Obama chooses the middle road in Iraq: the US will send 300 military 'advisors' to a besieged Iraqi government. He discounted more robust options for now, but did not take off the table air strikes to help the faltering Iraqi military.
John McCain has devolved. Where once was a well-respected (albeit hawkish and conservative) veteran lawmaker, now stands a pandering, frothing-at-the-mouth shill for the far right of the GOP.
The prospect of the U.S. military returning to the fight in Iraq has turned congressional hawks into doves. Lawmakers who eagerly voted to authorize military force 12 years ago to oust Saddam Hussein and destroy weapons of mass destruction that were never found now harbor doubts that air strikes will turn back insurgents threatening Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government and Baghdad. Fears of Mideast quagmire and weariness after a decade of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan loom large for even those who talk tough on national security. More than 6,000 Americans died in those wars, which cost a trillion dollars.
A recent surveycompared what Americans wanted to do about the situation in Ukraine with their ability to locate Ukraine on a map. Only one in six placed Ukraine properly in southeastern Europe. Respondents put Ukraine all over Africa and Asia, even in Canada and in the U.S. The average answer was about 1800 miles off. Partisan voters on both sides did poorly compared to independents. The survey’s authors concluded, “The farther their guesses were from Ukraine’s actual location, the more they wanted the U.S. to intervene with military force.”
The U.S. and allied forces launched the ongoing occupation in Iraq and occupy large swaths of the Middle East to secure the flow of oil to the U.S. and its global allies, explained Blair.
A new wave of bombs tore through Baghdad on Monday, officials said, killing at least 55 people. Most of the blasts were car bombs detonated in Shiite neighborhoods, the latest of a series of well-coordinated attacks blamed on hard-line Sunni insurgents determined to rekindle large-scale sectarian conflict. Multiple coordinated bombing strikes have hit Baghdad repeatedly over the last five months.
CUNY students accosted Retired General David Petraeus on his first day at the university demanding answers to his actions during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
A new wave of car bombs rocked commercial streets in the Iraqi capital on Tuesday, killing 20 in the latest apparent attack by hard-line Sunni insurgents aiming to undermine confidence in the Shiite-led government. Meanwhile, Sunni leaders in Basra said unknown gunmen had shot dead 17 Sunnis in the Shiite-dominated city over the past two weeks, following threats to retaliate against them for attacks on Shiites in other parts of Iraq.
Citigroup Inc. is set to become the first American bank to open an office of its own in Baghdad, highlighting financial firms' growing interest in Iraq a decade after the U.S.-led 2003 invasion.
