Arguably, the Iraq War has been headed for defeat from its earliest days, when it became clear the Iraqis would resist a U.S. occupation, but President George W. Bush didn’t want the blame, thus the “surge.” Now, President Barack Obama…
Tag: Barack Obama
Putting Torturers Above the Law
In another example of how Democrats deal timidly with Republican crimes, the Obama administration has closed the book on the vast majority of George W. Bush’s torture scandals, including high-level approval of waterboarding and other forms of physical coercion. Only two…
Can Civil Protest Counter Israel Lobby?
In 1773, when the British blockaded Boston in retaliation for “terrorist” acts against agents of the Crown, the Thirteen Colonies decried this collective punishment of Massachusetts, setting the stage for the Revolutionary War. However, 238 years later, the United States…
Obama Slow-Walks Afghan Defeat
Like George W. Bush’s Iraq War, the Afghan conflict appears grinding toward an American defeat. However, President Obama doesn’t want the voters to recognize that fact until after Election 2012 to avoid getting the blame so he is stretching out…
Religious Tests of Campaign 2012
Though the United States has a tradition of separating church and state, the 2012 presidential campaign may test the limits of that tolerance. Not only do some Republicans continue to question Barack Obama’s Christianity, but GOP front-runner Mitt Romney is…
A July Fourth Shame on the Founders
Exclusive: A group of American humanitarians and activists are still trying to make their way to Gaza in protest of the harsh Israeli embargo on the 1.6 million Palestinians confined there. However, an attempt to set sail from Athens on…
Obama’s Decent Interval on Bush’s Wars
The United States continues toward slow-motion defeats in George W. Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with Barack Obama seeking, in essence, a “decent interval” so the losses aren’t pinned on him and the Democrats. But Lawrence Davidson asks what it…
Afghan War: No Vietnam Redux
Exclusive: Many on the American Left are furious with Barack Obama — and find nothing to praise in his gradual troop drawdown in Afghanistan. But the President’s speech may be seen, in retrospect, as an important turning point in U.S. war policy toward…
Time to End the Afghan War?
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other Bush-43 holdovers are pressing President Barack Obama to delay a meaningful drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and continue the counterinsurgency war, but the Independent Institute’s Ivan Eland argues that a rapid withdrawal is…
Neocons Trade Medicare for War
Exclusive: The American neocons are again on the upswing as they undercut peace initiatives from the Obama administration and gain Republican support for maintaining massive Pentagon spending, in exchange for limiting senior citizens’ access to Medicare. As Robert Parry reports, the…