1. 19 Mar


    On this day in 2003, a U.S. led coalition invaded Iraq. President Bush said the goal of Operation Iraqi Freedom was to “disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.” The Iraqi invasion was strongly supported by Vice President Cheney. As Defense Secretary during the 1991 Gulf War, he opposed an invasion of Iraq, saying it wasn’t worth the casualties or “getting bogged down.” The U.S. combat role in Iraq ended last year after 4,486 Americans were killed, another 32,223 wounded. Direct spending on the Iraq war is estimated at $757 billion, a figure that does not include interest on money borrowed to finance the war — or taking care of veterans. A Brown University study in 2011 said it may also cost $1 trillion more (through 2050) to care for veterans of the 105-month war. On this day in 2011,  President Obama ordered air strikes on Libya.

    On this day in 2003, a U.S. led coalition invaded Iraq. President Bush said the goal of Operation Iraqi Freedom was to “disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.” The Iraqi invasion was strongly supported by Vice President Cheney. As Defense Secretary during the 1991 Gulf War, he opposed an invasion of Iraq, saying it wasn’t worth the casualties or “getting bogged down.” The U.S. combat role in Iraq ended last year after 4,486 Americans were killed, another 32,223 wounded. Direct spending on the Iraq war is estimated at $757 billion, a figure that does not include interest on money borrowed to finance the war — or taking care of veterans. A Brown University study in 2011 said it may also cost $1 trillion more (through 2050) to care for veterans of the 105-month war.

    On this day in 2011,  President Obama ordered air strikes on Libya.

     

  2. 18 Mar


    On this day in 1969: As the Vietnam War raged, President Richard Nixon ordered the bombing of neighboring Cambodia for the first time. Nixon believed Cambodia was being used as a staging area for attacks on American forces; the bombings were kept secret for two months and continued through April 1970. A total of 3,630 sorties dropped 110,000 tons of ordnance. Here’s what else happened on this day in history

    On this day in 1969: As the Vietnam War raged, President Richard Nixon ordered the bombing of neighboring Cambodia for the first time. Nixon believed Cambodia was being used as a staging area for attacks on American forces; the bombings were kept secret for two months and continued through April 1970. A total of 3,630 sorties dropped 110,000 tons of ordnance.

    Here’s what else happened on this day in history

     

  3. 4 Mar


    On this day in 1865, in one of the greatest inaugural addresses in American history, Abraham Lincoln, beginning his second term as president, spoke at a time of triumph: The Civil War was winding down and slavery receding into the history books. Yet Lincoln, filled with sadness and reflection, spoke not of victory, but of the damage that had been done to the country. He reminded both victor and vanquished that both sides had erred in going to war, despite their bitter disagreement over the war’s central issue, slavery. “With malice toward none; with charity for all,” Lincoln said, “let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds.” The address is inscribed, along with his Gettysburg Address, in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. In 2012 Peter Hitchens described the address as “one of the most overwhelming pieces of political prose ever crafted in any language.” Lincoln had no way of knowing, of course, that in the crowd that day was the actor John Wilkes Booth — who would assassinate the president just six weeks later. Here’s what else happened on this day in history

    On this day in 1865, in one of the greatest inaugural addresses in American history, Abraham Lincoln, beginning his second term as president, spoke at a time of triumph: The Civil War was winding down and slavery receding into the history books. Yet Lincoln, filled with sadness and reflection, spoke not of victory, but of the damage that had been done to the country. He reminded both victor and vanquished that both sides had erred in going to war, despite their bitter disagreement over the war’s central issue, slavery.

    “With malice toward none; with charity for all,” Lincoln said, “let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds.”

    The address is inscribed, along with his Gettysburg Address, in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. In 2012 Peter Hitchens described the address as “one of the most overwhelming pieces of political prose ever crafted in any language.”

    Lincoln had no way of knowing, of course, that in the crowd that day was the actor John Wilkes Booth — who would assassinate the president just six weeks later.

    Here’s what else happened on this day in history

     

  4. 25 Feb


    Syria’s bloody civil war will hit its two-year mark this March, and still, embattled despot Bashar al-Assad clings to power. The all-consuming war has left more than 70,000 people dead — half of them civilians. Sadly, violent conflict has become the new normal in much of Syria,  and it’s often only while taking refuge behind Aleppo’s crumbled, pock-marked walls that Free Syria Army fighters can indulge in fleeting moments of their previous lives. 

    • A soldier tries to entice a stray cat to come a little closer in Khan al-Assal on Nov. 10, 2012. (REUTERS/Zain Karam)

    • Rebels pose with their weapons and a snowman in Homs on Jan. 10.(REUTERS/Yazan Homsy)

    • A fighter finds a moment to fix himself up a bit in Aleppo on Dec. 25, 2012. (REUTERS/Muzaffar Salman)
     

  5. 1 Feb


    Jacob Lippincott is on the ground in Cairo. Here’s his latest update: Violent street fights are tearing apart the downtown area, the capital’s economic and cultural nerve center. Secular activists, football hooligans, and grubby street children fight police on the Nile Corniche, an open promenade that runs along the famous river. Meanwhile, gangs of thugs prey on peaceful activists, local businesses, and passers-by in the city’s shadowed side streets. Women are being viciously targeted. Over the last week, there have been more than a dozen brazen gang rapes and sexual assaults in and around Tahrir Square. In one particularly harrowing case, a gang of youths took turns raping a 19-year-old woman, mutilated her vagina with a knife, and left her naked on the street. She is reportedly still in critical condition in a Cairo hospital, suffering from internal injuries. I personally witnessed one of these assaults in Tahrir. Some tried to help the woman, while others joined in the assault. There were masses of people pushing past each other to get away, and I, along with everyone around me, was pressed against a wall, unable to help, flee, or move. Keep reading

    Jacob Lippincott is on the ground in Cairo. Here’s his latest update:

    Violent street fights are tearing apart the downtown area, the capital’s economic and cultural nerve center. Secular activists, football hooligans, and grubby street children fight police on the Nile Corniche, an open promenade that runs along the famous river. Meanwhile, gangs of thugs prey on peaceful activists, local businesses, and passers-by in the city’s shadowed side streets.

    Women are being viciously targeted. Over the last week, there have been more than a dozen brazen gang rapes and sexual assaults in and around Tahrir Square. In one particularly harrowing case, a gang of youths took turns raping a 19-year-old woman, mutilated her vagina with a knife, and left her naked on the street. She is reportedly still in critical condition in a Cairo hospital, suffering from internal injuries.

    I personally witnessed one of these assaults in Tahrir. Some tried to help the woman, while others joined in the assault. There were masses of people pushing past each other to get away, and I, along with everyone around me, was pressed against a wall, unable to help, flee, or move.

    Keep reading

     

  6. 24 Jan



    The fact is — however unfair, however much it pains us to admit it — in some areas, men and women are not equal. Is it worth checking a box marked “Equality” at the expense of the operational effectiveness of combat units? Is it worth putting young men at risk so that we, the enlightened Western liberals, might have a new accomplishment to discuss over gougères at cocktail parties? This week, the Obama administration says, yes, that’s perfectly okay. Accordingly, a platoon can and will be less combat effective in the name of equality.
    — D.B. Grady says putting women in combat is a terrible mistake. (He also says he knows he’s earning his hate mail.) What are your thoughts?
     

  7. 4 Jan


    This just in: The United States military was reportedly testing a fearsome backup weapon if “Fat Man” and “Little Boy,” the respective code names for the two atomic bombs dropped over Japan in World War II, had failed to detonate. Documents recently unearthed by filmmaker Ray Waru reveal that the U.S. military was working with the New Zealand government to develop a devastating tsunami bomb, which was meant to send a 33-foot tidal wave crashing into Japan’s coast. Keep reading

    This just in: The United States military was reportedly testing a fearsome backup weapon if “Fat Man” and “Little Boy,” the respective code names for the two atomic bombs dropped over Japan in World War II, had failed to detonate.

    Documents recently unearthed by filmmaker Ray Waru reveal that the U.S. military was working with the New Zealand government to develop a devastating tsunami bomb, which was meant to send a 33-foot tidal wave crashing into Japan’s coast.

    Keep reading

     

  8. 20 Nov


    An Israeli missile from the Iron Dome defense system is launched to intercept incoming rocket fire from Gaza on Nov. 17 in Tel Aviv. Photo: Uriel Sanai/Getty Images “The significance of rockets fired on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem should not be underestimated,” says Amir Oren with Israel’s Haaretz. “The imaginary barrier has been breached, and in a war of attrition, psychology is considered very important, especially in a population hovering between hope and despair.”  More…

    An Israeli missile from the Iron Dome defense system is launched to intercept incoming rocket fire from Gaza on Nov. 17 in Tel Aviv. Photo: Uriel Sanai/Getty Images

    “The significance of rockets fired on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem should not be underestimated,” says Amir Oren with Israel’s Haaretz. “The imaginary barrier has been breached, and in a war of attrition, psychology is considered very important, especially in a population hovering between hope and despair.” 

    More…

    (Source: theweek.com)

     

  9. 14 Nov


    The Israeli military has launched a major assault on Gaza. And they’re live-tweeting it.

     

  10. 25 Sep


    “We’re shifting from biologists being out there in these parks to military people being out there.” — Lee White, head of the national park system in Gabon, Africa

    In 2011, at least 25,000 elephants were slaughtered for their ivory, which can fetch thousands of dollars apiece thanks to growing demand in Asia. But there’s also a human toll to this violent conflict: Hundreds of rangers and poachers have died in what’s become an increasingly gruesome anti-poaching war.

    Take a look inside Africa’s bloody elephant-poaching war

    PHOTO: Ding Haitao/Xinhua Press/Corbis

    (Source: theweek.com)

     

  11. 7 Sep


    Le Trung Hong Phuc, a 9-year-old from Vietnam, was born with disabilities, presumably due to his parents’ exposure to Agent Orange. Photo: AP Photo/Maika Elan Named for the orange-striped barrels in which it was shipped, Agent Orange is an herbicide that the U.S. military used during the Vietnam War to destroy enemy food crops and kill jungle vegetation that concealed North Vietnamese forces. Beginning in 1961, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces sprayed 20 million gallons of it and other herbicides over vast areas of South Vietnam and parts of Laos and Cambodia. The spraying denuded more than 8,600 square miles of jungle and cropland. The U.S. military stopped using Agent Orange in 1971 after the National Institutes of Health found that it contained a chemical contaminant that caused birth defects in lab animals. By then, hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers and millions of Vietnamese civilians had been in contact with the stuff, many of them so oblivious to its dangers that they bathed in water stored in the empty barrels. How toxic is it?Agent Orange contained the dioxin TCDD, one of the most toxic chemicals ever manufactured. Dioxin remains in the soil and in the body for decades, and studies have linked it to numerous cancers and birth defects, as well as neurological illnesses like Parkinson’s disease. “It has widespread effects in nearly every vertebrate species at nearly every stage of development,” said Dr. Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. During the war, Vietnamese doctors began delivering babies born with no limbs, no eyes, or even no brain. Even now, said Vietnamese obstetrician Dr. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, the breast milk of mothers in areas sprayed with Agent Orange 40 years ago contains dangerously elevated levels of dioxin. “It is a cruel destroyer of all life in my country,” she said. How many Vietnamese are affected?Between 2.1 million and 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed to dioxin during the war, according to the American Public Health Association, but it’s unknown how many of their children have ailments resulting from that exposure. Dioxin has been associated with human birth defects, but no large-scale study has proved that it causes them; activists say that is only because no such study has been done. What is clear, though, is that the rate of birth defects in Vietnam has quadrupled since the war, and that most of them occur where Agent Orange was sprayed or stored. Vietnamese scientists blame dioxin contamination for a broad range of birth defects, from blood disorders to clubfeet.What is the U.S. stance?The U.S. government has never acknowledged a link between Agent Orange and illness in the Vietnamese population. Keep reading…

    Le Trung Hong Phuc, a 9-year-old from Vietnam, was born with disabilities, presumably due to his parents’ exposure to Agent Orange. Photo: AP Photo/Maika Elan

    Named for the orange-striped barrels in which it was shipped, Agent Orange is an herbicide that the U.S. military used during the Vietnam War to destroy enemy food crops and kill jungle vegetation that concealed North Vietnamese forces. Beginning in 1961, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces sprayed 20 million gallons of it and other herbicides over vast areas of South Vietnam and parts of Laos and Cambodia. The spraying denuded more than 8,600 square miles of jungle and cropland. The U.S. military stopped using Agent Orange in 1971 after the National Institutes of Health found that it contained a chemical contaminant that caused birth defects in lab animals. By then, hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers and millions of Vietnamese civilians had been in contact with the stuff, many of them so oblivious to its dangers that they bathed in water stored in the empty barrels.

    How toxic is it?
    Agent Orange contained the dioxin TCDD, one of the most toxic chemicals ever manufactured. Dioxin remains in the soil and in the body for decades, and studies have linked it to numerous cancers and birth defects, as well as neurological illnesses like Parkinson’s disease. “It has widespread effects in nearly every vertebrate species at nearly every stage of development,” said Dr. Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. During the war, Vietnamese doctors began delivering babies born with no limbs, no eyes, or even no brain. Even now, said Vietnamese obstetrician Dr. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, the breast milk of mothers in areas sprayed with Agent Orange 40 years ago contains dangerously elevated levels of dioxin. “It is a cruel destroyer of all life in my country,” she said.

    How many Vietnamese are affected?
    Between 2.1 million and 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed to dioxin during the war, according to the American Public Health Association, but it’s unknown how many of their children have ailments resulting from that exposure. Dioxin has been associated with human birth defects, but no large-scale study has proved that it causes them; activists say that is only because no such study has been done. What is clear, though, is that the rate of birth defects in Vietnam has quadrupled since the war, and that most of them occur where Agent Orange was sprayed or stored. Vietnamese scientists blame dioxin contamination for a broad range of birth defects, from blood disorders to clubfeet.

    What is the U.S. stance?
    The U.S. government has never acknowledged a link between Agent Orange and illness in the Vietnamese population.

    Keep reading…

     

  12. 5 Sep


    Two Syrian children lay on a handmade swing in front of their tent at the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan on Sept. 2: The camp was originally built to hold 500 people. Now it has 26,000. Photo: AP photo/Mohammad Hannon In August, 103,416 refugees fled Syria seeking asylum, the highest monthly total since the country’s uprising began in March 2011, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The August rush almost doubled the total number of refugees, which now stands at 235,300, in just a single month. “If you do the math, it’s quite an astonishing number,” says Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency. And that figure only reflects the people who have registered, meaning the actual numbers might be far higher. Turkey, Syria’s neighbor to the north, says it has let in 80,000 Syrians, with another 8,000 caught in a bottleneck at the border. Jordan, to the south, says that as many as 183,000 Syrians have crossed the border since the uprising began, with 1,000 more now arriving each day. Another 500 a day are going east into Iraq — up from about 500 per week in early August. Smaller numbers are going to Lebanon, which borders southwestern Syria. And meanwhile, another 1.5 million Syrians have fled their homes but remained inside Syria — meaning 8 percent of the country’s entire population is on the move. Keep reading…

    Two Syrian children lay on a handmade swing in front of their tent at the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan on Sept. 2: The camp was originally built to hold 500 people. Now it has 26,000. Photo: AP photo/Mohammad Hannon

    In August, 103,416 refugees fled Syria seeking asylum, the highest monthly total since the country’s uprising began in March 2011, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The August rush almost doubled the total number of refugees, which now stands at 235,300, in just a single month. “If you do the math, it’s quite an astonishing number,” says Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency. And that figure only reflects the people who have registered, meaning the actual numbers might be far higher.

    Turkey, Syria’s neighbor to the north, says it has let in 80,000 Syrians, with another 8,000 caught in a bottleneck at the border. Jordan, to the south, says that as many as 183,000 Syrians have crossed the border since the uprising began, with 1,000 more now arriving each day. Another 500 a day are going east into Iraq — up from about 500 per week in early August. Smaller numbers are going to Lebanon, which borders southwestern Syria. And meanwhile, another 1.5 million Syrians have fled their homes but remained inside Syria — meaning 8 percent of the country’s entire population is on the move.

    Keep reading…

     

  13. 15 Aug



    Why aren’t Obama and Romney talking about Afghanistan?

    Forty-three Afghans were killed in a string of shootings and bombings across their country on Tuesday, in the deadliest day for civilians this year. Yet despite an increasingly heated presidential race, neither President Obama nor his GOP rival, Mitt Romney, is talking about the war effort, or the speed of withdrawal, on the campaign trail. Why the silence?

    1. Neither has a clue what to do there: There are plenty of reasons why Obama and Romney have “said so little about Afghanistan,” says Dexter Filkins at The New Yorker. “Their positions are virtually identical, the economy is more important, etc.” Moreover, the U.S. is scheduled to stop fighting there in 28 months, and every day it becomes clearer that the Afghan state is taking over “a failing, decrepit enterprise,” despite the 11 years, $400 billion, and 2,000 American lives we have lost there. Now, neither Obama nor Romney “knows what to do about the place.”
       
    2. There’s no political gain in it: Speaking up on Afghanistan “could easily cost Obama or Romney votes,” says Andrew J. Polsky at Oxford University Press. Obama’s campaign strategy calls for appealing to centrists while mobilizing a Democratic base that is “conspicuously unenthusiastic about the Afghanistan conflict.” The “political math” is pretty similar for Romney, and his base, except for some diehard conservatives, has no more “taste for the war” than anybody else.
       
    3. Afghanistan just isn’t as important as it (briefly) was: Everyone would be talking about Afghanistan if it “were truly a vital strategic interest, says Stephen M. Walt at Foreign Policy. But it’s not. “It’s a land-locked and impoverished country thousands of miles from our shores,” and the only reason we went there at all was because some “misguided crackpots” hiding out there “got very lucky in staging a dramatic attack on U.S. soil.” Now that they’ve all been “scattered and/or killed,” Afghanistan has gone back to being “the strategic backwater it has always been.” If the election’s winner is smart, he won’t think about Afghanistan any more than Carter and Reagan did about Vietnam.