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Wars and conflicts

  • A Soldier Speaks PART 1: Robert J. Acosta
    1 November 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    One bad day in Iraq and a 19-year-old boy faces a lifetime without his right hand. This veteran speaks about his hopes and fears - and the long, hard road ahead.
    By Lakshmi Chaudhry
    Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of profiles of some of the tens of thousands of Iraq War veterans who have come home bearing the scars of battle - emotional and physical wounds that may never heal unless the nation pays them the attention and care that they deserve. We at AlterNet believe that in (…)

  • Bush’s War Against the Military
    31 October 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    By Ian Williams
    Bush has failed the military on almost every level - marking the difference between being militaristic and pro-military.
    George W. Bush so often invokes his nominal title of "commander in chief" at veterans’ rallies, on military bases and during presidential debates that he now appears like some latter-day caudillo. But his claims to be a commander of any kind in any serious way are a figment of his imagination.
    Discounting that he sent American troops into Iraq on (…)

  • More and more military families are supporting the troops by calling for their return.
    31 October 2004 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    The New Anti-War Protesters
    By Joseph Rosenbloom
    SANDWICH, N.H. — By the end of last week, Maggie Porter’s brick collection totaled 1,099 — and counting.
    The bricks are meant to depict the coffins that the United States has been transporting to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware since the Iraq War began. Each brick is wrapped in a miniature American flag and labeled with the name of a serviceman or woman who has died in the war.
    Over Columbus Day weekend this month, there was a popular (…)

  • More Iraq ’success’
    31 October 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    Vice President Dick Cheney was at it again the other day, insisting that the occupation of Iraq is "a remarkable success story."
    This raises the question of how much success the United States, and Iraq, can stand.
    But there is also the issue of whether such an inane claim means that Mr. Cheney and President Bush are willing to say anything to get elected, or that they so separated from reality that they now can make themselves believe anything? And, which would be worse?
    Anyway, news (…)

  • U.S. Extends Iraq Tours for 6,500 Troops
    31 October 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    By ROBERT BURNS
    WASHINGTON - The Army has extended by two months the Iraq tours of about 6,500 soldiers, citing a need for experienced troops through the Iraqi elections scheduled for late January.
    About 3,500 soldiers of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, and 3,000 from the 1st Infantry Division headquarters will remain in Iraq two months longer than planned, Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said Saturday.
    The purpose, Whitman said, is to "maintain continuity of forces in the (…)

  • Some 14,000 Marines, sailors expected to be sent to Iraq in Jan.
    31 October 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    (Camp Lejeune, North Carolina-AP) Oct. 28, 2004 - Officials say about 14,000 Marines and sailors, including some from South Carolina, will head to western Iraq beginning in January.
    Camp Lejeune in North Carolina has announced that the troops of the Two Marine Expeditionary Force should be in control of its assigned area by late March.
    Most will come from units based in North Carolina, though some other Navy and Marine personnel, including reservists and aviators from South Carolina, (…)

  • Eight US marines killed, nine wounded in Iraq
    30 October 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    FALLUJAH, Iraq - Eight US marines were killed and nine wounded west of Baghdad on Saturday in the bloodiest attack on US forces in Iraq for months.
    The US military gave no details of the circumstances of the deaths, which it said occurred in the western province of Anbar, which includes the rebel cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.
    Witnesses said earlier they had seen three US vehicles burning on a road east of Fallujah, in Anbar province. It was not clear if that is where the marine (…)

  • Letting Down the Troops
    30 October 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    By BOB HERBERT
    Not long ago I interviewed a soldier who was paralyzed from injuries he had suffered in a roadside bombing in Iraq. Like so many other wounded soldiers I’ve talked to, he expressed no anger and no bitterness about the difficult hand he’s been dealt as a result of the war.
    But when I asked this soldier, Eugene Simpson Jr., a 27-year-old staff sergeant from Dale City, Va., whom he had been fighting in Iraq - who, exactly, the enemy was - he looked up from his wheelchair and (…)

  • It’s Not Just Al Qaqaa
    30 October 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    by Paul Krugman
    Just in case, the right is already explaining away President Bush’s defeat: it’s all the fault of the "liberal media," particularly The New York Times, which, so the conspiracy theory goes, deliberately timed its report on the looted Al Qaqaa explosives - a report all the more dastardly because it was true - for the week before the election.
    It’s remarkable that the right-wingers who dominate cable news and talk radio are still complaining about a liberal stranglehold (…)

  • Revealed: War has cost 100,000 Iraqi lives
    30 October 2004 par (Open-Publishing)

    By Jeremy Laurance and Colin Brown
    The first scientific study of the human cost of the Iraq war suggests that at least 100,000 Iraqis have lost their lives since their country was invaded in March 2003.
    More than half of those who died were women and children killed in air strikes, researchers say. Previous estimates have put the Iraqi death toll at around 10,000 - ten times the 1,000 members of the British, American and multi-national forces who have died so far. But the study, (…)