War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
The US is getting the shaft in war making. Two invasions and two bloody, nasty quagmires. Rare is the Maureen Dowd column that is more than pancake face powder, or a shoe-horned turn at national politics, and rare still is a piece with insight into the US’ two beleaguered faraway wars. In her column this…
Massive toxic leaks into the environment can be horrible, whether it be the Gulf of Mexico or a horrible, incompetent-run war in Afghanistan. On Sunday, WikiLeaks (my laptop won’t load the group’s website) released a shitload of formerly-classified documents on the Afghan conflict, and the result ain’t pretty. From the the New York Times: The…
Highlights the desperate plight of news gathering: Editor&Publisher, an authentic cornerstone of journalism will cease publication at the end of this year. The announcement was made Thursday on its online site. An interview today with Greg Mitchell, E&P‘s editor since 2002, on the demise of the newspaper-trade industry/journo-icon can be found at Columbia Journalism Review.…
From President Obama’s lips to boots on the ground. Word came Sunday night:Â Escalation — 35,000 more troops for the Afghan meat-grinder. And the first batch, 9,000 Marines for Helmand province, will leave as soon as Obama opens his mouth Tuesday at West Point, an event creating a most-strange and ironic circumstance for a snow-job —…
In one of the most outlandish public elections in recent memory, the government of Afghanistan has re-installed itself on a pile of criminal corruption so putrid even an idiot can smell it a mile away. Despite all the cuddling, a hard-serious fact remains: “Right now 85 percent of the government is corrupt,” said Ahmed Shah Lumar,…
While eyes of just about everybody are on Afghanistan’s potboiler of a national election, a mutinous DOD without a clue and a rising death toll there of US troops, Iraq has become one of those horrific, malignant gifts that keeps on giving. On Monday, there was considered “light violence” in Iraq — two US GIs died from…
Nearly 50 years have passed since that fateful day in Dallas when JFK was assassinated, and now some new insights have surfaced into those few precious moments in the abrupt transition of presidential power — and it ain’t macho. In a new book on the November 1963 event, The Kennedy Assassination–24 Hours After: Lyndon B.…
End of the week and bad war-related shit. Beyond the US domestic horror of Joe Lieberman, military exercises in the Middle East are becoming way-more frightening than any paranormal or blair-witch fantasy could envision, creating a deep hole-drain in anything that remains of a moral fiber in the facade of a so-called American Ideal. The…
Today eight years ago, Oct. 7, 2001… “On my order, U.S. forces have begun strikes on terrorist camps of al Qaeda, and the military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan,” Bush said in a somber, televised address from the White House Treaty Room. … “We are supported by the collective will of the world,”…
Day after July fourth: Malcontent and hot-under-the collar utterances against a putrid situation. On TV’s History Channel yesterday was a well-produced, though kind of cheesy look at events leading up to the US becoming a viable nation. The recognized starting point of that process was July 4th, 1776, and the story continued until George Washington…