Tag Archives: Iraq

Steve Earle, Where Should the Birds Fly, and Daryn Strauss

"Tremé is the musical heart of New Orleans just like New Orleans is the musical heart of America, and I don't just mean the United States," says Steve Earle, who knows a little something about music. The longtime singer/songwriter and activist has played a role as a street musician in the new HBO series Tremé, and has a long history both with the show's creator, David Simon, and with the city and the neighborhood in which the show is set.
Posted in News Feeds | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The F Word: Accepting Defeat in Iraq

Everyone is spinning the Iraq mission's so-called end but no one seems willing quite to accept defeat. Republicans are complaining that the president didn't mention George W. Bush often enough in his speech announcing the end of combat operations. In fact, he did, quite a bit, and in an over-generous way, most sane people agree. As GRITtv commentator Bill Fletcher, Jr. put it Wednesday, "Iraq wasn't a case of a war gone bad with good intentions--it was begun illegally and handled wrong from the start."
Posted in News Feeds | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bill Fletcher, Jr: Spinning Victory in Iraq

President Obama might have declared the combat mission over in Iraq this week, but thousands of troops and contractors remain behind in that country and troops are still moving into Afghanistan. In his speech, Obama struck a note of conciliation with President Bush, and echoed a refrain that's grown familiar now: move forward, don't look back. But Bill Fletcher, Jr. notes that Iraq wasn't a case of a war gone bad with good intentions--it was begun illegally, and continued over protest.
Posted in News Feeds | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bill Fletcher, Jr., Attack on Ahmed Sharif, and New Voters

President Obama might have declared the combat mission over in Iraq this week, but thousands of troops and contractors remain behind in that country and troops are still moving into Afghanistan. In his speech, Obama struck a note of conciliation with President Bush, and echoed a refrain that's grown familiar now: move forward, don't look back. But Bill Fletcher, Jr. notes that Iraq wasn't a case of a war gone bad with good intentions--it was begun illegally, and handled wrong from the start.
Posted in News Feeds | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Farewell to Iraq, but No Talk of Mission Accomplished

by Rupert Cornwell in WashingtonBarack Obama last night brought down a curtain on the long, costly and inconclusive war in Iraq, but amid near indifference from a country now worried about the economy to the exclusion of virtually all else."It is ...
Posted in News Feeds | Also tagged , , | Leave a comment

Think back to 2003… the year the U.S. didn’t invade Iraq

Historians would later record how Secretary of State Colin Powell prevailed in a key Cabinet meeting in early 2003, when he refused to go before the United Nations because he lacked proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. “What if the U.N. inspections have actually worked, Mr. President?” he asked. “It would be a [...]
Posted in News Feeds | Also tagged , | Leave a comment

The Psychology of Torture: Culture and Change

A recent study revealed that physicians with the CIA's Office of Medical Services were more deeply involved in torture than was previously thought--that doctors and psychiatrists actually helped interrogators design "enhanced techniques" that passed the Bush administration's requirements but would keep prisoners alive and without the severe physical injuries that even that regime admitted were torture.
Posted in News Feeds | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sonali Kolhatkar, Rethink Afghanistan, and Psychology of Torture

The media face of the war in Afghanistan is a woman's face--one particular mutilated woman, in the case of Time. Sonali Kolhatkar of the Afghan Women's Mission notes, though, that this is a clear strategy from those who benefit from the war to win over European and American audiences. Meanwhile, Afghan women who oppose occupation, like former GRITtv guest Malalai Joya, are silenced in the media just as they are silenced in Afghan politics.
Posted in News Feeds | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Richard Kim, Public Housing, and Anchor Baby Baiting

"Who needs gay bashing when you have the Ground Zero mosque?" Richard Kim, senior editor at The Nation, asks guest host Esther Armah. In a week when gay and lesbian couples may see obstacles to their right to marry in California fall away, he notes, right-wing media is strangely silent on the issue. Even Glenn Beck is suddenly sounding a libertarian note.
Posted in News Feeds | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

David Finkel: Leaving Iraq, Moving into America

The war in Iraq is far from over despite Obama's best speeches; and journalist David Finkel notes, "This war is leaving Iraq and moving into America." It is our duty, he says, to understand what the soldiers went through at the very worst of their experience there.
Posted in News Feeds | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment