Category: International

NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

December 19, 2006
Democratic NewsInternational
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Watching The NewsHour with Jim Jehrer last night, and suddenly the television went dead.? Or so I thought.? I was preoccupied, walking about the house, getting things together for myself.? Turns out the television was not dead at all.? The NewsHour was showing the dead, images of American soldiers killed recently in Iraq.

And I looked with new eyes.? Army.? Army.? Army.? Marines.? Army.? Marines.? I don’t remember freezing like that since the war began.? Now the numbers and the faces meant something different.

Because of my son and his plans.

We all need to wake up.? Desperately.? Too many names and faces already.

Bush: 0 and 2 in War

December 7, 2006
International
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With President George Bush all but rejecting the findings of The Iraq Study Group’s report, we must accept the sad fact that we have lost the war in Iraq. The country is decimated, disorganized, and dangerous. As of this writing, 2,922 American soldiers have lost their lives.

2,922.

Between 49,642 and 55,048 Iraqi citizens have lost their lives.

This is tragedy beyond comprehension.

We don’t even have a definition of what victory in Iraq might mean. The cause is lost.

ABC news reported tonight that Afghanistan is seeing a resurgence of the Taliban.

Well, consider this. If we lose in Afghanistan also, George Bush will be the first president in United States history to lose two wars.

Two, George. A man who can’t put two words together is on the verge of a uniquely infamous place in U.S. history.

The Cost of War

November 25, 2006
CongressDemocratic NewsInternationalRepublicans
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As of this writing, 2,874 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq.? Total non-mortal casualties, all service branches, is at 46,137.

There have been between 47,781 and 53,014 Civilians reported killed by military intervention in Iraq.

In dollars, the cost of the war in Iraq is $345.28 billion dollars.

Total number of Weapons of Mass Destruction found in Iraq: 0.

Rumsfeld okayed Abu Graib abuses

November 25, 2006
InternationalRepublicans
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Reuters reported on Saturday that outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorised the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the prison’s former U.S. commander said in an interview on Saturday.

Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski told Spain’s El Pais newspaper she had seen a letter apparently signed by Rumsfeld which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation.

Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods. “The handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: “Make sure this is accomplished”,” she told Saturday’s El Pais.

Cost of Iraq War – More Than Money

October 10, 2006
CongressInternationalRepublicans
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The National Priorities Project current reports show the cost of the war in Iraq is at $333,085,725,999, or $333.08 BILLION, and climbing constantly. zFacts.com puts the cost so far at $330,905,485,295, or $330.90 BILLION.? The U.S. Treasury Department shows our national debt at an all-time record high: $8,545,048,487,560.99, or $8.54 TRILLION. Other sources show the national debt much higher. The U.S. National Debt Clock reports $8,553,405,931,810.83 as of 3:11:52 PM GMT.

Any other costs to the war in Iraq? Antiwar.com reports 2,743 American deaths in Iraq since the war began. An official count shows 20,468 injuries, with estimates much higher (20,000-48,100). And Iraq Body Count reports that somewhere between 43,850 and 48,693 Iraqi civilians have been killed by military intervention in Iraq.

The cost of this war is staggering.

Iraq War Blessing For Al Qaeda

September 30, 2006
International
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A report issued this past Wedensday from the United Nations bolstered the conclusions of a U.S. intelligence study concluding that the Iraq War has brought about a surge in Al Qaeda membership. Recruits are flooding to Al Qaeda in Iraq and in Afganistan. Support for Al Qaeda in Iraq may wane, since some recruits expressed dismay that they would have to kill fellow Muslims. Nevertheless, Al Qaeda is seeing its numbers growing elsewhere.

Parts of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate leaked out this week, concluding that Al Qaeda numbers were “increasing in both number and geographic dispersion” due to the Iraq war. The study, prepared in April, said that the war had become a “cause celebre for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.”

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton made a curious remark in the wake of the release of this information. “If you said after the attack on Pearl Harbor that the American response had increased the violence in the Pacific, you would be right, wouldn’t you? Because violence did increase after the attack and after our response,” he told reporters. “We are in conflict with international terrorism and the nature of that conflict is playing out in Iraq,” he said.

So is Bolton comparing America to Japan in his comments? After all, Iraq never attacked the United States, and the claims from the administration that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, or were somehow involved in the plot of September 11, 2001, evaporated with the President’s own words on August 21, 2006:

THE PRESIDENT: You know, I’ve heard this theory about everything was just fine until we arrived, and kind of “we’re going to stir up the hornet’s nest” theory. It just doesn’t hold water, as far as I’m concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.

Q What did Iraq have to do with that?

THE PRESIDENT: What did Iraq have to do with what?

Q The attack on the World Trade Center?

THE PRESIDENT: Nothing.

Okay. So there must be more. After all, the President must be able to explain himself. Well, there was an explanation. There is a comma, not a period, in the White House transcripts from the news conference. Here’s the explanation:

THE PRESIDENT: Nothing, except for it’s part of — and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a — the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq. I have suggested, however, that resentment and the lack of hope create the breeding grounds for terrorists who are willing to use suiciders to kill to achieve an objective. I have made that case.

So, in the President’s own words, “resentment and the lack of hope create the breeding grounds for terrorists who are willing to use suiciders to kill to achieve an objective.” That seems to be the conclusion of the U.N. That seems to be the conclusion of the U.S. intelligence study. Except they don’t blame Saddam Hussein for the growing number of terrorists.

They seem to blame someone else.