World

Iraq Predictions

If America leaves Iraq, the place has the potential to become another Afghanistan. Afghanistan was a liberal country before the soviets, but decades of fighting and fundamentalism stripped them of all liberalism and left behind something very frightening. When both the USSR and America left Afghanistan, the warlords must have felt like little kids with … Read moreIraq Predictions

Iraq-US Roundup

The US economy is heading towards the emergency room thanks to good old fashioned “fianancial mismangement”:http://www.bushwatch.com/economy.htm along with a bit of “Transgenerational Financial Terrorism”:http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16573, so Bush in hs infinite wisdom is jumpstarting not the US economy, but is instead “pouring billions into the Iraq economy”:http://www.warblogging.com/archives/000701.php. This would/could have been one of the highlights of American … Read moreIraq-US Roundup

Transformation: How The U.S. Can Win Every War, But Lose Every Peace

bq.. Kagan argues that “transformation”:http://www.policyreview.org/aug03/kagan.html is producing a military capable of spectacular and unbelievable victories, yet one that will be increasingly “unable to cope”:http://24.104.35.12/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/849ienyw.asp with the instability and chaos wrought in the aftermath of the war. Going even farther, Kagan charges that policymakers are drawing the wrong lessons from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, by … Read moreTransformation: How The U.S. Can Win Every War, But Lose Every Peace

Defense engineers dispute trailer claims

Still no backlash. bq.. Iraqi scientists, under interrogation, said so. The Brits said so. The State Department’s intelligence arm said so. Now, we learn, Pentagon engineering experts are also “saying so”:http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/09/international/worldspecial/09WEAP.html?hp. >> “Daily Kos”:http://www.dailykos.com/archives/003736.html#003736

Casualities hidden, mystery illness hits US troops in Iraq

Gulf War Syndrome? A 100 soldiers is too small a sample to tell from. Maybe all the “depleted uranium”:http://ko.offroadpakistan.com/world/2003_06/depleted_uranium.html weapons they used are kicking in.

bq.. …What’s not counted in the total is over 100 soldiers who have caught some kind of “pnuemonia-like illness”:http://www.ngwrc.org/article.asp?id=217, not only in Iraq, but across CENTCOM deployments in the region.

…Combine the poor sanitation common in most of the CENTCOM areas, the lack of decent permanent housing for US troops, especially in Iraq and no idea if or how Iraqis are fairing, a medical disaster for American troops is possible. We have no idea if Iraqis are getting sick from this and with the chaos in the hospitals, little way of finding out.

>> “DailyKos”:http://www.dailykos.com/archives/003670.html

p. Update: “Couterpunch: Military Equipment and Pneumonia”:http://www.counterpunch.org/goff08062003.html

bq.. SOLDIERS and civilians in Iraq face a health timebomb after dangerously high levels of radiation were measured around Baghdad.

Levels between 1,000 and 1,900 times higher than normal were recorded at four sites around the Iraqi capital where depleted uranium (DU) munitions have been used across wide areas.

>> “Drudge Report”:http://www.drudgereport.com/flash4.htm via “Eschaton”:http://atrios.blogspot.com/2003_08_31_atrios_archive.html#106244680784443034

Read moreCasualities hidden, mystery illness hits US troops in Iraq