It was late July, and hot. The temperature rose above fifty degrees during the day. The steel doorknobs on the latrine and shower trailers were hot to the touch. I spent a lot of time in the latrine trailers, reading the graffiti I found there because I had nothing better to do. Much of it was arcane, full of military acronyms and slang that only soldiers could understand. But one main theme stood out: soldiers were being stretched to the limits of endurance.
A few months earlier, in April 2007, the U.S. Department of Defense had extended combat tours from twelve to fifteen months. In the graffiti, soldiers expressed their growing fatigue and anger—mostly with each other. When they weren’t scribbling Chuck Norris jokes or questioning the fighting ability of other units, they were slamming soldiers who dared give voice to their dissatisfaction.
Iraq and the Crocker-Petraeus Testimony: The Risks that Only Time and a Sustained US Presence Can Deal With
Topic: War on Terrorism
6:57 am EDT, Apr 14, 2008
Anthony Cordesman:
If there is any clear message that emerges out of the events of the last few weeks, it is that the risks in Iraq remain high enough so that no one can yet say whether the odds of any kind of US success are better than even. The fact remains, however, that there is still a marginally better case for staying than for leaving.
Moreover, no one in the America should forget that US decisions affect the lives of some 28 million Iraqis, or the responsibility the US bears for its failure to prepare for stability operations and nation-building in going to war, its failure to deploy adequate troops to secure the country, its empowerment of Shi’ite exile movements and its support of de-Baathification and the disbandment of the Iraqi military forces.
A few days after the 9/11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney warned that there might never be an “end date” in the “struggle” against terrorism, a point when it would be possible to say, “There, it’s all over with.” More than six and a half years later, his wisdom seems to have been vindicated, though perhaps not quite in the way he intended.
As chief of high-value targeting for the Pentagon, Marc Garlasco helped plan the targets of laser-guided bombs during the invasion of Iraq. Now a senior analyst with Human Rights Watch, he visits war zones where he assesses the damage being done to civilians by bombs and lobbies for greater deliberation in the use of air power. Garlasco has provided assessments for Human Rights Watch throughout the world, including Israel and Iraq.
Gripping news: ABC News reports that the senior most advisors of President Bush, led by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, met in the White House repeatedly to discuss and approve specific torture tactics, including waterboarding and physical assault, as applied to particular prisoners. Watch this report which resulted from a five month study by ABC News ...
It’s one thing to ask American soldiers to lay their lives on the line for freedom and democracy, or to safeguard their country from weapons of mass destruction. But who wants to be the last man to die for Nuri al-Maliki?
It’s a typical display of Mr. Yoo’s dubious talents for giving an outward appearance of legal reasoning to radical political diatribe. However, the circumstances around the memo tell us quite a bit. In this post I want to look not at the contents of the memo, but at the contextual questions. Why was it sought, and how was it used.
