Antiwar.com’s D.C. editor John Glaser looks at the latest atrocity with RT’s Kristine Frazao.
Category: Asia
Jason Ditz on RT: UN Syria Resolution Veto
Duh, Winning! (Hearts and Minds Edition)
From Three Against Hitler, by Rudi Wobbe and Jerry Borrowman:
Near our home was a shoe store, owned and run by a Jew. Even before 1933 his store windows and swastikas had been painted on the walls and door. But, after the “takeover,” the Nazis demolished his store in broad daylight. They broke all the windows, threw the merchandise onto the sidewalk, and dragged the proprietor and his wife and two children into the street. They started beating and cursing them, all the while calling them dirty names and shouting that they weren’t fit to live among the exalted German, Aryan people. The greatest indignity of all is that after the family was lying in the gutter in agony, the Nazis urinated on them. I was only seven years of age when this took place, but I remember it vividly.
From Afghanistan:
From Pamela Geller, quoted in the Houston Chronicle [h/t — Eric Dondero]:
I love these Marines. Perhaps this is the infidel interpretation of the Islamic ritual of washing and preparing the body for burial.
In future dictionaries, a “geller” will be defined as “a near-perfect intersection of abject stupidity and irredeemable evil.”
[cross-posted from KN@PPSTER]
To Mark This Solemn Day, I’m Having a Luau
Today’s hardest-hitting news story: “You’ll Never Guess What The Obama Kids’ School Is Serving For Lunch Today.”
Don’t care? Well, you should. It’s a “heavily Japanese-inspired menu, which includes Asian mushroom and oriental noodle soup, garlic roasted edamame, teriyaki chicken, and other more generally Asian options.”
Hellooooo! It’s Pearl Harbor Day, when we should shun all things Japanese. I went out and spit on my Honda this morning, and there will be no garlic-roasted edamame under my roof until midnight.
A minor point, but I’m sure you noticed it: the Obamas and other Washington elites send their children to a school run by the Quakers. Maybe a reporter with time to kill will look into that incongruity someday.
Puppets breaking strings?
As the Iraqis find the back-door to getting U.S. troops out of their country, is Afghan President Hamid Karzai trying a different tack – – –
"God forbid, if a war breaks between Pakistan and America, we will side (with) Pakistan," Karzai said, according to a transcript released yesterday by his office. –Karzai Says Afghanistan Would Help Pakistan Against U.S. Attack – Businessweek
Are the puppets breaking their strings?
Was it the promise or was it the SOFA?
On Friday, October 21, 2011, Mr. Obama, invoking one of his campaign promises, announced the complete withdrawal of all U.S. Troops from Iraq by "the [Christian] holidays." Over the weekend, he and his media arm further spun the story, claiming the deadline had been negotiated by G.W. Bush.
Behind the scenes — later paragraphs — we discover that the Pentagon wanted to keep at least 3,000 to 5,000 troops on Iraqi soil. The true number was significantly larger. But they’re all leaving. Why?
It was almost certainly the S.O.F.A., the acronym for "Status Of Forces Agreement."
Obama’s announcement signals that US officials have been unable to negotiate with Iraq’s leaders a renewal of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) governing the stationing and mission of American troops on Iraqi soil. Pentagon officials in particular, backed by a number of congressional leaders, had called for leaving a force of between 3,000 and 5,000 in Iraq for an extended period. –Iraq withdrawal: With US troops set to exit, 9-year war draws to close – CSMonitor.com
A key provision of any SOFA is exempting occupying soldiers from the laws of the country being occupied. It was this provision that Iraqi negotiators refused to renew. Thus, for example, once the old SOFA expired, U.S. soldiers who killed an Iraqi could be tried for murder under Iraqi law.
The Iraqis, it seems, found the back door to get rid of occupying U.S. troops.
This would likely work in other countries as well.
But that still leaves the drones.