NewsTrust - War - Most Recent Stories: News (Independent)

Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Nation - By Jeremy Scahill - Dec. 07 (News Report) - Inside sources reveal that the firm works with the US military inKarachi to plan targeted assassinations and drone bombings, among other sensitive counterterrorism operations.

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New Baboon

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

RadioLab - By John Horgan - Nov. 12 (Special Report) - John Horgan examines how Americans seem to have a completely different attitude toward war than we did thirty years ago. He takes us on a stroll through Hoboken, asking strangers one of the great unanswerable questions: "Will humans ever stop fighting wars?" Strangely, everyone seems to know the answer. Robert Sapolsky brings us farther afield - to eastern Africa, where a population of baboons defies his expectations of violent behavior. Robert is surprised to feel hopeful for a gentler future, but then primatologist Richard Wrangham asserts that their aggressive nature is innate, unchanging, and hanging over them like a guillotine.

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God, the Army, and PTSD

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Boston Review - By Tara McKelvey - Nov. 11 (Special Report) - During the Iraq war, however, the great difficulty veterans experienced in getting psychiatric care—greater than before—was not a product of cost-cutting, but of conviction: many Bush administration officials believed that soldiers who supported the war would not face psychological problems, and if they did, they would find comfort in faith. In a resigned tone, one prominent researcher who worked for the VA, and asked that he not be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press, explained that high-ranking officials believed that “Jesus fixes everything.” Benimoff and the others who returned with devastating psychological injuries found a faith-based bureau within the VA. At veterans’ hospitals, chaplains were conducting spirituality assessments of patients.

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Ft. Hood Shooter was Cruelly Mistreated and Harassed for his Ethnicity

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

stopwar.lafilmonline.com - By Jon Raymond, Phillip Rucker, Amy Goodman, Mike Baker - Nov. 10 (News Report) - Everyone else just sat down there and drunk their beer and looked at him and giggled at him,” the woman said, starting to cry. “They just would laugh at him when he walked down with his Muslim clothes. . . . He was mistreated. He didn’t have nobody. He was all alone. He went to his apartment there and was all alone.

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UN Guest House Attacked in Kabul

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Informed Comment - By Juan Cole - Oct. 28 (News Analysis) - Afghanistan continues to generate bad news at an alarming rate. Gunmen stormed a UN guest house in Kabul, deploying small arms fire and killing 3 UN staff members along with 4 other persons . A Taliban spokesman said his group was behind the attack and that it was aimed at disrupting the Nov. 7 presidential runoff election. At the same time, a rocket slammed into a five star hotel in Kabul. Heavy gunfire reverberated through the streets shortly after dawn and a large plume of smoke rose over the city following the attack on the hostel in the Shar-e-Naw district. Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahman said seven people were killed, including some attackers. The killing of 8 US troops by roadside bombs on Tuesday has brought the number of US ...

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War weary Europeans test their leaders' resolve

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

GlobalPost - By Mort Rosenblum - Oct. 27 (News Analysis) - Whoever ends up presiding over Afghan chaos and corruption, Europe is losing patience fast with U.S. mission muddle and a president who won’t make up his mind. NATO defense ministers meeting last week in Slovakia backed Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s strategy to strike harder, and fast, against a growing insurgency. But opinion polls and remarks in official circles from Britain to Poland (and elsewhere, like, Canada) make clear that Europeans are fed up with Afghanistan if not the whole military business altogether.

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Pentagon Speeding Up Production of Bunker Busters

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Scott Canon - Oct. 23 (News) - This month, the Defense Department awarded $51.9 million to McDonnell Douglas to more quickly adapt a 30,000-pound bunker buster to the B-2 stealth bomber.

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Unintended Consequences in Nuclear Pakistan

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthDig - By Fred Branfman - Oct. 09 (News Report) - If U.S. military leaders are right that they cannot prevail in Afghanistan without escalating into Pakistan, this is the strongest possible argument for withdrawing from Afghanistan. For nothing, not even Taliban rule in Kabul, could justify allowing the tiny Afghan tail to wag a giant, nuclear-armed Pakistani dog whose stability is clearly America’s very top priority in the region. Further instability in Pakistan would only benefit al-Qaida, which has already made deep inroads into Pakistan and is unlikely to return to Afghanistan even if the U.S. withdraws from there. Former N.Y. Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer is right: “It should be engraved on the minds of every American diplomat: Do nothing that will further destabilize Pakistan” (from the “Rethink Afghanistan” video).

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Yearning for the Golan Heights: Why Syria Wants It Back

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Julien Barnes-Dacey - Sep. 28 (News) - Syria's cooperation is crucial to the chief goal of President Obama's Middle East policy: Arab-Israeli peace. With ties to three Israeli enemies - Iran, and the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas - Syria says it can moderate the threats against the Jewish state and thus pave the way for reciprocal Israeli concessions to the Palestinians and their Arab allies.

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Meet the Afghan Army

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Ann Jones - Sep. 24 (Special Report) - Afghans do not think or act like Americans. Yet Americans in power refuse to grasp that inconvenient point.

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New report on future scenarios in Sudan

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

reliefweb.int - Sep. 18 (Special Report) - Sudan is planning to hold elections in April 2010 and a referendum on southern autonomy the following year, but beyond this the future is uncertain, says a report entitled "Sudan 2012 - Scenarios for the Future".

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U.S. War in Afghanistan

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Council on Foreign Relations - Sep. 16 (Special Report) - Tracking a war

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Retired 4-stars repudiate Cheney on torture -

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

airforcetimes.com - Sep. 15 (News Report) - Former Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Charles C. Krulak and former commander of Central Command Gen. Joseph P. Hoar have spoken out against former Vice President Dick Cheney and his support for “enhanced interrogation techniques” in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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4 Deadly Delusions About Afghanistan Held by Obama's Top Advisors

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Policy In Focus - By Conn Hallinan - Sep. 15 (News Analysis) - Delusion #1 In his address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Obama characterized Afghanistan as "a war of necessity" against international terrorism. But the reality is that the Taliban is a polyglot collection of conflicting political currents whose goals are local, not universal jihad.

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Israel Authorizes 455 New Settlement Units

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Common Dreams - Sep. 07 (News) - Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has authorized the construction of more than 450 new housing units in settlements in the occupied West Bank, his ministry said in a statement on Monday.

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Andy Worthington: Who Are the Two Syrians Released From Guantanamo to Portugal?

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Andy Worthington - Sep. 03 (News Report) - Their stories, as revealed in publicly available documents from Guantánamo, reveal that neither man had any connection whatsoever to international terrorism.

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Robert Scheer: Obama's Meaningless War

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - Sep. 02 (News Analysis) - Meaningless is the right term for the Afghanistan war, because our bloody attempt to conquer this foreign land has nothing to do with its stated purpose of enhancing our national security.

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Nir Rosen on the Growing Afghanistan War, Embedding and the "Counterinsurgency" Doctrine in Washington

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS, Amy Goodman, Nir Rosen - Sep. 01 (News Analysis) - The commander of US forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has submitted a long-awaited review of the Afghan war. The New York Times reports although McChrystal’s assessment doesn’t call for sending more US troops, it effectively lays the groundwork for such a request in the coming weeks. The assessment comes on the heels of the deadliest month for US troops in Afghanistan since the US invasion nearly eight years ago.

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Gates: Report details highs, lows of Afghan fight

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

seattlepi.com - By Anne Gearan - Aug. 31 (News) - Gen. Stanley McChrystal said the nearly 8-year-old war is winnable, but his report is expected to be a blunt appraisal of the Taliban's increasing tactical prowess and diminishing popular support in Afghanistan for both the foreign-led war effort and the fragile, corruption-riddled central government.

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Pentagon Hires Rendon Group to Profile and Rate Journalists Covering Afghanistan War

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Charlie Reed, James Bamford, Juan Gonzalez, Amy Goodman - Aug. 28 (News Report) - The U.S. Army in Afghanistan has admitted it pays a private company to produce background profiles on journalists covering the war. The Pentagon has been on the defensive ever since the Army newspaper Stars and Stripes revealed this week that journalists were being screened by the Washington-based public relations firm, The Rendon Group, under a $1.5 million dollar contract with the military. Documents obtained by the paper reveal journalists were evaluated with pie charts breaking down their coverage into percentages of “positive,” “neutral” or “negative.”

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"The Safe Haven Myth"

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Stephen Walt, Amy Goodman, Sharif Abdel Kouddous - Aug. 25 (News Analysis) - US military commanders have reportedly told the US special envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, that they need more troops to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. Last week, President Obama defended the expansion of the war, calling it a “war of necessity.” We speak with Harvard professor Stephen Walt, who argues that the President’s “safe haven” argument for expanding the US military presence in Afghanistan should be viewed with skepticism.

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After 6+ Years at Guantanamo, Mohamed Jawad Returns Home

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS, Amy Goodman, Jonathan Landay - Aug. 25 (News Report) - A young Afghan prisoner has returned to Afghanistan following his release from Guantanamo Bay. Mohamed Jawad arrived in Kabul on Monday. He was ordered freed last month after more than six years at Guantanamo. He was as young as twelve at the time of his capture and was tortured and threatened into confessing to throwing a grenade at a US soldier.

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Ex-CIA agent: Argument That Afghanistan War Makes Us Safer is "Bulls**t"

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Robert Greenwald - Aug. 20 (Special Report) - The war in Afghanistan is increasing the likelihood that Americans will be killed in a future terrorist attack. Part 6 of Brave New Foundation's Rethink Afghanistan documentary series brings you three former CIA agents on the record to explain why.

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British Politician Tony Benn Condemns Escalation of War in Afghanistan & Defends Britain's Socialized Healthcare System

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Amy Goodman - Aug. 18 (News Analysis) - While President Obama defended his escalation of the war in Afghanistan on Monday, in Britain, America’s closest ally, antiwar sentiment is growing. This week, the number of British troops killed in Afghanistan since 2001 surpassed 200. Yesterday in central London, protesters read the names of the 200 British soldiers, as well as the names 200 Afghan citizens killed in the war. The demonstration in Whitehall was led by former British MP Tony Benn, who is currently the president of the Stop the War Coalition.

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Former Adviser to Gen. Stanley McChrystal Calls for Moratorium on US Drone Strikes in Pakistan

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS - Aug. 11 (News Report) - Andrew Exum is a former Army captain who has been openly critical of the drone attacks inside Pakistan. Exum served on active duty in the US Army from 2000 until 2004, including two years leading a platoon of Army Rangers inside Iraq and Afghanistan. He recently returned from two months in Afghanistan, where he served as part of the advisory team of the commander of US troops there, General Stanley McChrystal.

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