Tag Archives: iraq

The Briefing: Bloodshed in Syria, Mali, and Iraq; Gun Control in New York and the Nation

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The Atlantic: State Department Believes Assad Used Chemical Weapons on Syrian People

“In a leak that could signal a crossing of President Obama’s “red line” on the increasingly deadly conflict in Syria, the State Department has investigated and concluded that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his military forces used poison gas in a deadly attack on the city of Homs last month”

The Washington Post: French Triple Troops in Mali, Prepare for Massive Land Assault

“France plunged headfirst into the conflict in its former colony last week, bombarding the insurgents’ training camps, arms depots and safe houses in an effort to shatter the Islamist domination of a region many fear could become a launching pad for terrorist attacks on the West and a magnet for extremists from around the world.”

The Times of India: 27 dead, over 220 injured in Iraq bomb attacks

“Both explosions inflicted massive destruction,” said police Brigadier General Sarhad Qader. “Our forces are still trying to remove corpses from the rubble (of the first attack).”

The New York Times: Obama Willing to Use Executive Orders on Guns

“By proposing to use the independent power of his office, Mr. Obama is inviting political attacks by gun owners who have already expressed fear that he will abuse that authority to restrict their rights.”

The New Jersey Star-Ledger: New York Passes Nation’s Toughest Gun Control Law

“Common sense can win,” [New York Governor Andrew] Cuomo said. “You can overpower the extremists with intelligence and with reason and with common sense.”

The Telegraph: The UK Moves to Withdraw Ban on Insults

“Six years ago police tried to prosecute Oxford student Sam Brown after he said to a mounted officer: “Excuse me, do you realise your horse is gay?”

CSAD Quick Reaction: Assessing the Arab Spring and Democracy in the Middle East

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This morning at the CSAD conference panel “Assessing the Arab Spring and Democracy in the Middle East” panelists broadly addressed the recent uprisings in the Middle East. Panelists included Danya Greenfield, deputy director of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council, Karan Bhatia, General Electric vice president and senior counsel for international law and policy and  former deputy U.S. trade representative, James Zogby, president and founder of the Arab American Institute and John Agresto, former provost and dean at the American University of Iraq and former Kenyon professor. For the purposes of full disclosure, I was Dr. Zogby’s intern last summer at the Arab American Institute, and am currently interning with Yalla Change, a collaborative campaign of which AAI is a partner organization. Continue reading →

CSAD Keynote Address: A Quick Review

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Tonight, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad kicked off the Center for the Study of American Democracy’s conference with a keynote address on the question of whether or not the United States should promote democracy abroad. Khalilzad, an international relations expert, served as the United States’ Ambassador to the United Nations, Iraq and Afghanistan under the Bush administration. He focused most of address on how questions of democracy promotion relate to our most recent conflicts in the middle east.
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[UPDATED] The AV: Blackwater Mercenaries Firing at Iraqi Civilians

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The AV is TKO’s occasional foray into politics via multimedia.

This video contains disturbing footage

Shameful stuff. The video (one of five) is part of a fascinating article on the rise of mercenary soldiers by Charles Glass in this past week’s Harper’s magazine. The article is eerily appropriate for the coming CSAD conference. Glass describes how mercenary soldiers have tacit agreements with Western nations to carry out quasi-imperialist ‘interventions’ across the globe without having to use the intervening nation’s flags in the process. It’s a convenient out for governments who wish to exert influence quickly, cheaply and powerfully without the pesky eye of the media or international watch dogs. This lack of accountability results in the type of stuff you’ll see in the video. Be forewarned, it’s pretty ugly.

With over fifty military contracting firms operating in Afghanistan alone, the mercenary industry is booming and its primary theaters are Iraq and Afghanistan. As Glass says “The golden age of the freelance soldier is now, and its end is anything but nigh.”

One of the most interesting discussions at this past week’s Agora was the distinction between moral impulses and normative effects. Ideals versus their application. It’s all well and good that we want to export democracy, but if this is what it looks like, we ought to think twice.

EDIT: I have been informed that shooting at oncoming cars is standard procedure in populated areas within Iraq as insurgents often attack coalition forces by ramming cars strapped with explosives into humvees and other vehicles. The shooting you see on this video may then not be inadvertent but warning or defensive shots in response to cars that are approaching the convoy. The first shot in the video seems to confirm this while the rest are more ambiguous.