
From Truthout: 
The state board responsible for licensing – and disciplining – psychologists in Louisiana is “fighting awfully hard to turn a blind eye to serious allegations of abuse” brought against one of its members, who is being accused of complicity in beatings, religious and sexual humiliation, rape threats and painful body positions during his service as a senior adviser on interrogations for the US military in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
That is the view expressed to Truthout by Deborah Popowski, cooperating attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), part of the legal team representing Dr. Trudy Bond, an Ohio-based psychologist, who is suing the Louisiana State Board of Examiners of Psychologists to compel it to investigate the behavior of Louisiana psychologist and retired US Army Col. Dr. Larry…
Soon After His Brother is Revealed to be a CIA Drug Runner, Look Who is Handed a Second Term
The AP via Yahoo News reports:
President Hamid Karzai was effectively handed a second five-year term Sunday when his only challenger dropped out of the race, and the Obama administration said it was prepared to work with the man it has previously criticized to combat corruption and confront the Taliban insurgency.
President Barack Obama has been waiting for a new government in Kabul to announce whether he will send tens of thousands of new troops to Afghanistan. The war has intensified and October was the deadliest month of the eight-year war for U.S. forces.
Former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah announced his decision to quit six days before the runoff election, after last-minute talks led by the U.S. and United Nations failed to produce a power-sharing agreement acceptable to Karzai, according to a Western diplomat…
