10
POPSSeeking Eye Contact I continue to seek out other eyes during intermissions at theaters, hoping I’m not committing some venial social sin by invading anyone’s personal bubble of space. To date, few have sought mine. I look into the eyes of my grandchildren even before I hug them. And recently, Jonah, the 10-year-old, actually looked back at me and announced with some interest that my eyes are blue. Actually, they’re green. But it’s a start.
0
POPSUS Afghan Surge is Really 86,000? During the Iraq and Afghan wars, there were no reports of casualties of contractors added to US Troop casualties and it was a long time before anyone knew what Blackwater, now Xe, was up to until they shot 17 Iraqi's last year. On top of all the other transparency problems, I don't fell very good about US soldiers having to depend on "mercenaries" for safety, transport, food, etc. How about you?
12
POPSUN-Backed Troops Accused of Killing & Raping Civilians British-based organization Oxfam said. Human Rights Watch said it documented the killings of 732 civilians between January and September by the Congolese army and troops from neighboring Rwanda fighting alongside it. In the same period, it counted 701 civilians killed by the rebels they are fighting. “Some victims were tied together before their throats were, according to one witness, ’slit like chickens.’ The majority of the victims were women, children, and the elderly,” the group said. More than 7,500 cases of sexual violence against women and girls were registered at health centers during that nine-month period, nearly double that of 2008 and likely representing only a fraction of the total. Gateway Pundit Jim Hoyt http://bit.ly/6H6ewH Previously: UN Soldiers Arrested in Congo On Sex Abuse Charges UN Peacekeepers Trade Food for Sex… Again! UN Slapped with New Child Sex Scandal UN Faces Another Child Sex Scandal
6
POPSNeeded: Workplace Democracy "Democracy gives us the power to create a society that matches our needs. Democracy in the workplace allows us to negotiate the conditions of our work. You may think that we have all of these rights now. We don't. US workers have almost no right to organize. Every 23 minutes in the United States, a worker is either fired or harassed for trying to unionize. In 1874 unemployed workers were demonstrating in New York City's Tompkins Square Park. Riot police moved in and began beating men, women, and children with billy clubs, leaving hundreds of casualties in their wake. The police commissioner said: "It was the most glorious sight I ever saw."
0
POPSCasualty Records from Afghan War As you may have guessed, I try to get as close to straight sources. Other than finding reporting cites for each nation and service, this seems pretty good for tracking what counts - not the spin but how many and who is getting killed or wounded.
7
POPSMuslims Bombing Muslims the undemarcated frontier. The official Saudi Press Agency said operations would go on until Saudi territory was ‘cleansed of any hostile element'. AFP reported: Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday it will keep up air strikes against Yemeni rebels until they pull back from its borders...'We are not going to stop the bombing until the Huthis retreat tens of kilometres (miles) inside their border,' Deputy Defence Minister Prince Khaled bin Sultan said...He appeared to confirm reports by Shiite Zaidi rebels that Saudi warplanes continued to pummel them inside Yemen, a week after a rebel raid into Saudi territory sparked air and ground bombardment of their positions... Earlier the rebels, also known as Huthis after their leader, said a Saudi air strike on a Yemeni village near the border killed two women and wounded a child. The rebels said two women were killed and a child wounded! That's it? Let's not beat around the bush. How prominent a news story would.....
8
POPS Veterans Day 2009: Thank you
They are casualties of war… and as far as I’m concerned, Sergeant Kimberly Munley, who took their cowardly attacker down, is a veteran today. The terrorist enemy doesn’t have a formal chain of command that can sign an armistice, they don’t muster on clearly defined battlefields, and they’re quite happy to benefit from the efforts of deranged fanboys. If we don’t stand behind our professional soldiers, and give them the tools to do their jobs now, we will all become soldiers before this enemy is defeated. Somewhere in the world tomorrow, an American soldier will ring in the eleventh hour of the eleventh day with gunfire. Another will arrive home after an honorable tour of duty, perhaps passing brothers and sisters in arms saying farewell to their families. A mother’s tears will fall on a letter from the far side of the world. Old veterans will spend a beautiful afternoon watching children play beneath the flag they raised at Anzio, Guadalcanal, Incheon, or Khe Sanh.
8
POPSMurderous US drones condemned by UN. Americans who are confused by the grotesque transformation of the modest aim of capturing a few bad men into a conflagration that has destroyed the lives of millions echo the Guardian of the 1920s, which asked why the British government had to send "all this machinery, all these forces...if we were establishing a political system on the basis of popular consent?" Without distinguishing between drones that protect our troops and those that drop bombs and hover menacingly over an occupied people, The Economist taunts, "like them or not, drones are here to stay." Now, who are the terrorists here and which is the rogue state ?
2
POPSAfghanistan: 'No Democracy~Just Islam' and Burn Obama Effigy Afghan university students shout anti-US slogans and hold a banner reading 'No Democracy; We want just Islam!' during a demonstration in Kabul on October 25, 2009. ISLAMIZATION WATCH More than 100,000 foreign troops are battling a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, where violence this year reached its highest level since the austere Islamists were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in 2001. Thick plumes of smoke rose above the crowd as protesters set fire to a large effigy of what they said was U.S. President Barack Obama. "Death to America. Down with Israel," chanted one man at the rally, which was organized mainly by university students. Others threw stones and clashed with police but no casualties were reported. "No to democracy. We just want Islam," said one banner carried by protesters, many of whom shook their fists in the air. Captain Elizabeth Mathias, a media officer for U.S. and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan,
1
POPSOct. 23,1983 Lebanese Terrorists Bomb the Marine Barracks in Beirut . . with Syria. Although the United States had mounted two previous successful peacekeeping operations in Lebanon in 1958 and earlier in 1982 (to facilitate the evacuation of P.L.O. forces from Beirut that had been defeated by Israel), the ignominious end of the MNF intervention brought disastrous consequences. The failure of the peacekeeping mission led to renewed fighting between Lebanese factions and the ascendancy of Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria. Moreover, the Marine barracks bombing, which was the deadliest terrorist attack against Americans before the 9/11 attacks, later inspired Osama bin Laden, who viewed the United States as a “paper tiger” because of its rapid withdrawal of peacekeeping forces from Lebanon and Somalia after suffering casualties. Al Qaeda members were later dispatched to Hezbollah training camps in Lebanon, according to the 9/11 Commission Report (p. 68). Posted October 23rd, 2009 in American Leadership.
4
POPSThe Other Thing Obama Inherited But rapidly deteriorating conditions and a widely disputed and unresolved election in Afghanistan gave the Obama administration pause and led to the current policy review. “Having announced his Afghanistan strategy last March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission,” (Cheney) said, calling on Obama to fulfill a promise he made in August to armed forces in a speech at the VFW to give them the support and resources need to get the job done. “It’s time for President Obama to make good on his promise,” he said. “The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger.” “Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries,” he added. “Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.”
8
POPSRights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast The organization is expressly concerned mainly with how wars are fought, not with motivations. To be sure, even victims of aggression are bound by the laws of war and must do their utmost to minimize civilian casualties. Nevertheless, there is a difference between wrongs committed in self-defense (Israel) and those perpetrated intentionally (Hamas and Hezbollah).
8
POPS Hammer Wants An Anvil Fawning “Inconvenient Truth Teller” article inside paints him as a sort of goof savant … a bit like Chauncey Gardiner of “Being There,” he’s been in Washington DC his entire life, everyone likes him, and suddenly they think he’s a genius. The three-decade gaffe-and-reverse record requires some acrobatics, though. The Newsweek scribblers clearly like his go-lite, wack-a-mole strategy though they are big enough to admit at the end that people who actually know what they are talking about say it won’t work. It’s not exactly the Joe Biden embed that I wished out loud NYT’s Dexter Filkins would do as a counterbalance to his McChyrstal piece earlier this week,* but close. Some administration officials, led by Biden, appear to hope that American forces can rely more on counterterrorism operations"attacks by Predator drones and small elite units on terrorist hiding places"to hold Afghanistan together and defeat Al Qaeda. But critics call this “splitting the baby" and say . . .
7
POPS Photos of Military Deaths in Afghanistan Banned The NATO-controlled International Security Assistance Force, which handles embeds elsewhere in Afghanistan, allows press photos of casualties as long as some conditions are met. For example, photos that identify a dead service member cannot be released before the service member’s next of kin have been notified of the death.
7
Pops
Newest Clips
Latest Comments
Most Pops
Print
Save
Turn on live update