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POPSJuan Cole's "The Coming McCain Military Draft" McCain will need to institute a draft for young American men (and, given the times, maybe for women as well). McCain, just like the recent Bush Administration's hawkish rhetoric has been proven by the Russian/Georgian conflict to be nothing more than a bluff. Sure, there was a lot of tough talk and fist shaking at the Russians but no real actions were taken against them either by the Bush Administration. I wonder if those young McCain supporters realize what they are asking for? I doubt it. Though many of us already were seeing the writing on the wall, after many started serving in these theaters on second tours, than third, than forth, than for some fifth......................, the Military nor Country can sustain these misadventures let alone protect from the Blowback which will be from the Hatreds we've created!
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POPSPowell's Five Reasons for endorsing Obama Juan Cole: "What is remarkable to me about Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama on Meet the Press was its sincerity and the form of its reasoning. He addressed issues, not personalities. He engaged in analysis, not demonization."
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POPSJuan Cole on Biden: he reads journals!! "It struck me as the sort of thing that should happen in our democracy every day-- you write something in your specialty, and your elected representative calls you to talk about it. No lobbies, think tanks, etc. involved." That's high praise! Imagine having a VP informed by people who've given their lives to studying these issues, rather than people trying to angle for more money. Contrast it, for instance, with Cheney's energy policy crew of rich industry insiders.
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POPSThey're Baaack--Juan Coles take on Amerikan Big Oil in Iraq
Thanks to Ratilfar...Maybe he clipped it too but it deserves all the spreading it gets...excellent column by Juan Cole: Bush and Cheney clearly went into Iraq primarily in order to put US petroleum firms in precisely this favored position. The US power elite wanted this outcome and connived actively at it. As Alan Greenspan put it, “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” Poor Iraq has been looted, occupied, and disrupted by the industrialized West for a century because of the curse of its oil wealth. The Iraqi Petroleum Company was until 1929 the Turkish Petroleum Company since it began in 1912 with a concession from the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Iraq before the 1917 British conquest. The victors of World War I used their victory to leverage themselves into Iraqi oil. The Ottomans had thrown in with Germany and Austria in 1914, and were defeated by the victorious allies. Iraq was considered a s
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POPSJuan Cole: MANY TORTURED DETAINEES INNOCENT! Why habeas corpus is Morality 101: "prisoners were routinely abused even after it became clear that they had no intelligence value" We have no right to imprison and torture innocent people. Apparently, some previously innocent prisoners were so radicalized by US torture that they took up arms after being released.
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POPS 'End the War in 2009' February 20, 2008 The Nation
General David Petraeus will be testifying in Washington that the conditions are improving in Iraq and that the United States must "stay the course." Petraeus will be acting as a de facto surrogate for McCain in domestic politics. Obama will have to respond to the general's serious claims without retreating from the commitment he has given to early withdrawal.The questions of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan could intensify as a symbol of America's current policies towards terrorism. McCain has already absorbed both neoconservative doctrines and the neoconservatives themselves in his campaign against "Islamo-fascism" as the greatest threat in American history. They will attack Obama for proposing to pull the plug on Iraq just when the tide is turning. They will question Obama's experience in pushing for diplomacy towards Iran, draw him out on why he favors more troops in Afghanistan and a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan if there is "actionable intelligence."
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POPSIraqi Kurdsistan will Defend Itself The leader of the Kurdistan Regional Authority in Iraq, Massoud Barzan, called Friday for talks with Turkey. The call was immediately rejected by Ankara, which accuses Barzani of deliberately harboring 3,000 to 5,000 guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers Party who have been going back over into Turkey and blowing people up or killing them (i.e. engaging in terrorism).
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POPS Pentagon Report Gives Lie to Surge Success From the post: "The Pentagon is trying to give us the impression that August was a 'trend', but statistically that is silly, since it was just one month and what came before it was pretty horrible. The dip in attacks in August does not seem to have come with much of a dip in casualties, in any case. And if all that is happening is that fewer US troops are being attacked, but similar numbers are being wounded or killed, I'm not sure that is even significant. Since some of the attacks were on the British in the south, changes in the way they were deployed could have had a small impact on these statistics."
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POPSWho is the US fighting in Iraq? And when you hear Cheney say we have to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq, you will know that most of the people the US is fighting there are no such thing. Bomb Saudi Arabia! Wait I mean, look over there......it's the Iranians! Bomb the Iranians. Frigging nutjob lying chickenhawks.
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POPSIraq Has Two Virginia Techs Every Day I've been thinking this to myself privately but didn't wanna seem insensitive, but now that juan cole is with me I can raise the issue. This is not to say that you can really compare deaths and loss and grief, but its something to think about.
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POPSIs Iran Harming or Helping Us in Iraq? It seems that we are not getting the entire story from Fox and most of the other main stream media pundits and reporters or the White House. Iran might actually be helping our allies rather than harming "the cause" as our president would rather have us believe. More disinformation, just like the first time.
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POPSIraq War Analogies - a list of articles A list of articles on Iraq war analogies (similarities/differences) with other wars (Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Germany, Lebanon, Civil war, Boer War, e.a) Some interesting reads here ...
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