Andrew Bacevich
on the war: "So what tentative judgments can we offer regarding the ongoing [war formerly known as the global war on terrorism]? Operationally, a war launched by the conventionally minded has progressively fallen under the purview of those who inhabit what Dick Cheney once called “the dark side,” with implications that few seem willing to explore. Strategically, a war informed at the outset by utopian expectations continues today with no concretely stated expectations whatsoever, the forward momentum of events displacing serious consideration of purpose. Politically, a war that once occupied center stage in national politics has now slipped to the periphery, the American people moving on to other concerns and entertainments, with legal and moral questions raised by the war left dangling in midair."
posted by crayz
on Feb 20, 2012 -
20 comments
Last year, the unofficial Dean of the White House Press Corps,
Helen Thomas, spoke about the State of Israel on camera.
(Previously) Her
replies:
"Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine," and that the Jews
"can go home" to
"Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else," sparked media
outrage, prompted her to issue an apology and
retire. After months of being out of the the public spotlight, she has now given
her first long-form interview, which will appear in the April issue of Playboy Magazine. In it, she explains what she meant, tells us how she would like to be remembered and expands upon her positions regarding Israel, Jewish political influence, Presidents Bush and Obama, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
posted by zarq
on Mar 22, 2011 -
224 comments
U.S. soldiers videotaped desecrating Taliban corpses. The bodies were positioned to face Mecca and burned -- an act of desecration that violates Islamic burial rites and the Geneva Conventions. A U.S. PsyOps specialist
broadcast an inflammatory message to the nearby town in order to incite an attack.
"Attention, Taliban, you are all cowardly dogs. You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to come down and retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be."
The video
aired last night in Australia, but hasn't surfaced yet in the U.S.
It won't be long, though..
"Wow, look at the blood coming out of the mouth on that one, fucking straight death metal."
posted by insomnia_lj
on Oct 20, 2005 -
237 comments
Where-o-where can bin Laden be? The general belief among U.S. officials appears to be that al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, probably is still somewhere in Afghanistan... But, conceded a defense official, the United States has very little solid information on the whereabouts of bin Laden. "If we had a real clue, we would have already got him," he said.
posted by Rastafari
on Dec 11, 2001 -
9 comments
From a piece in the NYTimes today,
Home Front Is Minefield for President:
"The lesson we're learning," one administration official said today, "is that you can bomb the wrong place in Afghanistan and not take much heat for it. But don't mess up at the post office."Leave it to the White House to come away with exactly the wrong interpretation. But the facts are there, too -- most Americans are more concerned about the (relatively slight) risk of getting Anthrax than the rather significant risk that, if we screw up in Afghanistan, we might lose the current coalition against terrorism, Bin Laden, and any hope for "homeland security" for a long time to come....
posted by mattpfeff
on Oct 25, 2001 -
12 comments
Taliban to U.S.: Go ahead, make my day. The Taliban has refused, as Bush demanded in his speech, to turn over bin Laden without evidence of wrongdoing. Unclear whether he's still "uninvited" to remain in Afghanistan. I thought Bush's refusal to consider a deal with Afghanistan was rash -- we can't afford to create martyrs in this war.
posted by mattpfeff
on Sep 21, 2001 -
21 comments
