Category Archive

This is no longer a war about saving the Iraqi people.  This is about survival and revenge, and returning soldiers are telling the tale: Many of these veterans returned home deeply disturbed by the disparity between the reality of the war and the way it is portrayed by the US government and American media. The war the vets described is … Read More

‘Splain me this, Lucy. If the majority of Americans want the U.S. out of Iraq, and the majority of Iraqis want the U.S. out of Iraq, then isn’t it a bit of a joke that both the U.S. and Iraqi governments are even using the words "democracy promotion" these days?

CNN: As President Bush faces GOP pressure to change his war strategy, the White House announced Tuesday that an upcoming progress report will result in "the beginning of a new way" in Iraq. Six months after announcing an increase of nearly 30,000 U.S. troops that became known as the "surge," Bush is scheduled to appear at a town meeting in … Read More

They’re not al Qaeda, but the news calls them that anyway: As E&P has noted in the past week, the U.S. military has increasingly referred to insurgents in Iraq as "al-Qaeda fighters" or "Qaeda militants." When and why this is happening is not certain, although linking the insurgents to those who attacked us on 9/11 would appear to have certain … Read More

…a Starbucks barista or a member of the Iraqi police?  From NPR: For now, these men get only eight days of training and at the end of it, they get to keep their gun and their uniform. According to Aravosis, it takes seven days to complete training as a Starbucks barista. Which explains a lot. Meanwhile: The U.S. military on … Read More

WaPo: BAGHDAD, June 15 — The full contingent of new U.S. forces being sent to Iraq — what military leaders call a "surge" of troops to improve security and stability in the capital — was completed by Friday, with 28,500 additional troops now posted in the country, a U.S. military spokesman said. Uh, make that 28,495 additional troops: BAGHDAD, June … Read More

Washington Post: “Three months into the new U.S. military strategy that has sent tens of thousands of additional troops into Iraq, overall levels of violence in the country have not decreased, as attacks have shifted away from Baghdad and Anbar, where American forces are concentrated, only to rise in most other provinces, according to a Pentagon report released yesterday.” *** … Read More

Bob Geiger: Which makes the report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee before the Memorial Day holiday even more interesting because Prewar Intelligence Assessments About Postwar Iraq (PDF) shows not only that Shinseki was right about troop levels, but also — as if more evidence is needed — that the Bush administration ignored critical pre-war intelligence in their rush to … Read More

Six months ago yesterday, we were told (for the umpteenth time) that things in Iraq were just about to get better: BAGHDAD, Iraq Dec 5, 2006 (AP) The U.S. military expects all of Iraq to be under the control of Iraqi forces by mid-2007, the top American military spokesman in the country said Tuesday. "We would expect to see the … Read More

So thin that we’re putting amputees back on the front line. (That’s okay apparently, as long as they’re not gay).

On May 30, 2005, Vice President Cheney declared that the insurgency in Iraq was in its “last throes” and predicted “the level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline.” Uh, not so much, Dick: Increased military activity throughout Iraq has pushed U.S. troop deaths to their highest level for any two-month period … Read More