Pakistan Slams NATO Leak on Taliban Support
Pakistan on Wednesday hit out angrily at a leaked NATO report
accusing its spies of secretly aiding the Afghan Taliban, saying that
pre-dawn air strikes killed at least 20 local Taliban fighters.
Pakistan's alliance with the United States and NATO plummeted to an all-time low after US air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on November 26 and Islamabad has since shut its Afghan border to NATO supply convoys.
Pakistan's alliance with the United States and NATO plummeted to an all-time low after US air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on November 26 and Islamabad has since shut its Afghan border to NATO supply convoys.
The Next War
Not one of the old "frogmen" or young SEALs who gathered this week at
the nearby National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum for their annual Muster want
to see another war. Those who came here are veterans of combat spanning
from World War II to the present war in Iraq and Afghanistan to numerous
other unnamed fights around the globe. Within their ranks are men --
and their families -- who know what it means to go in harm's way, often
without any recognition or public acclaim.
When War Games Go Live. Preparing to Attack Iran. "Simulating World War III"
by Michel Chossudovsky
With ongoing war games
on both sides, armed hostilities between the US-Israel led coalition and
Iran are, according to Israeli military analysts, "dangerously close".
There has been a massive deployment of troops
which have been dispatched to the Middle East, not to mention the
redeployment of US and allied troops previously stationed in Afghanistan
and Iraq.
Nine thousand US troops have been dispatched to
Israel to participate in what is described by the Israeli press as the
largest joint air defense war exercise in Israeli history.
The drill, called “Austere Challenge 12,” is
scheduled to take place within the next few weeks. Its stated purpose
"is to test multiple Israeli and US air defense systems, especially the
“Arrow” system, which the country specifically developed with help from
the US to intercept Iranian missiles."
In the course of December, Iran conducted its own
war games with a major ten days naval exercise in the Strait of Hormuz,
(December 24, 2011- January 2, 2012).
Missile defense and naval war games are being
conducted simultaneously. While Israel and the US are preparing to
launch major naval exercises in the Persian Gulf, Tehran has announced
that it plans to conduct major naval exercises in February.
An impressive deployment of troops and advanced military hardware is unfolding.
Meanwhile, Israel has become a de facto US
military outpost. US and Israeli command structures are being
integrated, with close consultations between the Pentagon and Israel's
Ministry of Defense.
A large number of US troops will be stationed in Israel once the war games are completed.
The assumption of this military deployment is the
staging of a joint US-Israeli air attack on Iran. Military escalation
towards a regional war is part of the military scenario.
Not Time to Attack Iran
Why War Should Be a Last Resort
Obama speaks about the U.N. Security Council's sanctions on Iran (Kevin Lamarque / Courtesy Reuters)
In "Time to Attack Iran" (January/February 2012), Matthew Kroenig takes a page out of the decade-old playbook used by advocates of the Iraq war. He portrays the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran as both grave and imminent, arguing that the United States has little choice but to attack Iran now before it is too late. Then, after offering the caveat that "attacking Iran is hardly an attractive prospect," he goes on to portray military action as preferable to other available alternatives and concludes that the United States can manage all the associated risks. Preventive war, according to Kroenig, is "the least bad option."
But the lesson of Iraq, the last preventive war launched by the United States, is that Washington should not choose war when there are still other options, and it should not base its decision to attack on best-case analyses of how it hopes the conflict will turn out. A realistic assessment of Iran's nuclear progress and how a conflict would likely unfold leads one to a conclusion that is the opposite of Kroenig's: now is not the time to attack Iran.
Time to Attack Iran. Why a Strike Is the Least Bad Option
In early October, U.S. officials accused Iranian operatives of planning to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States on American soil. Iran denied the charges, but the episode has already managed to increase tensions between Washington and Tehran. Although the Obama administration has not publicly threatened to retaliate with military force, the allegations have underscored the real and growing risk that the two sides could go to war sometime soon -- particularly over Iran’s advancing nuclear program.
The Splintering of Al Shabaab
A Rough Road From War to Peace
Washington's repeated
attempts to bring peace to Somalia with state-building initiatives have
failed, even backļ¬red. It should renounce political intervention and
encourage local development without trying to improve governance.
An AMISOM battalion in Mogadishu. (United Nations Photo / flickr)
For the better part of five years, much of Somalia's long-suffering population has been caught in a deadly stalemate between al Shabaab, an al Qaeda-linked militant group, and African Union peacekeepers, known as AMISOM. The peacekeepers are tasked with defending the country's weak Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which, despite years of backing from regional powers and the West, remains politically dysfunctional and incapable doing anything resembling governing. Fielding an army of its own remains a distant aspiration.
The Next War of the World
The Next War of the World
In 1898, H. G. Wells wrote The War of the Worlds, a novel that imagined the destruction of a great city and the extermination of its inhabitants by ruthless invaders. The invaders in Wells' story were, of course, Martians. But no aliens were needed to make such devastation a reality. In the decades that followed the book's publication, human beings repeatedly played the part of the inhuman marauders, devastating city after city in what may justly be regarded as a single hundred-year "war of the world."
Slain Border Patrol Agent’s Family Files Lawsuit in Fast & Furious Scandal
Kurt Nimmo
The family of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the federal government. Terry was killed on December 14, 2010, by drug cartel bandits in Arizona. Investigators found two AK47s at the scene that were linked to the government’s Fast and Furious gun-running operation.
Under
Fast and Furious, the ATF orchestrated the sale of guns originating in
the United States to Mexican drug cartels financed by international banks.
According to William Newell, former ATF special agent in charge of the Phoenix Field Division, the Internal Revenue Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were “full partners” in Operation Fast and Furious.
The family of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the federal government. Terry was killed on December 14, 2010, by drug cartel bandits in Arizona. Investigators found two AK47s at the scene that were linked to the government’s Fast and Furious gun-running operation.
Under
Fast and Furious, the ATF orchestrated the sale of guns originating in
the United States to Mexican drug cartels financed by international banks.According to William Newell, former ATF special agent in charge of the Phoenix Field Division, the Internal Revenue Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were “full partners” in Operation Fast and Furious.
IRAN: The Next War on Washington’s Agenda Politics
Paul Craig Roberts
Only the blind do not see that the US government is preparing to attack Iran. According to Professor Michel Chossudovsky, “Active war preparations directed against Iran (with the involvement of Israel and NATO) were initiated in May 2003.”
Coverage Roundup: Afghanistan and Pakistan
It was a busy day for news from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Here is a roundup of coverage from The New York Times:
- Panetta Sets End to Afghan Combat Role for U.S. in ’13 | In a major milestone toward ending a decade of war in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said on Wednesday that American forces would step back from a combat role there as early as mid-2013, more than a year before all American troops are scheduled to come home. Mr. Panetta cast the decision as an orderly step in a withdrawal process long planned by the United States and its allies, but his comments were the first time that the United States had put a date on stepping back from its central role in the war. Read the article here.
Petraeus: General, Spymaster, Comfortable in Casual Wear
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
WASHINGTON — When David H. Petraeus testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, it was a rare public appearance by America’s onetime most famous general who by tradition has gone into virtual hiding as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. But the spymaster, who oversaw the troop surges in Iraq and Afghanistan, now has a biographer who is keeping his name in lights, at least on the set of “The Daily Show:’’ Paula Broadwell, a doctoral candidate and 39-year-old major in the Army reserves who is the author of “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus.’’
Karen Bleier/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDavid Petraeus, the C.I.A. director, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday.A Quick Roundup of the Pentagon’s Proposed Budget Cuts
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta outlined on Thursday
the first major step — he called it a “down payment” — of shrinking the
Pentagon after a decade of war. Included in the proposal: limit pay
raises for troops, increase health insurance fees for military retirees
and close bases in the United States. Of those proposals, our colleagues
Elisabeth Bumiller and Thom Shanker write that pay-raise limits, though
modest, “are certain to ignite a political fight in Congress, which
since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has consistently raised military
salaries beyond what the Pentagon has recommended.”
For more on the exact budget reductions, as well the political challenges the changes may present to the Obama administration, the effects on military benefits and the changing nature of the United States’ force presence throughout the world, read their full article here.
You can read the Pentagon’s proposal in full here.
And to see how readers like you would cut the defense budget, check this out
For more on the exact budget reductions, as well the political challenges the changes may present to the Obama administration, the effects on military benefits and the changing nature of the United States’ force presence throughout the world, read their full article here.
You can read the Pentagon’s proposal in full here.
And to see how readers like you would cut the defense budget, check this out
The Next War
By JEFFERY DELVISCIO
As
the new year begins, At War is taking a look at a series by our
Washington correspondents dubbed “The Next War.” The articles examine
the American military and the decisions confronting it in a new age of
austerity, from the cuts to come, to the costs of technology and the
vision of a newer, leaner fighting force.
Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesLeon
E. Panetta, center, in the Rose Garden in 1995 as President Bill
Clinton announced a Bosnia peace agreement. From right are Vice
President Al Gore and Anthony Lake, the national security adviser.
Panetta’s Pentagon
Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesLeon
E. Panetta, center, in the Rose Garden in 1995 as President Bill
Clinton announced a Bosnia peace agreement. From right are Vice
President Al Gore and Anthony Lake, the national security adviser.
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