Iraq War

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The silly season has descended permanently on Washington, D.C., so that minor congressmen are calling for the resignation or even impeachment of President Joe Biden over the ISIL-K bombing at Abbey Gate in the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 26. Chris Cilizza called out the Nikki Haleys, […]

Afghanistan

The Endless Shadow of the War on Terror: Living With It Forever and a Day

Karen J. Greenberg

( Tomdispatch.com) – It ended in chaos and disaster. Kabul has fallen and Joe Biden is being blamed (by congressional Republicans in particular) for America’s now almost-20-year disaster in Afghanistan. But is the war on terror itself over? Apparently not. It seems like centuries ago, but do you remember when, in May 2003, President George […]

Afghanistan

Afghanistan only the latest US war to be driven by deceit and delusion

The Conversation

By Gordon Adams | – In Afghanistan, American hubris – the United States’ capacity for self-delusion and official lying – has struck once again, as it has repeatedly for the last 60 years. This weakness-masquerading-as-strength has repeatedly led the country into failed foreign interventions. The pattern first became clear to me when I learned on […]

Congress

In Bid to Recapture Congress’ Power to Declare War, Key Senate Committee advances Repeal of Iraq War Authorizations

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trish Turner at ABC News reports that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has voted to repeal the two Authorizations for Use of Military Force in Iraq passed in 1991 for the Gulf War and in 2002 for George W. Bush’s war on Iraq. I’m personally happy about this, since I […]

Archaeology

The U.S. Committed Cliocide (Destruction of History) in Iraq, and even Returning Gilgamesh Can’t Fix it

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The US government has returned 17,000 archeological artifacts to Iraq, many of them over 4,000 years old. This, according to Al Jazeera The objects and tablets were looted from the country during the chaos of the Bush administration’s rule of that country and were smuggled into the U.S., then sold […]

Afghanistan

Who Authorized America’s Wars? And Why They Never End

Tomdispatch

By Andrea Mazzarino | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – Sometimes, as I consider America’s never-ending wars of this century, I can’t help thinking of those lyrics from the Edwin Starr song, “(War, huh) Yeah! (What is it good for?) Absolutely nothing!” I mean, remind me, what good have those disastrous, failed, still largely ongoing conflicts done […]

Iran

America’s Afghan War Is Over, So What About Iraq – and Iran?

Medea Benjamin and Ariel Gold

( Code Pink) – At Bagram air-base, Afghan scrap merchants are already picking through the graveyard of U.S. military equipment that was until recently the headquarters of America’s 20-year occupation of their country. Afghan officials say the last U.S. forces slipped away from Bagram in the dead of night, without notice or coordination. The Taliban […]

Bush

Donald Rumsfeld, Torturer, Serial Liar, Butcher of Baghdad, dies at 88

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s death at 88 is an occasion for me to recall some of my own writing on his sinister role in the Iraq War. Rumsfeld wanted to invade Iraq so badly he just made up shit to justify that action. In a Salon article I […]

Featured

Not only Should Congress repeal 2002 Authorization for use of Force in Iraq, it should Apologize for that Pack of Lies

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Jacob Pramuk at CNBC reports that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the Biden White House are backing an attempt to repeal the 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force that allowed the Bush administration to launch the Iraq War. The repeal is driven in part by the Trump […]