According to the web site Icasualties.org, the number of U.S. servicemember casualties in Iraq has reached the 3,000 mark. The web site, which tracks American deaths in both Iraq and Afghanistan, reported the latest casualty this afternoon. He was Spc. Dustin R. Donica, 22, of Spring, Texas and died of small arms fire in Baghdad [...]
Long Live Live Leak. WARNING: GRAPHIC. This shows Saddam Hussein dropping through the hanging platform, and then a closeup of his face immediately after. You know you want to see it.
HBO: Rome: About the Show
Founded on principles of shared power and fierce personal competition, the Republic was created to prevent any one man from seizing absolute control. It is a society where soldiers can rise up from provincial commoners to become national heroes, even leaders of the Republic.
But as the ruling class became extravagantly wealthy, [...]
Chuck Hagel, one of the few sane Republicans left standing, will not run for President, according to this source. Heck, he’s not even going to run for reelection to his Senate seat.
While some neocons may hold up the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia as a “model” for American strategy in Iraq, the reality on the ground is proving them wrong (once again!):
Hundreds of Somalis flooded into bullet-pocked boulevards to hurl rocks at the Ethiopian soldiers, set tires on fire and shout anti-Ethiopian slogans.
“Get out of our country!” [...]
“We got him!”
No, sorry, not Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri – the men responsible for the mass murder of September 11th, 2001. They are still chillin’ in the Hindu Kush, occasionally sending out podcasts predicting American military operations in Africa and such, but otherwise laying low.
But we got Saddam! Former loyal tool of the [...]
Well, yes, I was a little harsh on Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois), putative presidential candidate and the fave rave of the Democratic net-roots, but then again I believe his position — as expressed most recently in this “Letter to the President” — is rapidly evolving. Obama characterizes the prospect of a troop ”surge” as “chiling,” and flatly [...]
Remember the lost ”weapons of mass destruction“? Saddam was supposed to be saving them up for one final blast of malevolence, but, somehow, they got misplaced in the shuffle. The ever-inventive Clifford May, of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, is on the case, however, and appears to have spotted them — in Syria! The source [...]
Bob Novak on growing opposition to our crazed foreign policy of perpetual war inside the GOP [via Kos]:
The debate inside the Republican Party is whether the mid-term election defeat was solely the result of unhappiness over Iraq or constituted deeper concern with the drift of the GOP, under both presidential and Congressional leadership. Defeated Republicans [...]
Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana), a major power when it comes to forging our “bipartisan” foreign policy of global meddling, thinks we are at “war” — “energy war” — with Russia. Over at Dailykos.com, Jérôme Guillet, a Paris-based banker and an authority on Gazprom’s business practices, debunks the “war” hysteria generated by Lugar and his warmongering [...]
The Army Times reports:
The Center for American Progress proposed Wednesday to have a diplomatic rather than military surge in Iraq, and urged the new Democrat-controlled Congress to demand another vote authorizing military operations in Iraq if the number of U.S. troops will exceeds 150,000.
Hmmmm…. What would a vote to reauthorize the invasion and occupation of [...]
The Empire is in such dire need of new centurions that, as the Boston Globe reports, the Pentagon may go international in its recruiting methods [hat tip: Lew Rockwell]:
The armed forces, already struggling to meet recruiting goals, are considering expanding the number of noncitizens in the ranks — including disputed proposals to open recruiting stations overseas and putting [...]
