World-News

Tom Engelhardt writes, "The other day, as we reached the first anniversary of the President's announcement of his 'surge' strategy, his 'new way forward' in Iraq, I found myself thinking about the earliest paid book-editing work I ever did."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011708C.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=troop+surge
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Tom+Engelhardt

The Washington Post's Josh White reports, "The U.S. military conducted more than five times as many airstrikes in Iraq last year as it did in 2006, targeting al-Qaeda safe houses, insurgent bombmaking facilities and weapons stockpiles in an aggressive strategy aimed at supporting the U.S. troop increase by overwhelming enemies with air power." Meanwhile, from Baghdad, Stephen Farrell reports for The New York Times: "A woman carried out a suicide bombing near a Shiite mosque in Diyala Province on Wednesday, killing at least eight people. The attack provoked Shiite militiamen to use mortars against a nearby Sunni village in retaliation." And Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail report for Inter Press Service, "The newly formed 'Awakening' forces set up by the U.S. military are bringing new conflict among people."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011708B.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=airstrikes
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Josh+White
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Ali+al-Fadhily
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Dahr+Jamail
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Stephen+Farrell

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/27/27083/1.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Big+Oil

To mark the fifth year of the occupation of Iraq, Truthout will be profiling veterans who served in Iraq, have returned to the US and are trying to adjust to life at home. This is an effort to step outside of the beltway coverage revolving around the policies, and focus more on the individuals who have been directly affected physically and emotionally. In the first story of this series, Maya Schenwar profiles Joe Wheeler, an Iraq vet suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder who says it's criminal to call war a "learning experience."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011708J.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=veterans
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=post-traumatic+stress
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Maya+Schenwar

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12204


Informant: Lew Rockwell



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=McCain
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=empire
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/justin

The plight of the 1.2 million Iraqis internally displaced since February 2006 has continued to worsen, aggravated by a lack of access to food rations, health care and basic services such as clean water, sanitation and electricity, a report by a global relief agency said.

http://snipurl.com/1xl0p



Iraq healthcare in disarray, report says

Up to 75 percent of Iraq's doctors, pharmacists and nurses have left their jobs since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. More than half of those have emigrated, the report by health organisation Medact said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL16828588


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=displaced

Truthout's Maya Schenwar reports: "As leading candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama head into the Nevada caucus, toting their bite-sized campaign slogans - 'change,' 'hope,' 'experience' - the facts of their Senate pasts have faded from the scene. Though both pledge to end the war in Iraq, Obama has made his antiwar image a centerpiece of his campaign, drawing crowds of young supporters inspired by his initial opposition to the invasion. However, Clinton and Obama's war voting records in the Senate read virtually the same."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011608J.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Hillary
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Maya+Schenwar

AntiWar.Com
by Charles Pena

01/16/08

Once upon a time — in what seems like a galaxy far, far away — then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had plans to have only 40,000 U.S. troops in Iraq by fall 2003. From almost the moment U.S. troops set foot in Iraq the Bush administration has been making promises that the number of boots on the ground would be reduced. But they have all been empty promises. For example, in December 2005 then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace proclaimed, ‘If things go the way we expect them to, as more Iraqi units stand up, we’ll be able to bring our troops down and turn over that territory to the Iraqis.’ Yet again, just a few weeks after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates indicated that five brigade combat teams (BCTs) could be withdrawn from Iraq by the middle of 2008 and another five BCTs in the second half of the year, leaving 100,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at the end of this year, it seems that the promise will be broken...

http://www.antiwar.com/pena/?articleid=12215


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Peter+Pace
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Charles+Pena

Unqualified Offerings
by Jim Henley

01/15/08

Schultz may have found a politically palatable way to argue against continuing the Iraq adventure, but only by reinforcing the official line that maintaining a massive, free American military capacity is our only protection against nebulous but innumerable ‘contingencies.’ Now in the above argument, I’m using ‘defend’ in its old, strict sense of ‘defend.’ If you prefer the modern usage of start numerous wars in far-flung corners of the world for hazy reasons, the article’s logic becomes more compelling. But the reasons to end the American presence in Iraq are that the war was wrongly launched to start, is ruinously expensive, has been bloody for Americans and far moreso for Iraqis, and can succeed at no larger purpose than giving the US government a platform from which to launch even more wars like it...

http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2008/01/15/7732


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Jim+Henley

Turkey's finance minister says the United States is "after the oil" in Iraq, joining other high-profile officials making the assertion recently.

http://tinyurl.com/354mzf


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Iraq+oil
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Big+Oil