Memo from the AP's standards editor
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=190064
US 'likely' to keep troops in Iraq after 2011
The United States likely will need to keep thousands of troops in Iraq beyond 2011 to keep a lid on sectarian tensions and to bolster Baghdad's fledgling military, experts and former officers say.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100905/wl_afp/usiraqmilitary
The true cost of the Iraq war: $3 trillion and beyond
This price tag dwarfed previous estimates, including the Bush administration's 2003 projections of a $50 billion to $60 billion war.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302200.html
First US "Non-combat" Troops Killed in Combat Since "End of Combat Operations" Declared in Iraq
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/07-4
From Information Clearing House
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Despite formal combat end, US joins Baghdad battle
Southern California Press-Enterprise
09/05/10
Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq’s ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens. It was the first exchange of fire involving U.S. troops in Baghdad since the Aug. 31 deadline for formally ending the combat mission, and it showed that American troops remaining in the country are still being drawn into the fighting...
http://tinyurl.com/29u367t
Despite Obama’s claim, war not over
Freedom Politics
by Thomas J. Lucente Jr.
09/05/10
‘Tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over.’ So sayeth Barack Obama. Unfortunately, the president’s speech Tuesday night did not tell the American people the real story. While liberals say Obama has taken us closer to ending this illegal, immoral and unjust war, his speech and the official ‘change-of-command ceremony’ in Iraq were nothing but political theater and a way for Obama to claim, wrongly, that he kept a campaign promise...
http://tinyurl.com/38bf2uh
Defending our ‘freedoms’
Liberty For All
by Harry Browne
We are told over and over again that the terrorists aren’t upset with American foreign policy; it’s our freedoms they can’t stand. They want to destroy us because we’re free. Unfortunately, those who say this don’t spell out the particular freedoms that the terrorists are upset about. Is it our freedom to divert 47% of our national income to taxes collected by the federal, state, and local governments?... (written 05/02; posted 09/04/10)
http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=4784
Despite celebration, Iraq War continues
In These Times
by David Sirota
09/06/10
Something about 21st-century warfare brings out Washington’s lust for historical comparison…. 9/11 was Pearl Harbor. Colin Powell’s Iraq presentation at the United Nations was Adlai Stevenson’s Cuban Missile Crisis confrontation. Embedded journalists in Afghanistan strutted around like the intrepid Walter Cronkite on a foreign battlefield. George Bush was a Rooseveltian ‘war president.’ The Iraq invasion was D-Day. … The trouble is that the announcement is anything but, because the war isn’t even close to over. And we know that because the military is quietly acknowledging as much...
http://tinyurl.com/283cqah
Faux exit from Iraq
Independent Institute
by Charles Pena
09/08/10
The stated rationale for the U.S. withdrawal was to avoid ‘an occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs, and undetermined consequences.’ With 50,000 U.S. troops still there, however, the withdrawal is a faux exit. Until all U.S. troops — combat or otherwise — have vacated Iraq, we are left with an occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs and undetermined consequences...
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2859
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
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What US Left Behind in Iraq is Even Uglier Than You Think
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/08-9
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Iraq+withdraw
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=taxpayer
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Thomas+J.+Lucente
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Harry+Browne
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=David+Sirota
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Nir+Rosen
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Charles+Pena
