Tag: New York Times

This past weekend July 25, saw 3 major on line news publications, the      New York Times  ,  The Guardian UK, and Germany’s    der Speigel publish the Afghanistan War Logs, 90,000+ documents from wikileaks, which show that the United States and NATO forces have been killing many more civilians in the Afghanistan occupation than has been previously acknowledged.  The war of the air vs the ground explosives has also ramped up in neighboring Pakistan, where, since January 2009, according to the BBC, nearly 2,500 people have been killed by either American drone attacks or by Islamic or Pakistani ISI forces- and “extremists” have killed more than 1,700 in Pakistan.  There have been more than 2000 Afghan casualties from roadside bombs.  Adding up all the numbers and then some, there’s at least 7,000 dead from the war in this border region.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worl…

https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

Using a theory I read about elsewhere, if each one of these deceased casualties has at least 6 surviving relatives, parents, siblings, and/or offspring, the United States has just created, with the aid of whatever factions they’re paying in Pakistan, at least 36,000 more angry people whose religious warrior culture teaches them that it’s okay to extract revenge upon the invading enemy.    

By now most have heard about the Afghanistan Docs, some 92,000, that were released by Wikileaks and with coordinated release at roughly the same time by three News Media outlets:

The Guardian: Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation

New York Times: An archive of classified military documents offers an unvarnished view of the war in Afghanistan

Der Spiegel: The Afghanistan Protocol; Explosive Leaks Provide Image of War from Those Fighting It

Whoever hasn’t will as it’s become the main News Story today hitting every level and the links above give you the main outlets of the reports on the documents released and more.

Cross-posted at DKOS.

In his latest column David Ignatius says McCrystal’s…

…comments actually understate the backbiting among these senior policymakers and their staffs.

Anybody who has been around Washington’s foreign policy elite (I have, at times had a window into that world) knows the tension between civilian leadership and various faction of the military and, indeed, between not only the services but between factions within those services. Also, most people don’t understand the balance of power has shifted, over the decades, toward the Pentagon because, frankly, money talks and the Pentagon budget has a enormous influence over political realities in Congress. So, at the moment, we are as close to military rule as we’ve ever been as should be obvious by the MSM’s obvious reluctance to criticize the military despite the overwhelming evidence of atrocities practiced by both low and high ranking personnel. It is important to understand that this civilian vs. military conflict is very much a cultural conflict between an institution dominated by southerners and red-state Republicans who have a strong need to have “enemies” to be psychically healthy and a strong disdain for people who can see both sides of issues. Life to them is a simple matter of “them and us.” Frankly, these guys just consider themselves more manly than the civilians involved in FP discussions.  

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    A hat tip to Inky99, one of my favorite bloggers out

there. This story was so BIG I had to expand on it.

    Got that Tiny Tim? Mr. Scrooge isn’t the problem, the problem is that overpaid bum, Cratchett.

American Wages Out of Balance

By EDWARD HADAS, MARTIN HUTCHINSON and ANTONY CURRIE

Published: November 10, 2009

American workers are overpaid, relative to equally productive employees elsewhere doing the same work. If the global economy is to get into balance, that gap must close.

New York Times.com

Bold text added by the diarist

    So how much more do the Masters Of the Universe at Goldman Sachs and elsewhere think that Americans should be paid comapred to the outright slaves and other indentured servants throughout the world? Join me below the fold to find out, and do’t forget your torches and pitchforks.

Happy Friday and welcome to the 14th in the Dog’s First Amendment Friday series. This series is following the syllabus for the class called The First Amendment and taught at Yale Law School by Professor Jack M. Balkin. As with the Friday Constitutional series this is a layman’s look at the Law, specifically the Supreme Court opinions which have shaped the boundaries of our 1st Amendment Protections. If you are interested in the previous installments you can find them at the links below:

“Originally posted at Squarestate.net“

Or misspeaks, perhaps.

Or ABC News “This Week” online headline reads:

“Obama Administration: No Prosecution of Officials for Bush-Era Torture Policy”

Rahm Emanuel on This Week

says: No Prosecution of Officials for Bush-Era Torture Policy.

another link, more general to the ABC show

GS: I asked [Rahm] Emanuel: “The president has ruled out prosecution for CIA officials who believed they were following the law. Does he believe that the officials who devised the policies should be immune from prosecution?”

Recommend this diary and this one too.

News when I can get over my outrage.- ek hornbeck