US military deaths in Iraq war at 4,200

As of Saturday, Nov. 15, 2008, at least 4,200 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. Read more

CIA Chief: Iraq Not Main Front

But Hayden Says Al-Qaeda Remains Greatest Threat to U.S.

CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said yesterday that al-Qaeda remains the single greatest threat to the United States but that Iraq is no longer the central front in the broader war on terrorism. Read more

Military Industrial Complex Pressures Obama to Drop Plan for Iraq Troop Withdrawal

The promotion of Robert M. Gates as President-elect Barack Obama’s secretary of defense appears to be the key element in a broad campaign by military officials and their supporters in the political elite and the news media to pressure Obama into dropping his plan to withdraw US troops from Iraq in as little as 16 months. Read more

Barzani Warns of Civil War as Cabinet Vote on Pact Looms

raqi Finance Minister Baqer Jabr Solagh says that the Iraqi Cabinet will vote on the controversial Status of Forces Agreement with the United States sometime this weekend. The current draft appears to be the final one, with only a month left to ratify the SOFA and the US seemingly unwilling to entertain further revisions. Read more

The Audacity of Hype

Dissent in the Age of Obama

The Obama bandwagon is moving fast and furious, rolling over the few remaining pockets of dissent even as it prepares to take power. The mainstream media, particularly on television, has lost all sense of objectivity and proportion, and their reporting of the president-elect’s doings has taken on a distinctly Soviet air. “Our Glorious Leader Picks the White House Dog” is the emblematic headline of a servile fourth estate. The political atmosphere is positively eerie: amid calls for “unity” and attacks on “toxic” language that is “divisive,” there is an odd uniformity of thought similar to the virtual unanimity that gripped the nation in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Groupthink is all the rage, and the media has joined in the fun. Due to this love-fest, they’re oblivious to the warning signs that worry us few and scattered skeptics. They somehow missed the Dear Leader’s call for a civilian “national security force,” for example, one that is “just as well-funded” and “just as powerful” as the U.S. military. Read more

Obama’s Foreign Policy: No Sharp Break From Bush

While much of the world and many of his U.S. supporters are expecting a sharp break with his predecessor’s foreign policy after President-elect Barack Obama takes office Jan. 20, they may be surprised by the degree of continuity between the two administrations. Read more

Obama to Face Big Policy Decisions on Iran, N. Korea and Mideast

President-elect Barack Obama stepped carefully yesterday when he was asked about the unusual letter of congratulations that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent him — the first time an Iranian leader has congratulated the victor of a U.S. presidential election since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Read more

In secret agreement, Shell nets 25-year monopoly on S. Iraq’s gas

Royal Dutch Shell oil company and the Iraqi Oil Ministry have struck a secret, as-of-yet non-binding agreement that gives a monopoly over southern Iraq’s natural gas to the energy giant. It marks the first time in over 35 years a Western oil company has played a major role in the country’s most lucrative industry. Read more

Is Obama’s Iraq Timetable Dead Before It Starts?

From its earliest stages the Obama campaign made a timetable for Iraq’s pullout a top priority promise. With another 74 days until he even takes office and the current administration’s rational for keeping the troops in place faltering fast, what he assured the voters would be his first action upon taking office may have already fallen by the wayside. Read more

US combat troops in Iraq battle to defend savings

US Lieutenant Colonel Mark Grabski has been busy on the computer over the past few weeks — not to follow the history-making presidential election but to check on his dwindling savings.

“I had a list of icons, my favourites, the funds that are working with Thrift savings programme. Every single day, their rates were just collapsing,” said the officer posted at Camp Speicher, north of the Iraqi capital.

“Virtually, I’ve lost right now tens of thousand of dollars,” said the 31-year-old who is in charge of criminal inspections of the base.

Grabski said a third of his salary goes into Thrift, an additional pension scheme for US civil servants and soldiers. “I’ve lost 30 percent of my savings in this programme due to the financial crisis.” Read more

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