Afghanistan was supposed to be "the Good War". Originally, 95% of the American people supported the invasion as the proper response to the attacks of September 11. Liberals and conservatives alike joined the rush to war. The world needed to see America's iron-fisted wrath. It was "payback time". Tariq Ali called it, "A crude war of revenge". He was right. No one talks about caves anymore - or smoke. The pre-war zeal is gone. Vanished. The "hearts and minds" campaign is lost, too.

"The American war on terror is a mockery and so is the U.S. support of the present government in Afghanistan which is dominated by Northern Alliance terrorists," says Malalai Joya. "Far more civilians have been killed by the U.S. military in Afghanistan than were killed in the U.S. in the tragedy of September 11. More Afghan civilians have been killed by the U.S. than were ever killed by theTaliban... The U.S. should withdraw as soon as possible. We need liberation not occupation."

The Bush administration has reneged on every commitment it made to the Afghan people. There was never any attempt to provide security beyond the capital. Never. The U.S. handed over the countryside to the warlords who run their fiefdoms like Mafia Dons. There's no freedom. There's no safety. There's no rule of law. It's all a fabrication - another made-for-TV invasion that's 99% fiction. [More] . . read more

It defines the utter failure of the Bush/Cheney administration's year-long "surge" scam, which was supposed to "give the Iraqi government time" to get on its feet, pass a law on sharing the country's oil wealth among the various regions and tribes, and resolve the issues of power sharing between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds.

A year, a thousand American deaths, uncounted tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths, $150 billion in U.S. taxpayer money and countless repetitions of the phrase "the surge is working" by administration hacks and by Republican presidential candidate John McCain later, it's clear that the extra 30,000 troops the US shipped over or held over in Iraq accomplished nothing. The country is still a basket case. [More] . . read more

Despite what the majority of the western media tells its readers and viewers, there is more to the Afghani resistance than the Taliban. In fact, according to a recent report in the US News and World Report, U.S. forces are facing an increasingly complex enemy here composed of Taliban fighters and powerful warlords who were once on the payroll of the CIA. As a military official stated in the aforementioned article "You could almost describe the insurgency as having two branches. It's the Taliban in the south and a 'rainbow coalition' in the east." Add to this the various armed drug traders and their backers and you have a mix at least as volatile as that in Iraq during its worst periods over the last five years...

This is not the "good" war. It is just as wrong as the U.S. adventure in Iraq. Likewise, it can not be won, no matter what the politicians and the generals say. The government put in Kabul by Washington is comparable to a new branch head of a multinational corporation. Its power is dependent on the whim of corporate headquarters and will never garner the support of those not on its payroll. [More]

Exhibit A: We're in the middle of a disastrous war in Iraq, the military and political situation in Afghanistan is steadily worsening, and the administration's interrogation and detention tactics have inflamed anti-Americanism and fueled extremist movements around the globe. Sane people, confronting such a situation, do their best to damp down tensions, rebuild shattered alliances, find common ground with hostile parties and give our military a little breathing space. But crazy people?They look around and decide it's a great time to start another war. That would be with Iran, and you'd have to be deaf not to hear the wardrums.

Last week, Bush remarked that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III... you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." On Sunday, Cheney warned of "the Iranian regime's efforts to destabilize the Middle East and to gain hegemonic power... [we] cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its most aggressive ambitions." On Tuesday, Bush insisted on the need "to defend Europe against the emerging Iranian threat."

Huh? Iran is now a major threat to Europe? The Iranians are going to launch a nuclear missile (that they don't yet possess) against Europe (for reasons unknown because, as far as we know, they're not mad at anyone in Europe)? This is lunacy in action.  . . read more

Act Two: Josef Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, traveled to Washington where he was received by George Bush at the White House. Three more years have passed, and the country of Iraq is in chaos, its civilization shattered. More than a million Iraqis are dead while 4,500,000 have been forced to flee their homes, most saying they will never be able to return... George Bush and the pope met privately before issuing a joint statement in which they “reaffirmed their total rejection of terrorism as well as the manipulation of religion to justify immoral and violent acts against innocents.” During their personal meeting George Bush presented the pope a crystal cross. The pope accepted it.

Act Three: [Last Wednesday] Barack Obama assured Americans that when it comes to Iran he “will take no options off the table,” a position he shares with the Bush administration and the other presidential candidates. [More] . . read more

When the Argentine junta was basking in public approval for its bloodless recovery of Las Malvinas, Henry Kissinger anticipated Britain's widely unexpected military response with the comment: "No great power retreats for ever." Maybe Russia has stopped the long retreat to Moscow which started under Gorbachev... Unlike in eastern Europe, today in breakaway states such as South Ossetia or Abkhazia, Russian troops are popular. Vladimir Putin's picture is more widely displayed than that of the South Ossetian president, the former Soviet wrestling champion Eduard Kokoity. The Russians are seen as protectors against a repeat of ethnic cleansing by Georgians...

Given its extraordinary ethnic complexity, Georgia is a post-Soviet Union in miniature. If westerners readily conceded non-Russian republics' right to secede from the USSR in 1991, what is the logic of insisting that non-Georgians must remain inside a microempire which happens to be pro-western? Other people's nationalisms are like other people's love affairs, or, indeed, like dog fights. These are things wise people don't get involved in. A war in the Caucasus is never a straightforward moral crusade - but then, how many wars are? [More] . . read more

On March 30, the Russian News & Information Agency, Novosti, cited a high-ranking security source: "The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran." According to Novosti, Russian Colonel General Leonid Ivashov said "that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran's military infrastructure in the near future"... The Saudi newspaper Okaz reported March 22, the day following Cheney's visit with the kingdom's rulers, that the Saudi Shura Council is preparing "national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards... following experts' warnings of possible attacks on Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactors"...

Two massive failures by the American media, the Democratic Party, and the American people have paved the way for Cheney's long planned attack on Iran. One failure is the lack of skepticism about the U.S. government's explanation of 9/11. The other failure is the Democrats' refusal to begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush for lying to the Congress, the American people, and the world and launching an invasion of Iraq based on deception and fabricated evidence. If an American president can start a war exactly as Adolf Hitler did with pure lies and not be held accountable, he can get away with anything. And Bush and his evil regime have. [More]

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.  . . read more

Many a crime he’s turned a blind eye to, many a treaty he’s blatantly thwarted. He spurned the UN to appease a mad President, our military tried to keep Abu Ghraib secret. Neither torture, rendition or the slayings of civilians has copped a rebuke from the saviour of Oz. Check the reports of Oxfam and Amnesty – descriptions of hell. Dirty water spreads cholera. Black Water spreads death. Bush spreads propaganda. Soldiers admit “the entire war is an atrocity”. Howard says it is “just”, but history will not absolve him, and he knows it. What becomes apparent in Iraq – once you peer beyond the confines of Australian media – is a slow motion genocide. This is a war crime. Key perpetrators will be brought to account.

Out of office, Howard becomes vulnerable. Major figures are positioning themselves to be witnesses for the prosecution. Today, the former top U.S. commander in Iraq called the handling of the war “incompetent” and said those responsible for its “catastrophic failure”, must be held to account. Ominously, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez described the occupation as a “nightmare with no end in sight.” One day, John Howard’s nightmare will begin.

More on Iraq's humanitarian challenge . . read more

Apart from the fact that there were several public statements, including some on American TV, from Saddam Hussein's deputy prime minister, and other statements made by Iraqi scientists to American media and to American intelligence that Iraq no longer had any weapons of mass destruction. Apart from the fact that UN nuclear inspectors had determined before the war that Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program.

Apart from the fact that Colin Powell, speaking in February 2001 of U.S. sanctions on Iraq, said: "And frankly they have worked. He [Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

Apart from all that, this question must be asked: What did the millions of Americans who marched against the war before it began know that all those members of Congress didn't know? [More] . . read more