Posts Tagged ‘Jason Ditz’
June 28, 2010
Insists His Focus Is on Winning the War
by Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com, June 27, 2010
Speaking today in the wake of the G20 Summit, President Barack Obama criticized what he called “a lot of obsession” about ending the war in Afghanistan and withdrawing some 100,000 American troops from the nation.
Obama insisted that instead of considering if and how the war will ever come to some sort of end, his “focus right now is how do we make sure that what we’re doing there is successful, given the incredible sacrifices.”
The US initially invaded Afghanistan in late 2001. The number of troops in the nation has rising precipitously since President Obama took office in 2009, inheriting a war with 30,000 troops and turning it into a war with 100,000 troops.
Obama’s comments reflect those he made earlier this week, disavowing his pledge to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in July of 2011. Now President Obama says that date is just the “beginning of a transition phase” and there is no particular timeline for leaving Afghanistan.
With the war increasingly unpopular, the president presented the 2011 drawdown date as a way to make his most recent escalation more palatable. With the surge troops now deployed, the date appears to have been discarded, and those still clamoring for some sort of end to the nearly decade-long war condemned for losing sight of some ill-defined victory.
Tags:Afghanistan, Jason Ditz, President Barack Obama and war in Afghanistan
Posted in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war | Leave a Comment »
June 2, 2010
Foreign Affairs Chair Lauds Killings of ‘Brutal’ Aid Workers
President Obama’s reluctance to comment in any but the most vague terms of the massacre of 19 aid workers by Israeli commandos late Sunday night has left many wondering exactly where the US government will fall on an issue which has been blanketly condemned by virtually every government in the civilized world and virtually every government outside the civilized world.
But the lack of White House comment has opened the door for Congressmen to stake out public positions on the matter and, perhaps predictably, those that have commented have universally praised the killings.
Rep. Gary Ackerman, the House Foreign Affairs chair, praised the raid, saying he supported Israel’s decision to attack the ship and the decision of the commandos to use deadly force against the aid workers, who he said were “brutally attacking” them. He added that the whole matter was secretly Hamas’ fault.
Several of the Congressmen singled out the United Nations for condemnation, claiming that criticizing the massacre was a “double standard” and demanding that President Obama use veto power to prevent any action being taken against Israel for it.
President Obama has called for an Israeli-led “investigation” into the lead up to the massacre, but has stopped short of criticizing the killings in any specific way. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton advised people to be “careful” in their responses.
Tags:Gaza, Israel, Jason Ditz, President Obama and Israeli massacre of aid workers, U.S. policy towards Israeli masscre
Posted in Commentary, crime, Gaza, President Barack Obama, Uncategorized, US policy, Zionism., Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »
April 26, 2010
Few Notable Militants Reported Killed
After killing a record 700 civilians last year in at least 44 distinct drone strikes against Pakistan in 2009, the Obama Administration looks to be escalating the rate even further in 2010, to the point that drone strikes have become a decidedly ordinary occurrence.
Less than four months into the new year, the US has already launched 40 attacks and killed at least 268 people. The most recent strike yesteray in North Waziristan killed at least nine people.
The identities of the victims are never particularly easy to ascertain, but the number of named militants killed so far this year is trivial, as it was last year, when most of the “suspects” turned out to have no discernible relation to any militant faction.
Since taking office, President Obama has repeatedly escalated the drone strikes against the tribal areas, to the point where multiple attacks a week are a matter of course. With the normal winter lull seeing such a large number of strikes, a new record for killings seems all but assured again in 2010.
Tags:Civialins killed in Pakistan, civilians killed in Pakistan, escalation under President Obama, Jason Ditz, North Waziristan, US drone attacks
Posted in Human rights, Pakistan, President Barack Obama, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war | Leave a Comment »
April 22, 2010
Iran Reiterates Criticism of Nuclear Threat
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell quickly repudiated comments from one of the Defense Department’s undersecretaries today, insisting that attack Iran at any time is “always an option.”
The latest comments came in response to Undersecretary Flournoy’s claims earlier this morning that a military attack against Iran was “off the table in the near term” and that the Obama Administration was focusing on “engagement and pressure.”
The US has been threatening to attack Iran for years, but those threats have gotten increasingly direct since President Obama took office last year.
Meanwhile Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei reiterated his nation’s outrage at the Obama Administration’s threat to launch a nuclear first strike against Iran. Earlier this month, President Obama announced that the US would never launch a nuclear first strike against a non-nuclear power, but then quickly noted that Iran was explicitly excluded from this pledge.
Tags:attack on Iran, Iran, Jason Ditz, Obama Administration and Iran, United States
Posted in Commentary, Iran, Uncategorized, US policy, USA | Leave a Comment »
April 14, 2010
Pentagon Pushes for $10 Million ‘Pool’ for Funding
Despite an official prohibition at taking any part in Pakistan’s assorted military offensives, the US Special Forces in the nation have continued to expand the definition of “training operations” until now they are overseeing the combat in several areas.
The training mission was originally supposed to be so limited that they weren’t supposed to even train troops directly, they were supposed to train Pakistani trainers who would pass the information along to the paramilitary forces in FATA. Even this was controversial at the time.
But now, the US troops are taking part in “hold and build” operations in FATA, coordinating the operations of the various Pakistani military and civilian authorities in the region.
The Pentagon is now said to be seeking the creation of a $10 million pool for the “trainers” in the nation, to be used for discretionary “hearts and minds” spending, likely mostly on humanitarian aid projects.
But US troops are already showing up in some odd places considering their extremely limited mission. In February three US soldiers were killed in a bombing in the Swat Valley, when the troops were attending a school opening in the area. These photo-op visits are likely to become more and more common as the US presence in the nation grows.
Tags:Jason Ditz, Pakistan, US special forces, US troops
Posted in Pakistan, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war | Leave a Comment »
March 19, 2010
Israel Pledges ‘Trust Building’ Moves Short of Actually Stopping Settlement Growth
After last week’s announced settlement expansion effectively torpedoed the indirect peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli government is will to do almost anything to build “trust,” so long as it doesn’t involve the only thing the PA actually wants, abandoning that settlement expansion.
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Tags:Israel, Jason Ditz, Netanyahu, settlement expansion, United States
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March 11, 2010
Drone Attacked Crowd of Civilians Rescuing Victims of Previous Drone
An unknown number of civilians were slain today in Pakistan’s North Waziristan Agency, when US drones launched a pair of attacks on a site which left at least 17 people killed and several wounded.
The first drone strike targeted a vehicle which Pakistani officials say was “carrying some miscreants.” The attack killed at least eight people and collapsed a nearby home, which is what precipitated the second attack.
A crowd of civilians gathered around the collapsed building, trying to pull people from the rubble, when a second drone fired missiles into the crowd, killing at least nine people and wounding several others.
“Miscreants” aside, it was unclear if any of those killed were militants of any significant faction, and Pakistani officials say there was no evidence any high-value target at the site. The area is controlled by a nominally “Taliban” militant faction which currently has a peace deal with the Pakistani government.
Tags:civilians, Jason Ditz, North Waziristan, Pakistan, people killed and wounded, US drones attack
Posted in Commentary, Pakistan, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war | Leave a Comment »
December 29, 2009
Deaths Come in Apparent US Raid in Kunar Province
NATO officially denied having any information about any operations going on in Kunar, but western officials privately conceded that US special forces have been operating in the Taliban-heavy area. A spokesman for the NATO forces promised to “look into” the reports.
Provincial police could provide only sparse details about the killings, and said that a full investigation would take several days, owing to the difficulty in even traveling to the area of the incident. US officials have yet to comment at all.
Though the Taliban has established a growing presence in the province, Kunar has been comparatively ignored by international forces since this summer, when provincial officials accused a US soldier of throwing a hand grenade into a crowd of civilians in a marketplace. The grenade killed two people and injured 56 others.
Tags:Afghanistan, Jason Ditz, killings in Kunar province, NATO forces
Posted in Afghanistan, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war | Leave a Comment »
But additional information is also coming in in the form of a report from an unnamed 
Peace and Justice Post 
US Slams Mention of Israeli Nukes at IAEA Meeting
June 11, 2010US officials reacted angrily today at the inclusion of Israel’s nuclear arsenal as a topic of discussion for the IAEA meeting, insisting that it was “untimely and uncalled for.”
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Tags:Israel’s nuclear arsenal, Jason Ditz, NPT and Israel, U.S. and IAEA meeting
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