COMMON DREAMS– President Obama’s hopes of closing Guantánamo, which were already gravely wounded by his inability to meet his self-imposed deadline of a year for the prison’s closure, now appear to have been killed off by lawmakers in Congress. Although the House Armed Services Committee was happy to authorize, by 59 votes to 0, a budget of over $700 billion … Read More
COMMON DREAMS– Detainees at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their imprisonment the way detainees in Guantanamo Bay have, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The United States is holding the detainees at the military prison on Afghan territory through a cooperative arrangement with Afghanistan, three appeals court judges said in a unanimous decision turning … Read More
HUFFINGTON POST– Next week, there is going to be a “debate” in Congress on yet another war funding bill. The bill is supposed to pass without debate, so no one will notice. What George Orwell wrote about in 1984 has come true. What Eisenhower warned us about concerning the “military-industrial complex” has come true. War is a permanent feature … Read More
USA TODAY– The monthly cost of the war in Afghanistan, driven by troop increases and fighting on difficult terrain, has topped Iraq costs for the first time since 2003 and shows no sign of letting up. Pentagon spending in February, the most recent month available, was $6.7 billion in Afghanistan compared with $5.5 billion in Iraq. As recently as fiscal … Read More
NY TIMES– Top military officials have continued to rely on a secret network of private spies who have produced hundreds of reports from deep inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to American officials and businessmen, despite concerns among some in the military about the legality of the operation. Earlier this year, government officials admitted that the military had sent a group … Read More
