via Lobe Log
Foreign Policy’s Stephen Walt highlights a chart by Belfer Center fellow Matt Waldman showing that as the US-led 2009 “Surge” in Afghanistan proceeded, US casualties increased. The pace in 2012 is also roughly similar to the toll from the previous two years:
Equally important, the final column (based on figures [...]
History, Farce, and David Petraeus
History, it is said, arrives first as tragedy, then as farce. First as Karl Marx, then as the Marx Brothers. In the case of twenty-first century America, history arrived first as George W. Bush (and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and [...]
via IPS News
Paula Broadwell, whose affair with Gen. David Petraeus brought his career to a sudden end last week, had sought to help defend his decision in 2010 to allow village destruction in Afghanistan that not only violated his own previous guidance but the international laws of war.
But her efforts had [...]
(Provided Your Home is the Middle East)
By Nick Turse
via Tom Dispatch
A billion dollars from the federal government: that kind of money could go a long way toward revitalizing a country’s aging infrastructure. It could provide housing or better water and sewer systems. It could enhance a transportation network or develop [...]
via Lobe Log
Further to Jeremy Scahill’s reporting on General David Petraeus’s impact on the CIA is a post at the Afghanistan Study Group by Mary Kaszynski on the costs and feasiblity of nation-building in the war-torn country:
Bing West, assistant Secretary of Defense for President Reagan, had this to say about [...]
via Lobe Log
The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill injects some badly needed context into the media frenzy over David Petraeus’s CIA resignation by examining the four-star General’s legacy against the backdrop of an increasingly militarized intelligence agency:
As head of US Central Command in 2009, Petraeus issued execute orders that significantly broadened the ability [...]
via Lobe Log
In what is sure to be one of the most glaringly obvious headlines written about the General Petraeus-Paula Broadwell affair, the Washington Post writes: “Petraeus hoped affair would stay secret and he could keep his job as CIA director.”
Clearly, things did not go according to plan. Right after the [...]
via Lobe Log
The Washington Post‘s Greg Miller has begun a three-part series on the future of the Obama Administration’s counterterrorism drone strike program, which will include a “next-generation targeting list” (aka “kill list”) in the form of a “dipposition matrix”.
Though the White House, CIA, JSOC and ODNI declined comment requests, the article cites [...]
How the Empire Changed Its Face, But Not Its Nature
By Nick Turse
via Tom Dispatch
They looked like a gang of geriatric giants. Clad in smart casual attire — dress shirts, sweaters, and jeans — and incongruous blue hospital booties, they strode around “the world,” stopping to stroke their chins and [...]
via IPS News
Graphic: The figures signify the number of times each country was mentioned in the Oct. 22 presidential debate. Credit: Zachary Fleischmann/IPS
U.S. strategy in the Greater Middle East, which has dominated foreign policy-making since the 9/11 attacks more than 11 years ago, similarly dominated the third and last debate between [...]
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