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Archives: July 2010
July Deadliest Month ever for US troops in Afghanistan
Taliban killed three US troops in the Pashtun south with two bombings, bringing the death toll for July 2010 to 63, the highest since W. began the war. Meanwhile, Andrew Bacevich points…The Closing of the Zionist Mind
It finally happened. The Jerusalem Post has declared archeology itself anti-Semitic. To tell you the truth, I am frankly worried about some of my colleagues who are committed Zionists having difficulty in…
Dems Souring on Afghan War as 25 Killed by Roadside Bomb in Nimroz
Those opposed to President Obama´s escalation of the Afghanistan War were crestfallen when Congress approved another $33 billion in war funding. But as Richard Wolfe at USA Today points out, the interesting…Meyer: NY Times: Saber-rattling Against Turkey
Carlyn Meyer writes in a Guest Editorial for Informed Comment, also mirrored here: NYT Saber-Rattling Against Turkey The New York Times prides itself on being a newspaper “of record’ reporting crucial information…Cameron Calls Gaza under Israel Blockade a ‘Prison Camp’
British Prime Minister David Cameron went to Turkey this week and engaged in some refreshingly blunt talk about Ankara's application to join the European Union (which does not appear to be going…War is Theft: Pentagon cannot account for $8.6 Billion of Iraq’s Reconstruction Funds
The Pentagon cannot account for the over $8 bn. given out to cronies in the first years of the Iraq occupation, money which came from Iraq's oil proceeds to begin with. The…Dietrich: Energy and the Future of U.S. Diplomacy
Christopher R. W. Dietrich writes in a guest editorial for Informed Comment: Energy and the Future of U.S. Diplomacy In a paper written in conjunction with Lloyds of London, Dr. Paul Stevens…40 Killed in Bombings of Shiite Pilgrims in Iraq;
Constitutional Crisis Unfolds
Despite Republican senator John McCain's conviction that "We've already won that one," i.e. the Iraq War, actually you couldn't say either that the war is over or that things are going well…Cloughley– “Against a Rush to Judgment: Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban”
In light of the Wikileaks Pentagon documents are full of allegations by US military personnel of Pakistani collaboration with the Taliban, and they have increased tensions among the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan.…
Wikileaks on Hiding the War; and, American Security? Rethinking Afghanistan Pt. 6
The Taliban now claim that they killed one US sailor and captured another in Logar Province as the US mounts a massive manhunt for the survivor. The Afghanistan war now has its…Jahanpour: Iran, Turkey and Israel: New Global Realities
Farhang Jahanpour writes in a guest editorial for Informed Comment : Iran, Turkey and Israel: New Global Realities Ten years ago this month (11 July 2000), in a last-minute attempt to bring…
Women of Afghanistan: Rethink Afghanistan, Part 5
Rethink Afghanistan, pt. 5, directed by Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films, covers women's issues. Recent news on this front: On Saturday it became clear that fighting on Friday between NATO and…Repubs Plot Israel-Iran Apocalypse and the Collapse of the US Economy
Jamal Abdi at HuffPo explains that almost a third of Republicans in the House have signed on to a resolution urging Israel to attack Iran. The National Iranian American Council has a…
Civilian Casualties are Causing the War in the First Place: Rethinking Afghanistan, Pt. 4
Part Four of Rethinking Afghanistan, directed by Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films, covering the issue of civilian casualties. A new study by America's National Bureau for Economic Research looking at the…The Israel Lobbies and Breitbartism: Dirty Tricks, Taboos and the threat to American Democracy
Phil Weiss notes that another of the Dirty Tricks divisions of the Israel lobbies in the US, CAMERA, has denounced CNN´s Ben Wedeman for retweeting a post of mine on Turkey-Israel relations.…
The $1 Trillion Cost of War: Rethinking Afghanistan, Pt. 3
Part 3 of Rethinking Afghanistan-- on the cost of the war-- directed by Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films. The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, initiated by the Bush Minor administration…Israeli Court Punishes Palestinian-Israeli for Passing
The conviction in Israel of a Palestinian-Israeli man on rape charges because he had consensual sex with an Israeli woman who thought he was Jewish is completely recognizable to anyone who knows…
Pakistan: Rethinking Afghanistan, Pt. 2
Rethinking Afghanistan, Pt. 2, directed by Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films, treats the issue of the Taliban havens in northwest Pakistan and the use to which the country's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)…Beck Subtext: Obama Planning to Assassinate Tea Partiers
Media Matters and Fair, day in, day out do an excellent job of refuting the often incorrect assertions made on Fox Cable News, which is a conspiracy of media multi-billionaire and far-right…
Rethinking Rethinking Afghanistan, Pt. 1
In honor of Tuesday's major donor's conference in Afghanistan, Informed Comment is beginning a series of reposts of the classic six-part documentary, Rethink Afghanistan by Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films. As…Advice for General Petraeus on the Rules of Engagement:
It’s Neither/Nor, Not Either/Or
Tom Engelhardt, author of the recently-published The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (Haymarket Books, July 2010) and editor of Tomdispatch.com, writes in a guest editorial for Informed Comment:…
Palin on the Ground Zero Mosque vs. the Founding Fathers
Sarah Palin tweeted, "Ground Zero mosque supporters, doesn't it stab you in the heart as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls. refudiate." The tweet was later taken down and…
NATO Secretly Planning to Leave Afghanistan by 2014;
5 NATO Troops Killed
The Afghanistan War claimed another 5 NATO troops, it was announced Saturday, two of them American and two British. Taliban blew up the gate of the main prison in Farah Province in…
Iranian Cleric Blames US in Mosque Bombing
Tabnak reports in Persian on the bombing of the chief Shiite mosque in Zahedan, the capital of the largely Sunni Sistan and Baluchistan Province in southeastern Iran, which left at least 27…
Was Amiri a Double Agent who Hyped Iran’s Nukes?
The saga of Shahram Amiri points to a real danger for world peace and prosperity, with the disturbing possibility now emerging that he was a double agent. He implausibly maintains that he…
Libyan Aid Ship Extracts Concessions from Israel;
Resumption of House Demolitions in Jerusalem
Al-Sharq al-Awsat [The Middle East] reports in Arabic that the Libyan aid ship, Amaltheal ("Hope" or Amal in Arabic) docked late Wednesday at al-Arish in Egypt, bearing 2000 tons of aid supplies…
Global Warming and al-Qaeda in the Greater Indian Ocean
Politico says that the fate of the earth, i.e. the climate bill in the senate, is now in the hands of Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico. This is because he is…8 US Troops Killed in Afghanistan in 24 Hours
8 American troops have died in Afghanistan in the past 24 hours. One of the operations involved a suicide bombing at the gates of an elite police HQ in Qandahar, followed by…
Taliban Grant Renegade Afghan Soldier, Killer of 3 British Troops, Asylum
A soldier in the Afghanistan National Army based in Helmand province, at a joint base with the British 1st Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles, went berserk on Tuesday and killed three British soldiers,…Lockerbie Bomber released for Sake of BP Libya Drilling Rights
The Times of London reports on two leaked memos from the British government under Labor Prime Minister Gordon Brown that strongly suggest that the Libyan accused of planning the Lockerbie airliner bombing…
Erdogan vows that Turkey will not Let Israel Get away with Flotilla Attack
Predictably, the Israeli military investigation of itself with regard to the commando attack on the Mavi Marmara humanitarian aid ship on May 31 is a whitewash that says the deployment of deadly…
Al-Shabab behind Kampala Bombing
The horrific bombings in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, during public celebrations of the World Cup finale, was carried out by Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahidin (Movement of Jihadi Youth), a radical Somali fundamentalist…
Abbas: Israeli Colonization Impedes Start of Direct Talks
AFP Arabic reports that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that there is no point in moving to direct negotiations with the Israelis until more progress is made on security and borders. In…
6 US Troops Killed in Afghanistan;
Mazar Demonstration says ‘Yankee Go Home’
Guerrillas killed 5 US Troops in Afghanistan on Saturday, along with a dozen civilians. Another American soldier died in an accidental explosion. Two were killed in the south of the country, a…
UAE Fatwa Against the Vuvuzela
The vuvuzela horn that produces that annoying buzzing sound at the world cup games had threatened to spread from South Africa around the world. An Abu Dhabi businessman, Dhia al-Din, had planned…
Germany Will Seek 100% of its Electricity from Renewables by 2050
Germany, which generates 16% of its power from renewable sources such as hydro-electric, wind and solar, now plans to get 100% of its electricity from renewables by 2050. It is an audacious…
Asadi on Iran: “Today’s Internal Affairs, Tomorrow’s Global Impact”
Houshang Asadi writes in a guest op-ed for Informed Comment Iran: Today's Internal Affairs, Tomorrow's Global Impact The international community’s demand that clemency be shown to a woman condemned to death for…
World Cup Death Threats for Paul the Oracle Octopus
RT reports on death threats received by Paul the Oracle Octopus from German soccer fans because he correctly predicted Spain's victory in the most recent World Cup match between the two countries.…
Taliban Kill 65 in Bomb Blast;
Blackwill Urges Partition
A suicide bomber on a motorcycle struck at a government office in the Mohmand region of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of northwest Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 48 65…US Ally Maliki & Octavia Nasr Both Praised Fadlallah
So help me understand this. Nuri al-Maliki, still the Iraqi prime minister for the moment, expressed his appreciation for the accomplishments of the late Grand Ayatollah Hussein Fadlallah: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri…50 Dead in Baghdad Attacks on Shiites;
Netanyahu Warns of Eastern Front
A series of bloody attacks killed some 50 persons across Baghdad in the midst of a massive Shiite pilgrimage to the shrine of Imam Musa Kazem A suicide bombing that targeted the…
The Orientalism of Israeli Troops Dancing
Israeli troops dance to Ke$ha's "Tik Tok.": Some comments on the semiotics. The piece begins with the Muslim call to prayer in al-Khalil, a Palestinian city in the Palestinian West Bank, which…
Odierno: Kurdish-Arab Fighting may Require UN Force in post-American Iraq
Despite the optimism obvious in the speeches of Vice President Biden on Iraq, the outbreak of fighting between the Iraqi army and Kurdish forces in the town of Qara Tappa in Diyala…Turkey Threatens Israel with cut-off of Diplomatic Relations
As Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu flew to Washington, DC, on Monday, a further war of words has broken out between Turkey and Israel over comments made by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu…Fadlallah’s Life and the Shiite Wave
The death of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Husain Fadlallah at age 75 in Beirut marks the passing of a cleric revered by many Shiite Muslims and by many Lebanese and Iraqis. His life…On Fourth of July, Let Iraq Go
The Fourth of July celebrates the Declaration of Independence of the American colonies of Great Britain, on the grounds that they deserved representative government and popular sovereignty-- something denied to them by…
Steele blames Obama for Afghanistan, Defends Iraq War
Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele has provoked a furor by remarks he made on President Obama's Afghanistan policy at a GOP fundraiser in Noank, Ct. (where he mumbled on for all…
Fundamentalist bombings of Lahore mystical Shrine leave 42 Dead, 175 Wounded
The FT says that at least two suicide bombers struck at the shrine of medieval Sufi master Datta Ganj Bakhsh (Sayyid Ali Hujwiri), the patron saint of Lahore, on Thursday evening, killing…
Hurricane Alex Halts Efforts to Deal with Gulf Oil Gusher
VOA reports that the oil skimming ships are gone. The booms protecting islands and marshes have been torn from their anchors. Sand bags have been overwhelmed. The headline is that Hurricane Alex…