Tag Archives: afghanistan

July 24, 2016 · 3:34 pm

Munich, Kabul, Manbij: the calculus of carnage

candles

Photo by L.C. Notaasen, published under Creative Commons license

Yesterday, an eighteen-year-old with a Glock pistol shot and killed nine people in a mall in Germany. Yesterday, a suicide bomber targeted a protest in Kabul and killed at least 80 people. The ISIS bomber targeted Shia Muslims, members of Afghanistan’s Hazara minority. Last Tuesday, an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition in Syria killed families who were fleeing ISIS. The exact number of dead is disputed – 56? 85? 160? 212? The families, who included many young children, were fleeing ISIS when the coalition bombers mistakenly targeted them. Guess which of these three stories got the bigger headlines? Continue reading →

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October 4, 2015 · 6:57 pm

Half-staff: Oregon to Afghanistan

[UPDATED 10/6] I saw the flag flying at half-staff today, and wondered — could it be because of the 19 22 medical personnel and patients killed by a U.S. bombing raid that repeatedly hit a hospital in Afghanistan on Saturday? No, of course not. The United States would never fly a flag at half staff for a mistake made by our own military, no matter how many doctors and nurses and children were killed. The flag is flying at half-staff because of another tragedy, the shootings that killed nine people at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. Two tragedies, one perpetrated by an individual acting against all laws and morality and the other, an official act done by our government in our name.

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August 2, 2010 · 7:38 am

NEWS DAY | WikiLeaks, Afghan alfalfa / Islam, Tea Party and freedom / 19 Minnesota schools

Pentagon Papers and WikiLeaks – Frank Rich was writing for the Harvard Crimson and “knew the whistle-blower had to be Daniel Ellsberg” when the New York Times published the first installment of the Pentagon Papers. Today Rich is a columnist for the New York Times, with the historical perspective to remind us that Continue reading →

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July 27, 2010 · 4:03 pm

NEWS DAY | Hot enough? / English only in Lino Lakes / More WikiLeaks

Hot enough for you? For the first time in three years, Xcel Energy switched on its hot-weather energy-saver program, reports the Pioneer Press. Today’s 90-degree temps meant “cycling on and off the central air conditioners for hundreds of thousands of Minnesota customers in order to ease the peak demand on its electricity load” between 2 and 6 p.m. Continue reading →

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July 25, 2010 · 9:29 pm

War secrets, WikiLeaks and journalism

A eccentric, secretive hacker-turned-journalist, with a super-encrypted computer network based on secret servers in several countries does battle with the FBI, the Pentagon, international bankers, and the Chinese government – it sounds like this fall’s best new TV series, but it’s playing this summer, in the real world just outside the box. WikiLeaks has released more than 90,000 secret U.S. documents to the Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel. In exchange for the information, the three newspapers have now published their stories, simultaneously, at the same time that WikiLeaks made its archive public. Continue reading →

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July 8, 2010 · 9:43 am

NEWS DAY | 27,000 abandoned wells in Gulf / Spy stories and assassinations / more

Shots were fired at the home where family members gathered to grieve for 16-year-old Andrew Titus, who was killed Sunday night. He was with a group of people, walking to a party about 8:30 p.m., when he was shot in the head. The Star Tribune reported: Continue reading →

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June 20, 2010 · 8:53 am

NEWS DAY | Peter Erlinder freed / U.S., Israel, Suez, Lebanon / MSM this weekend

Free on “unconditional bail,” Minnesota attorney Peter Erlinder is now out of Rwanda and on his way home. Supporters say he will hold a news conference in Kenya on Sunday afternoon.

A fleet of battleships including at least 11 U.S. and one Israeli vessels, crossed the Suez Canal to the Red Sea on Friday, according to Arabic, Israeli, German and Norwegian news media reports. (Strangely, neither BBC nor the mainstream U.S. media are carrying the story, though Firedoglake has a connect-the-dots blog post.) Egyptian authorities lined the canal with thousands of security forces to protect the passage and stopped all non-military traffic and all fishing in the area. According to Ha’Aretz: Continue reading →

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June 8, 2010 · 6:52 am

NEWS DAY | RIP Officer Duy Ngo / Nurses’ warnings / Helen Thomas / Paying Afghan bad guys

Officer Duy Ngo committed suicide June 7, seven years after he was shot repeatedly by a fellow officer. In a sorrowful and angry column, MPR’s Bob Collins recalls the shameful history of the Minneapolis Police Department’s treatment of Officer Ngo: Continue reading →

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June 2, 2010 · 8:54 am

News Cut / Twin Cities schools / BP, Gaza, Afghanistan

I’m a fan of MPR’s “Five by 8” – five stories highlighted by 8 a.m. in the NewsCut blog. They range from the deadly serious (competing video accounts of Israel’s attack on the Gaza flotilla) to the whimsical (robots creating robots) to the silly (do dogs prefer HDTV?) A little later than 8 a.m., my picks for the stories of the day include Twin Cities school news and lay-offs, Gaza news coverage, attacks on peace talks in Afghanistan, and BP’s ongoing failures as the oil slick nears Florida beaches. Continue reading →

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December 2, 2009 · 8:39 am

Escalating the war

30,000 more troops and promises: Obama’s promise to begin a withdrawal in eighteen months, Karzai’s promise to stop the corruption. So, if Afghanistan is desert and mountains, does that mean it can’t be the Big Muddy?

Here are the links and a few quotes: Continue reading →

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