As President Obama’s strategy review for Afghanistan commences, let’s hope he’s balancing the information coming to him from his happy-talking generals with some independent news reading of his own. While General David Petraeus serenades the major news media in the United States with the siren song of “progress,” security in Afghanistan is rapidly deteriorating, and [...]
Posts Tagged ‘military’
Security in Afghanistan Crumbles as Counterinsurgency Fails
Posted: September 12, 2010 in UncategorizedTags: Afghan National Army, Afghanistan, Afghanistan war, anti-war, Army, Brave New Foundation, COIN, corruption, counterinsurgency, failure, Hamid Karzai, Kabul Bank, Kabulbank, military, Obama, Pashtuns, peace, Rethink Afghanistan, strategy review, war in Afghanistan, white house
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Media Failing to Ask Tough Questions on Afghanistan War…Again
Posted: August 15, 2010 in UncategorizedTags: act.ly, Afghanistan, Air Force, Army, Brave New Foundation, David Gregory, insurgents, journalism, Katie Couric, marines, media, Meet the Press, military, Navy, Obama, petition, Petraeus, propaganda, Rethink Afghanistan, Robert Greenwald, spin, Taliban, troops, violence
Sign our act.ly petition to tell the next journalists on Petraeus’ media tour to ask tough questions and expose his effort to extend the Afghanistan War. General Petraeus is on a media tour to sell the idea that the U.S. military is “making progress” in Afghanistan, a well-worn message aimed at convincing elites to extend [...]
Kandahar Bursts Gen. McChrystal’s Counterinsurgency Bubble
Posted: April 14, 2010 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Afghanistan war, Brave New Foundation, counterinsurgency, insurgency, Kandahar, Karzai, Major General Nick Carter, McChrystal, military, Rethink Afghanistan, Taliban, war in Afghanistan, war on terror, war on terrorism
Cross-posted from Rethink Afghanistan. In case you hadn’t heard, the next stop in General McChrystal’s counterinsurgency plan is Kandahar, the ideological heart of the Taliban. Using the spadework done in advance of the Marjah operation as a template, McChrystal says the plan is to: "…do the political groundwork, so that when it’s time to do [...]
Struggling in the Episcopal Diocese of Texas
Posted: March 5, 2010 in UncategorizedTags: 161st Diocesan Council, Bishop Andrew Doyle, Episcopal Church, Episcopal Diocese of Texas, flag ceremony, Fort Hood, Francis Drake, Jesus, military, nonviolence, Roman
As someone who believes that Jesus meant, without equivocation, what he said in the Sermon on the Mount, I am struggling to feel at home in the Episcopal Diocese of Texas. After spending more than a year here, it’s clear to me that this diocese has largely made its peace with the sword, rhetorical denials [...]
From Men’s Health: In other words, thousands of American fighters armed with the latest killing technology are taking prescription drugs that the Federal Aviation Administration considers too dangerous for commercial pilots.
Q: When is a Withdrawal Not a Withdrawal?
Posted: February 27, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Iraq, military, Obama, peace and justice, status of forces agreement
A: When it leaves behind 50,000 combat troops and an uncertain number of “advisers.” From the Guardian UK: WASHINGTON – Democratic Congressional leaders have expressed dismay that President Barack Obama is planning to leave as many as 50,000 US troops in Iraq even after the long-awaited withdrawal of combat troops next year. Obama, on a [...]
Thoughts on Gen. Boykin’s ‘Christian’ justification for violence
Posted: August 4, 2008 in UncategorizedTags: boykin, buy a sword, military, nonviolence
I’ve just finished watching an interview on the washingtonpost.com website with Gen. William Boykin, whom you may remember fell into a fair amount of controversy a few years ago regarding his use of religious language to describe the war on terror. Right off the bat, Boykin’s interviewer asked him about how he reconciles having to [...]
