Clipmarks | kelvin273's 'iraq' clips

Afghanistan going down the toilet

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 01:40:59 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: So basically postwar Afghanistan is looking a lot like postwar Iraq now. The Iraqi invasion (and the timing) just look better all the time. :-/

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A resurgent Taliban is back in charge over parts of Afghanistan, the nation's chief intelligence official said Wednesday in an assessment that differed from the one made last month by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Despite his less-optimistic assessment on that score, McConnell said the Taliban has suffered "significant degradation" in its leadership and is unable to successfully face off against U.S. and NATO forces.

He attributed an uptick in violence to the Taliban resorting to the terrorist tactics used by al Qaeda in Iraq -- suicide attacks and roadside bombings.

McConnell also said the Taliban chooses other means to engage.

"They'll fill in an area when we withdraw, or they will influence a village or region if our presence is not there," he said.

Tags: afghanistan, war.war on terror

Why Saddam pretended to have WMDs

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 04:59:38 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: This is interesting. I always thought he was afraid of a domestic rebellion, i.e. the Kurdish rebellion that was only put down with mustard gas.

Clip Source: www.cbsnews.com

(CBS) Saddam Hussein initially didn't think the U.S. would invade Iraq to destroy weapons of mass destruction, so he kept the fact that he had none a secret to prevent an Iranian invasion he believed could happen. The Iraqi dictator revealed this thinking to George Piro, the FBI agent assigned to interrogate him after his capture.

"He told me he initially miscalculated... President Bush’s intentions. He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998...a four-day aerial attack," says Piro. "He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack."

Saddam still wouldn't admit he had no weapons of mass destruction, even when it was obvious there would be military action against him because of the perception he did. Because, says Piro, "For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam. He thought that [faking having the weapons] would prevent the Iranians from reinvading Iraq," he tells Pelley.

Tags: iraq, saddam hussein, war

Are they underestimating Harry Reid?

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 05:02:09 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: I wonder if Harry Reid is smarter than we've been giving him credit for. Conventional wisdom in Democratic circles holds that he's a wimp who folds every time Republicans even threaten a filibuster. But I wonder if it's possible that playing the helpless minority, especially on Iraq, might pay more political dividends than direct confrontation by sending the message that voters *must* give the Dems 60 votes in the Senate and the presidency if they want the war to end. I still think they should be more confrontational on domestic issues like the AMT, but this is food for thought.

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says President Bush is driving allies "over the cliff."

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The House of Representatives approved another $70 billion in war spending on Wednesday, capping a year of frustration for Democrats who took control of Congress on pledges to end the war in Iraq.

Rep. David Obey, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said Democrats "have tried every way known to man to bring this war to a conclusion."

"I think it is clear that if the nation wants a change in direction with respect to this war, it has only two options," said Obey, D-Wisconsin. "One is to elect more progressive voices in the United States Senate, and second is to elect a president who has a different set of priorities domestically and a different vision for America's involvement in the Middle East -- and especially in Iraq."

Tags: congress, politics, iraq war

Contingency plan for Iran attack released

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 04:39:17 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: The addition of an attack on U.S. forces in Iraq is kind of new, but does this really surprise anyone who's been paying remote attention to the news for the past few weeks?

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

US 'Iran attack plans' revealed

It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres.

The US insists it is not planning to attack, and is trying to persuade Tehran to stop uranium enrichment.

The UN has urged Iran to stop the programme or face economic sanctions.

But diplomatic sources have told the BBC that as a fallback plan, senior officials at Central Command in Florida have already selected their target sets inside Iran.

That list includes Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. Facilities at Isfahan, Arak and Bushehr are also on the target list, the sources say.

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies.

The Natanz plant is buried under concrete, metal and earth

Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran.

The BBC's Tehran correspondent France Harrison says the news that there are now two possible triggers for an attack is a concern to Iranians.

Tags: war, iran, iraq, nuclear weapons

Details of Saddam's Execution

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 05:18:39 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: I find it interesting that Al-Maliki didn't attend the exection. He's on record as being against the death penalty, but it's also smart politically. By not attending personally, he avoids the appearance that he's a Shiite politician gloating over the death of the Sunnis' hero.

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Iraqi TV says Saddam Hussein executed

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein, the shotgun-waving dictator who ruled Iraq with a remorseless brutality for a quarter-century and was driven from power by a U.S.-led war that left his country in shambles, was taken to the gallows and executed Saturday.

President Bush called Saddam's execution "the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime."

Also hanged were Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court. State-run Iraqiya television news announcer said "criminal Saddam was hanged to death and the execution started with criminal Saddam then Barzan then Awad al-Bandar."

Mariam al-Rayes, a legal expert and a former member of the Shiite bloc in parliament, told Iraqiya television that the execution "was filmed and God willing it will be shown. There was one camera present, and a doctor was also present there."

Al-Rayes, an ally of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, did not attend the execution. She said Al-Maliki did not attend but was represented by an aide.

The execution was carried out around the start of Eid al-Adha, the Islamic world's largest holiday, which marks the end of the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj. Many Muslims celebrate by sacrificing domestic animals, usually sheep.

Sunnis and Shiites throughout the world began observing the four-day holiday at dawn Saturday, but Iraq's Shiite community — the country's majority — was due to start celebrating on Sunday.

Tags: iraq, international, saddam hussein

Incoming intelligence committe chairman doesn't know squat about al-Qaeda

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 05:43:17 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273
clipper's remarks: Then again, neither do the Republicans apparently. The whole article is worth reading for the disturbing picture it paints of our intelligence community.

Clip Source: public.cq.com

Democrats’ New Intelligence Chairman Needs a Crash Course on al Qaeda

By Jeff Stein, CQ National Security Editor

Forty years ago, Sgt. Silvestre Reyes was a helicopter crew chief flying dangerous combat missions in South Vietnam from the top of a soaring rocky outcrop near the sea called Marble Mountain.

After the war, it turned out that the communist Viet Cong had tunneled into the hill and built a combat hospital right beneath the skids of Reyes’ UH-1 Huey gunship.

Now the five-term Texas Democrat, 62, is facing similar unpleasant surprises about the enemy, this time as the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

That’s because, like a number of his colleagues and top counterterrorism officials that I’ve interviewed over the past several months, Reyes can’t answer some fundamental questions about the powerful forces arrayed against us in the Middle East.

It begs the question, of course: How can the Intelligence Committee do effective oversight of U.S. spy agencies when its leaders don’t know basics about the battlefield?

To his credit, Reyes, a kindly, thoughtful man who also sits on the Armed Service Committee, does see the undertows drawing the region into chaos.

For example, he knows that the 1,400- year-old split in Islam between Sunnis and Shiites not only fuels the militias and death squads in Iraq, it drives the competition for supremacy across the Middle East between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.

That’s more than two key Republicans on the Intelligence Committee knew when I interviewed them last summer. Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Va., and Terry Everett, R-Ala., both back for another term, were flummoxed by such basic questions, as were several top counterterrorism officials at the FBI.

Tags: politics, intelligence, war, iraq

Iraq has been in a Civil War for two years

Sun, 26 Nov 2006 03:36:06 GMT

clipped by: kelvin273

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

News Analysis

A Matter of Definition: What Makes a Civil War, and Who Declares It So?

By EDWARD WONG

Published: November 26, 2006

BAGHDAD, Nov. 25 — Is Iraq in a civil war?

Though the Bush administration continues to insist that it is not, a growing number of American and Iraqi scholars, leaders and policy analysts say the fighting in Iraq meets the standard definition of civil war.

The common scholarly definition has two main criteria. The first says that the warring groups must be from the same country and fighting for control of the political center, control over a separatist state or to force a major change in policy. The second says that at least 1,000 people must have been killed in total, with at least 100 from each side.

American professors who specialize in the study of civil wars say that most of their number are in agreement that Iraq’s conflict is a civil war.

“I think that at this time, and for some time now, the level of violence in Iraq meets the definition of civil war that any reasonable person would have,” said James Fearon, a political scientist at Stanford.

While the term is broad enough to include many kinds of conflicts, one of the sides in a civil war is almost always a sovereign government. So some scholars now say civil war began when the Americans transferred sovereignty to an appointed Iraqi government in June 2004. That officially transformed the anti-American war into one of insurgent groups seeking to regain power for disenfranchised Sunni Arabs against an Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and increasingly dominated by Shiites.

Others say the civil war began this year, after the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra set off a chain of revenge killings that left hundreds dead over five days and has yet to end. Mr. Allawi proclaimed a month after that bombing that Iraq was mired in a civil war. “If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is,” he said.

Tags: war, iraq

Prominent conservative surveys the wreckage of contemporary conservatism

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 17:52:12 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks: The entire article is highly reccommended for those that want to trace the GOP's post-9/11 "stumble into neoconservatism" from an insider's perspective. Bramwell's honesty and way with words are refreshing.

Until recently, it has been almost impossible for me to speak candidly about the conservative movement, for it was my strange fate to serve as director and later trustee of the movement’s flagship journal, National Review. Earlier this year, at William F. Buckley’s request, I resigned both positions. I can therefore now declare what perhaps has oft been thought but never, at least not often enough, expressed. Notwithstanding conservatives’ belief that they, in contrast to their partisan opponents, have thought deeply about the challenges facing the United States, it is they who have become unserious.

Clip Source: www.amconmag.com

November 20, 2006 Issue

The American Conservative

Good-bye to All That

by Austin W. Bramwell

Despite their vacuity, the metaphors have inspired specific policies. In defending the invasion and occupation of Iraq (and possible attacks on Syria or Iran), conservatives invoke 9/11 with astonishing alacrity. I once heard an NR senior editor, a man revered for his high-mindedness, begin his defense of the Iraq occupation by reminding the audience that on 9/11 “they” attacked “us.” In his mind as in others’, the invasion of Iraq has so inescapable a connection to 9/11 that only a traitor or fool would deny it.

In short, the steps in the causal logic whereby Iraqi democracy defeats anti-American terrorism are so numerous and doubtful that it becomes impossible to believe that Bush’s supporters have ever actually thought them through. Those who wonder what error befell the conservative movement since Bush took office are asking the wrong question. Since 9/11, the conservative movement has not made unsound or fallacious arguments for supporting Bush’s policies. Rather, it has made no arguments at all. T.S. Eliot once asked, “Are you alive or not? Is there nothing in your head?” The answer: “Nothing, again, nothing.”

Tags: bramwell, austin bramwell, national review, conservatives, neoconservatives, 9/11, iraq, war, politics, usa, foreign policy, middle east, islam, terrorism