tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8812043282272915800.post5962680089390774897..comments2024-02-15T21:24:23.524-08:00Comments on Today in The Endless War: War News for Tuesday, December 13, 2011Cervanteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11302076828795198187noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8812043282272915800.post-23229171129642328012011-12-16T00:18:36.706-08:002011-12-16T00:18:36.706-08:00I like your post and thanks for sharing it.I like your post and thanks for sharing it.BMW GT1http://www.carsdiagnostictool.com/807-BMW-Benz-diagnostic-tool-805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8812043282272915800.post-42827265957519217832011-12-13T22:58:31.900-08:002011-12-13T22:58:31.900-08:00No comfort in being right
In 18 days, the last of...<a href="http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2011/12/12/iraq-no-comfort-in-being-right/" rel="nofollow">No comfort in being right</a><br /><br />In 18 days, the last of the remaining U.S. forces will have left Iraq. So far, no fanfare has heralded this significant event, which has been quiet and orderly — nothing like the “shock and awe” of the initial invasion in March 2003, or the furor and tumult that marked the nearly nine-year occupation afterward.<br /><br />After years of talking about what victory would look like (and downgrading that definition, conveniently, to accommodate evolving realities “on the ground”) it seems to matter little. No one — not the most strident defender of Bush’s preemptive strike strategy or the war’s greatest skeptic — can say with any sincerity that the U.S. and its coalition partners have achieved greatness in Iraq.<br /><br />...........<br /><br />Although the oft-marginalized critics of the Iraq (mis)adventure could be validated a hundred times over, it is but a lonely and fruitless perch, sitting on laurels laced with thorns. Plus, there are plenty of diehards who will never admit they were wrong, and unfortunately, they still have the biggest soapbox in politics today. They — including almost all of the Republicans running for president — would prefer we stay in Iraq forever.<br /><br />Kimberly and Frederick Kagan, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) scholars who helped get us in this mess in the first place, said as much in a Washington Post op-ed Monday.<br /><br /><br />++++++++++++++++<br /><br />I wonder if the war supporters even noticed how much Iraqis have suffered. My guess is "no" but if they did notice, they sure as shit do not care - just like they don't care about all the lies that were told that got us into Iraq in the first place. <br /><br />I still cannot believe that there were any Americans who would vote for liar Bush/Cheney in 2004. Those who did vote for him had no morals at all.Dancewaterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16733269960341895623noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8812043282272915800.post-69061508116471827652011-12-13T22:52:10.833-08:002011-12-13T22:52:10.833-08:00Rare photographs show ground zero of the drone war...<a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/photos-pakistan-drone-war/" rel="nofollow">Rare photographs show ground zero of the drone war in Pakistan</a><br /><br />Behram arrived in Datta Khel, a district not far from Mirin Shah -- North Waziristan’s main city -- after the funerals for the victims of this strike. He was told that six people died, but didn’t see the corpses. One of the dead was said to be a man in his thirties who was supposed to soon be married, the cousin of the teenager in the maroon shirt shown here.<br /><br />The teenager helped with the cleanup and rescue effort at the scene of his cousin's death. Along with some other local children, when he saw Behram taking photos, he ran over to Behram to express how angry he was. He gathered the children and they showed Behram fragments of the missile they recovered. Three U.S. ordnance experts examined Behrams' photos of these pieces, are concluded that they were Hellfires -- the missiles fired by U.S. drones and helicopters.<br /><br />The teenager in the maroon shirt and his friend in the black, about the same age, were an emotional mixture of anger, grief and exhaustion. "They were pissed because he's one of these guys' cousin," Behram recalls, "but at the same time they were overworked in the rescue, so they were not saying much."Dancewaterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16733269960341895623noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8812043282272915800.post-21385553758894840612011-12-13T22:50:15.989-08:002011-12-13T22:50:15.989-08:00Thank you, whisker, for all the posts over the yea...Thank you, whisker, for all the posts over the years, on Iraq. I would like to see security incidents still posted, but then I am not the one doing the work. <br /><br />I will continue to post comments on articles about Iraq that I find.Dancewaterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16733269960341895623noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8812043282272915800.post-33497488824450385892011-12-13T22:49:07.527-08:002011-12-13T22:49:07.527-08:00A rose by any other name, in this case, would also...<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16149971" rel="nofollow">A rose by any other name, in this case, would also stink to high heaven</a><br /><br />The US security firm at the centre of allegations that its guards killed civilians in Iraq is changing its name once more.<br /><br />The company, known as Blackwater at the time of the events, became Xe Services in 2009.<br /><br />Now Xe is to become Academi, named after Plato's institution in ancient Greece.Dancewaterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16733269960341895623noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8812043282272915800.post-90058020396535317582011-12-13T10:00:06.487-08:002011-12-13T10:00:06.487-08:00Gawker has all the incident reports on Blackwater ...<a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/gentlemen_we_shot_a_judge_and_other_tales_of_blackwater_dyncorp_and_triple_canopys_rampage_through_iraq.php?ref=fpnewsfeed" rel="nofollow">Gawker has all the incident reports on Blackwater shooting Iraqis</a>. Oh my.<br /><br />"Blackwater, the private mercenary firm that became synonymous with Bush-era war profiteering and reckless combat-tourism, announced yesterday that it has changed its name to Academi (after a previous incarnation as Xe Services) in a bid to distance itself from its history of wanton lawlessness. We’ve obtained a 4,500-page record of that history in the form of State Department incident reports documenting every time a Blackwater guard shot at an Iraqi between 2005 and 2007. . . .<br /><br />In Iraq, Blackwater’s “protective services” consisted in large part of preemptively shooting any car that drove near its convoys. Page after page of the reports feature drivers (and occasionally boat pilots) who were fired upon simply because they drove “aggressively,” attempted to pass, or didn’t heed warnings to keep their distance. There was no routine mechanism for following up with the drivers to determine if they were injured or were actually hostile. Blackwater (and DynCorp and Triple Canopy) guards roamed Iraqi cities and highways, ignoring traffic rules and shooting at other drivers literally at will, and driving on. .. .<br /><br />In February 2005, a Blackwater team fired hundreds of rounds at two different “aggressive” cars during an operation in Baghdad. Team members subsequently told State Department investigators that 1) one of the cars’ occupants fired on them, striking a vehicle in the motorcade, and 2) one of the cars was on a Be on the Lookout (BOLO) list as a suspected insurgent vehicle. Both were lies. Investigators later found that bullet holes in the Blackwater vehicle had been caused by friendly fire and that none of the Blackwater guards involved could recall the make or model of the car that was allegedly on the BOLO list, making it impossible for them to have known such a car was on the list. (The team’s leader told one investigator that he always claimed that cars he fired on were on the BOLO list, whether they were or not. Indeed, the vast majority of shooting reports claim that the target vehicles were on the BOLO list.)<br /><br />State Department investigators came to the conclusion that the Blackwater team was unjustified in firing on the cars, coordinated their stories to avoid suspicion, and lied about it later. So what it it do? “[Investigating agents] concluded that several of the…individual [sic] involved in the shooting provided false statements to the investigators as well as failed to justify their actions. When investigators briefed [the State Department Regional Security Officer] on their findings and inquired about what disciplinary actions were to occur, RSO informed the investigators that any disciplinary actions would be deemed as lowering the morale of the entire [personal security detail] entity.” No one knows if the occupants of the targeted cars were injured of killed. " <br /><br />And on and on. This has mostly been reported before, but nobody apparently gave a shit. Now they've changed their name and they want back in to Iraq.Cervanteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11302076828795198187noreply@blogger.com