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) cells may be putting them. In order to shore up Pakistani public support for the government, the US has pledged $7.5 billion in […]
Archives for July 2010
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 Australian mogul Rupert Murdoch to shift American politics in his direction. All societies (not least the United States) have racist and xenophobic strains […]
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 the war grinds on, the questions the series raised are crucial to informed public discussion, and it is worth watching it again, or […]
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: Recently, we’ve been flooded with news stories and debate about the “rules of engagement” for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Now-discredited war commander General […]
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 replaced with English, though to the same effect. Here is the original, courtesy twitpic. There are many things wrong with the original tweet. […]
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 Afghanistan, briefly releasing about 20 inmates from captivity. Four were arrested when they were wounded in the bombing, and 7 more were recaptured […]
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 dead and 169 wounded. The Associated Press has a report on the bombing and on the charges levelled at Friday Prayers by Hujjat […]
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 was kidnapped by the CIA in Mecca and held in the US against his will. US sources say that he was a walk-in, […]
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 for the Palestinians. The ship’s odyssey from Greece was marked by uncertainty and danger for the 21 passengers. It developed a mechanical problem […]
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