Clipmarks | pokkets's 'iraq' clips

U.S. Military Hoped for Virtually Unlimited Freedom of Action in Iraq

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:37:45 GMT

clipped by: sahara
clipper's remarks: This was reported in June...

According to Cockburn's reporting, "President Bush wants to push [the security pact] through by the end of [July 2008] so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated." (Note 13) A prime beneficiary of the acceptance of a military agreement that the Iraqi people do not believe respects their rights or serves their interests would probably be the vast, privatized U.S. military/intelligence complex, positioned to profit from repressing the resistance sure to follow. If the Bush administration's goal is achieved through secret deals and pressure tactics it would only confirm the widespread view that its commitment to democracy is primarily self-serving. In Iraq as elsewhere there are many who would welcome a genuine American commitment to liberty and human rights but believe that U.S. actions contradict its rhetoric.
So much to decipher here!

Clip Source: www.gwu.edu

Washington D.C., June 13, 2008 - Recently declassified documents show that the U.S. military has long sought an agreement with Baghdad that gives American forces virtually unfettered freedom of action, casting into doubt the Bush administration's current claims that their demands are more limited in scope. News reports have indicated that the Bush administration is exerting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to accept a U.S.-Iraq security plan by the end of July 2008. According to these accounts, the plan would give the U.S. more than 50 military bases in Iraq, provide complete freedom of action to conduct military operations, allow complete freedom to arrest and detain Iraqis, and grant U.S. forces and contractors total immunity from Iraqi law

According to the slides, U.S. requirements for Iraq included:

Use of Iraqi facilities

Contracting

Entry and Exit of forces

Taxation

Security requirements and support

The Current Plan

Likely Fallout

Read the Documents

Tags: war, iraq, freedom

Admit it, the Surge worked

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:43:25 GMT

clipped by: cptenaud
clipper's remarks: Click the link for complete story and comments.

Clip Source: www.vetvoice.com

by: Combat Infantry Bunny

Tue Jul 08, 2008

Ok, I'm gonna say it, I'm going to admit to it . . . the Surge worked. Yep, and I'll hold steady with that statement if it means that we'll start pulling troops from Iraq. If the war/surge-lovers are waiting for us surge skeptics to give in, eat crow and say it worked before they are willing to give-up, than so be it. I strongly suspect chickenhawks everywhere aren't willing to take out troops until we(surge skeptics)admit we were wrong. I swear to god they will have nothing against wasting 20, 30 or 100 more American lives just to rub it in our faces that we were wrongo. Combat Infantry Bunny :: Admit it, the Surge worked.

Yep, the fact that we are back down to near 2004/5 levels in troop casualties is truly a success story. Hey, btw, any of you guys who were there in 2004/5 want to discuss how "safe" you felt back then?

Tags: iraq, surge

"Stability" in Iraq revives the "good war" myth

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:38:13 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: We can't bring justice to Iraq by continuing to force ourselves on it. We ARE the injustice.

Clip Source: files.tikkun.org

the Republicans wield another symbol of America as a righteous winner: the goal of achieving "stability" in Iraq. It may be the most seductive image of all, because it exerts a strong appeal across the political spectrum

War -- righteous, courageous, and ultimately victorious -- has always been a central theme in the American myth of stability

If Democrats and war critics go on the counterattack against the surge success story, they will keep that mythic drama on center stage in the theater

McCain's campaign survives, and thrives, only by

relying on its mastery of a language of American identity centered on the symbolism of an American "good war." Any debate about military success in Iraq, however contentious, keeps his strong suit in the spotlight.

The Democrats, however, can turn

by refusing to treat the issue of military success or failure as the central question of the moment

And we can begin to heal from our moral bankruptcy, not to mention our impending financial one.

Tags: war on terror, iraq

BBC: $24 BILLION missing in Iraq

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:23:51 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Equal stack of $1's would rise 1500 miles.

Clip Source: www.juancole.com

A BBC investigation concludes that as much as $24 billion has gone missing in Iraq, and much of it may have been embezzled by private companies and corporations brought there by Bush:

Henry Waxman who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said: "The money that's gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just so outrageous, its egregious. "It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history." . . '

If you stacked singles up into the air in the amount of $24 billion, it would rise 1500 miles high. That is roughly the distance between New York City and Dallas, Texas-- one dollar bill at a time.

In fact, all the $2 trillion or more that the US will spend on the Iraq War, including a lifetime of medical and psychiatric care for thousands of damaged veterans, will have been spent for no national purpose, but only so as to line the pockets of Friends of George and Friends of Dick. War is welfare for the right wing of the Republican Party.

Tags: war, iraq

REALITY CHECK!

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:03:39 GMT

clipped by: ouyangwulong
clipper's remarks: There is a frightening new global trend of denial...

Europeans think that they don't need to limit fishing...

Car companies don't think they need to improve fuel economy standards...

Bush thinks he can increase spending and cut taxes at the same time...

Jingoists think we are winning the war in Iraq...

Democrats think Hillary Clinton has enough experience to win an election...

Polluters think that Global Warming won't really happen...

Evangelicals think Jesus is coming back soon...

Fundamentalists think they can win the war against modernity...

The truth is: we're stuck with this world. The rules DO apply. No free passes. You have to face the music sometime.

We must choose realism over comfortable delusion. Unfortunately, for now, wistful thinking will rule the day until we let it all collapse around us.

Then we'll stand there scratching our heads saying: How could this happen?

Clip Source: www.iht.com

Fishing until all the fish are gone

Sharon LaFraniere showed how mechanized fishing fleets from the European Union and nations like China and Russia - usually with the complicity of local governments - have nearly picked clean the oceans off Senegal and other northwest African countries.

Clip Source: www.iht.com

U.S. agency says 17 states can't set car emission rules

WASHINGTON: The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday denied California and 16 other states the right to set their own standards for carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles.

Clip Source: www.iht.com

US deficit expected to grow even before economic stimulus package is unwrapped

The latest deficit projections from the Congressional Budget Office forecast a sea of red ink that will only deepen under plans to jump-start the economy with tax cuts and government spending.

Clip Source: www.iht.com

Published: January 21, 2008

BAGHDAD: A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a funeral tent Monday in a predominantly Sunni village, killing at least 14 people and wounding 17.

Tags: reality check, bush, democrats, big buisness, oil, iraq, environment, global warming, tax cuts

Abu Ghraib Officer: Probe was incomplete

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:38:52 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.mail.com

BEN NUCKOLS

The revelation that the Army threw out the conviction of the only officer court-martialed in the Abu Ghraib scandal renewed outrage from human rights advocates who complained that not enough military and civilian leaders were held accountable for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

Those critics found an unlikely ally in the officer himself, Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, whose conviction on a minor charge of disobeying an order was dismissed this week, leaving him with only an administrative reprimand.

Jordan told The Associated Press on Thursday he believes many officers and enlisted soldiers did not face adequate scrutiny in the investigation

that led to convictions against 11 soldiers, none with a rank higher than staff sergeant.

If rough interrogation techniques were taught to the soldiers who abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Jordan said, "the question at that point is, who's responsible for that? Is it Donald Rumsfeld? (Lt.) Gen. (Ricardo) Sanchez? ... I don't know."

Tags: abu ghraib, iraq, prisoner

Clashes kill 12 Turkish Troops, 23 Kurds

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:52:00 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: George Bush said it was not in Turkeys interests to send in more troops. I wonder if he knows where Turkey is. Somewhere around Greece?

Clip Source: www.mail.com

By VOLKAN SARISAKAL

Kurdish rebels ambushed Turkish soldiers near the Iraq border on Sunday, killing 12 troops and increasing pressure on the government to attack guerrilla camps in Iraq. A Turkish military said it killed 23 rebels in a counteroffensive and shelled 63 suspected rebel targets.

The pro-Kurdish Firat news agency, based in Belgium, later said rebels also took several Turkish soldiers hostage.

Separately, 14 people were injured when a bomb exploded as a minibus passed near the area where the soldiers were killed, CNN-Turk said.

"Our anger, our hatred is great," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on national television.

He said the government would hold an emergency meeting later Sunday and would take "an approach that is calm, far from agitation and based on common sense."

Tags: turkey, kurds, iraq, soldiers, guerilla

Was Saddam really captured like we saw it?

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 02:51:58 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Whom does one trust?

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

A former U.S. Marine who participated in capturing ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said the public version of his capture was fabricated.

"I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent, who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced," Abou Rabeh said.

"We captured him after fierce resistance during which a Marine of Sudanese origin was killed," he said.

He said Saddam himself fired at them with a gun from the window of a room on the second floor. Then they shouted at him in Arabic: "You have to surrender. ... There is no point in resisting."

"Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of Saddam's capture in a hole, which was in fact a deserted well," Abou Rabeh said.

Tags: iraq, saddam, war on terror

Treating wounded soldiers like $#%$%

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:27:35 GMT

clipped by: egoldstein
clipper's remarks: I'm as much to blame as anyone, but i really am disappointed that the American people site by so idly while the Bush administration screws people so badly.

It's great that we "disapprove" of them in polls, but when push comes to shove, we are allowing them to do whatever they want...and the results are truly sickening.

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

In Ziegel's case, he spent nearly two years recovering at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas. Once he got out of the hospital, he was unable to hold a job. He anticipated receiving a monthly VA disability check sufficient to cover his small-town lifestyle in Washington, Illinois.

Instead, he got a check for far less than expected. After pressing for answers, Ziegel finally received a letter from the VA that rated his injuries: 80 percent for facial disfigurement, 60 percent for left arm amputation, a mere 10 percent for head trauma and nothing for his left lobe brain injury, right eye blindness and jaw fracture.

Within 48 hours of telling his story to CNN this summer, the Office of then-VA Secretary Jim Nicholson acted on Ziegel's case. The VA changed his head trauma injury, once rated at 10 percent, to traumatic brain injury rated at 100 percent, substantially increasing his monthly disability check.

Tags: war, iraq, veterans, news

Report puts hidden war costs at $1.6 Trillion

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 08:00:09 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: A family of four would be paying $16,500 to fund the war from 2002 to 2008, and the report speculates on the war continuing until 2017, where it estimates the expenditure to be $3.5 Trillion, at 46,400, per family. The Bush budget figures are likely to be specific spending allocations, without as much accounting for "co-lateral damage", even when the damage is to US Citizens.

Clip Source: www.mail.com

By JEANNINE AVERSA

The economic costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are estimated to total $1.6 trillion -- roughly double the amount the White House has requested thus far, according to a new report by Democrats

The report

attempted to put a price tag on the two conflicts, including "hidden" costs such as interest payments on the money borrowed to pay for the wars, lost investment, the expense of long-term health care for injured veterans and the cost of oil market disruptions

The $1.6 trillion figure, for the period from 2002 to 2008, translates into a cost of $20,900 for a family

of four

The Bush administration has requested $804 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined

For the Iraq war only, total economic costs were estimated at $1.3 trillion for the period from 2002 to 2008. That would cost a family of four $16,500

The report estimated that both wars would cost $3.5 trillion between 2003 and 2017. Under that scenario, it would cost a family of four $46,400

Tags: iraq, iran, bush, war, spending, cost

The Foreigner's Gift:The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 10:03:57 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Yes, a poisoned Palestinian political culture opted for Hamas in a free election in early 2006. This is what it is: an expression of the malady of Palestinian politics. The larger case for democratic reform is bigger, and nobler, than the state of Palestinian politics.
The Bush Doctrine brought about a veritable reversal in the realm of ideas: here was a conservative President asserting that freedom can travel to distant shores, that we can take it to strangers beyond, and here were his liberal critics at home falling back on a surly argument that Iraq, Lebanon, and other Arab and Islamic domains offer insurmountable obstacles to the spread of freedom.
Those in the know—and those who pretend to be—have written and spoken about the influence exercised by the Egyptian thinker and pamphleteer Sayyid Qutb (executed by the Nasser regime in 1966) on the course of modern Islamism. This is good as far as it goes. What is needed is a more sustained analysis of the depth of Egyptian radicalism

Clip Source: www.commentarymagazine.com

Natan Sharansky is perhaps on the mark with his observation that Bush, in holding onto his belief, is a lonely man even within his own circle of power. To come to that belief, Bush needed no great literacy in political theory. Intuitively, he grasped the connection between autocracy and terror. Norman Podhoretz’s argument on behalf of liberty reads that landscape with clarity. The peace of pharaohs and autocrats, the stability presented by despotism, is deceptive. The politics of democracy can be messy, of new democracies messier still. But we ought to have the courage of running freedom’s risks.

But oddly, Wilsonianism triumphed. “For three generations,” Kissinger writes, “critics have savaged Wilson’s analysis and conclusions; and yet, in all this time, Wilson’s principles have remained the bedrock of American foreign-policy thinking.”

He held out to the Arabs a respectful message: that despotism was not necessarily something fated— “written”—for them for all time.

Tags: iraq, afghanistan, bush, sharansky, saddam, nasser, mubarak, islamist

Thanks and Praise

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 03:59:48 GMT

clipped by: jatfla
clipper's remarks: Well, this is different. A momentary exhibition of freedom of religion in, of all places, Iraq.

Clip Source: www.michaelyon-online.com

Thanks and Praise: I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John’s Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome.

A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from “Chosen” Company 2-12 Cavalry to the church, where I videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John’s, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope.

The Iraqis asked me to convey a message of thanks to the American people. ” Thank you, thank you,” the people were saying. One man said, “Thank you for peace.” Another man, a Muslim, said “All the people, all the people in Iraq, Muslim and Christian, is brother.” The men and women were holding bells, and for the first time in memory freedom rang over the ravaged land between two rivers. (Videotape to follow.)

Michael Yon does not receive funding or financial support from Fox News, or from any network, movie, book or television

Tags: iraq, muslim, christian, freedom

Protesters interrupt Cheney's Speech

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 21:40:15 GMT

clipped by: kkcapricorn
clipper's remarks: Keep those protests going...people are beginning to notice..more steps closer.

Clip Source: www.michaelmoore.com

Two protesters interrupted Vice President Dick Cheney during a speech at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Dallas on Friday. At the same time, demonstrators gathered outside of the hotel to protest the war in Iraq.

One woman wearing a shirt that read "Bring our Troops Home Now" yelled: "Out of Iraq now! Don't attack Iran."

Security escorted her out.

Minutes later, another protester stood up, waving an extended index finger at Cheney, objecting to any potential attack on Iran. He also was led out.

Outside the hotel, about 50 protesters, some donning costumes, shouted criticisms of the war and the Bush administration.

They also held signs listing troop death levels and calling for impeachment. One protester was dressed as Darth Vader, a reference to Cheney’s supposed resemblance to the movie character.

"We're out here to protest Vice President Cheney's imperial delusions," protester John Fullwinder said.

Tags: protest, cheney, iraq, iran

Democrats seek better Health care for Veterans

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 12:43:45 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.mail.com

By MATTHEW DALY

A Democratic senator on Saturday accused President Bush of "hollow talk" in support of U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and said the Bush administration has not done nearly enough to provide veterans with the care they need.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said, "The president can call on Democrats to follow him in lockstep all he wants, but when it comes to caring for our veterans, we are not about to start taking advice from George Bush."

Bush scolded Democrats on Thursday for combining spending bills for defense and veterans programs with one for labor, health and education matters. Republicans consider the bill

bloated.

The president also lamented that his emergency spending request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan still languishes.

Murray

said thousands of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan

aren't getting the health care they need

the number of uninsured veterans has skyrocketed

The administration also lost the personal data of millions of veterans

Tags: iraq, afghanistan, war, veteran, health, records, care

"Like a Fox on the Run" Rummy Runs Ragged. Flees EU

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:40:43 GMT

clipped by: righthand

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

U.S. embassy officials whisked Rumsfeld away yesterday from a breakfast meeting in Paris organized by the Foreign Policy magazine after human rights groups filed a criminal complaint against the man who spearheaded President George W. Bush's "war on terror" for six years

Under international law, authorities in France are obliged to open an investigation when a complaint is made while the alleged torturer is on French soil

According to activists in France, who greeted Rumsfeld, shouting "murderer" and "war criminal" at the breakfast meeting venue, U.S. embassy officials remained tight-lipped about the former defense secretary's whereabouts citing "security reasons"

Anti-torture protesters in France believe that the defense secretary fled over the open border to Germany

French law enforcement agents are allowed to cross the border into Germany in pursuit of a fleeing fugitive

"Rumsfeld must be feeling how Saddam Hussein felt when U.S. forces were hunting him down,"

war crime doesn't pay."

Tags: war, crimes, torture, prison, iraq, wmd, usa