In recent weeks, President Obama has been contemplating the future of
U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. He has also been touting the effects
of his policies at home, reporting that this year's Recovery Act not
only saved jobs, but also was "the largest investment in infrastructure
since [President Dwight] Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System
in the 1950s." At the same time, another much less publicized
U.S.-taxpayer-funded infrastructure boom has been underway. This one in
Afghanistan.
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan - Angry Afghan villagers
protested Thursday against what they said was the killing of 11
civilians by foreign troops, but local authorities said only fighters
were killed.
The NATO-led force said it had fired a rocket from the ground at a
group it believed to be planting a roadside bomb in Babaji in Helmand
province. It said it was not aware of any civilians in the area and was
investigating the incident.
As civilised people across
the world breathed a sigh of relief to see the back of former US
president George W. Bush, top American intellectual Noam Chomsky warned
against assuming or expecting significant changes in the basis of
Washington's foreign policy under President Barack Obama.
During two lectures
organised by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in
London, Chomsky cited numerous examples of the driving doctrines behind
US foreign policy since the end of World War II.
The Iraq war's chief New York Times cheerleader has reversed field on Afghanistan. Does it mean there will be no escalation?
In early 1968, after the devastating Tet Offense, CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite pronounced the Vietnam War unwinnable. Lyndon Johnson knew he had "lost middle America" and soon declined to run for a second term. The war dragged on for seven more hellish years. But the hearts and minds of the American public had been lost.
British
Army Lance Corporal Joe Glenton faces court martial for refusing to
return to Afghanistan. He defied a direct order by his commanding
officer to not participate in the in the Saturday, October 24, 2009, Stop the War march in London.
U.S. Army Reserve Spc. Chancellor Keesling died in Iraq on June 19, 2009, from “a non-combat related incident,” according to the Pentagon. Keesling had killed himself. He was just one in what is turning out to be a record year for suicides in the U.S. military.
Matthew
Hoh, a former Marine captain with combat experience in Iraq, resigned
last month from his position with the Foreign Service, where he was the
the senior U.S. civilian in the Taliban-dominated Southern Afghanistan
province of Zabul, because he became convinced that our war in that
country will not only inevitably fail, but is fueling the very
insurgency we are trying to defeat.
One of the most cherished items in my possession is a postcard that was sent from Mississippi to the Upper West Side of Manhattan in June 1964.
“Dear Mom and Dad,” it says, “I have arrived safely in Meridian, Mississippi. This is a wonderful town and the weather is fine. I wish you were here. The people in this city are wonderful and our reception was very good. All my love, Andy.”
“Deadliest bombs since ‘07 shatter Iraqi Complexes. Key Government Sites. Synchronized car blasts kill more than 130 — Security issue.” So reads the headline in my
newspaper.
According to the Associated Press, Iraq’s deadliest bombing in more than two years killed at least 155 and wounded more than 500 Sunday.
Thirty-four years ago this month the young James Fallows published (in the Washington Monthly) what still remains a definitive article about the class divide in times of war—“What Did You Do in the Class War, Daddy?” I still have a yellowed original copy somewhere. Fallows was writing about the sickening reality that as a Harvard student he, like so many other Ivy Leaguers, could quite easily avoid fighting in Vietnam. They had the ways and means to avoid military service: exemptions, deferments, lawyers, connections.
