Nooooooooooooooo! Iraq Asks U.S. for Marshall Plan Reconstruction Funds
Iraq’s Foreign Minister this week asked the United States to develop a financial plan for the reconstruction of the country after ISIS, similar to a program developed for Western Europe after the...
View ArticleAfghanistan Video Game: You Win with ‘Hearts and Minds’ Points (Seriously)
I suppose it had to come to this, perhaps the intersection of absurdity and unreality expressed through a video game as the only true way to capture the essence of America’s 15 year+ was in...
View ArticleIraq War 3.0, the War to End All Wars, is Over
America’s serial wars in Iraq are ending with a whimper, not a bang. And in the oddest of ironies, it may be President Donald Trump, feared as a war monger, the fifth president to make war in Iraq, who...
View ArticleLessons for Afghanistan: My Time in Iraq 10th Anniversary Edition
I recently spoke with some college students. They were in fifth grade when I first got on a plane to Iraq, and now study that stuff in classes with names like “Opportunities and Errors: 21st Century...
View ArticleU.S. Spent $43 Million of Your Tax Money on One Gas Station in Afghanistan
We are all lucky that the U.S. just wasted $43 million on a natural gas filling station in Afghanistan rather than here in Das Homeland. In America, the money would have likely just been pissed away on...
View ArticleRoads to Nowhere, Ghost Soldiers, and a $43 Million Gas Station in Afghanistan
A guest article today by Tom Englehardt, orginally published on his own website, TomDispatch.com, as “The American Way of War in the Twenty-First Century” Let’s begin with the $12 billion in...
View ArticleSyria: What Would Boots on the Ground Look Like?
Pressure on the White House to escalate the Syria/Iraq war has no doubt intensified post-Paris. Should Islamic State take things further and strike an American civilian target, President Barack Obama...
View ArticlePentagon Wastes $800 Million On Businesses in Afghanistan
Short answer: the Pentagon spent $800 million of your tax dollars to try and get businesses started in Afghanistan. They didn’t get any businesses started. Nobody spent a f*cking penny to help...
View ArticleIraq Ranks In Ten Most Corrupt Countries In World, Again
Iraq, the failed state that over 4,600 (and counting…) Americans died to free from some evil tyrant 13 years ago, is still ranking high internationally in something. Unfortunately, that something is...
View ArticleIraq is Broke. You Have to Pay for It.
The next time a candidate or reporter asks during a debate about education or healthcare “But how are you going to pay for that?” I would like the person being questioned to respond “The same way we...
View ArticleU.S. Awards $1.7 Billion Contract to Buy Radios for Afghan Army
I always found myself giggling during the Democratic debates when Hillary would ask Bernie how he was going to pay for things like healthcare or college tuition, and then Bernie stammering to find an...
View ArticleAfghan Maintenance Program You Pay For Wastes $423 Million
So, Afghanistan. America’s longest and wackiest war will soon enter its 16th year, and is scheduled to run through the next administration, as no one can remember why the U.S. is fighting there anymore...
View ArticleSo How’s That Coalition Thing Working Out in Afghanistan?
Short Answer: It’s been 15+ years of coalition and the Taliban are still there, the Afghan government in Kabul is even more corrupt, and most of Afghanistan is as economically decrepit as ever. A...
View ArticleAfghanistan Mon Amour
President Biden announced he will withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by September 11. That will end 20 years of a war which killed some 2,300 Americans, an unknown number of Afghans, and cost...
View ArticleApocalypses Now, Afghan Redux Edition
It is altogether fitting and proper the final images for most Americans of their war in Afghanistan were chaotic airport scenes, all too familiar to many (Vietnam!) and all too alien to others (We...
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