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DAILY PHOTO OF U.S. SOLDIERS

A US army soldier from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion of the
3rd Infantry Regiment, known as the Old Guard, carries two
of his daughters as his wife holds a third after they were
reunited upon his return from a 12-month deployment in Iraq
at Fort Myer, Virginia, on the outskirts of Washington. Now
his family wonders if he'll be deployed to Afghanistan.
(AFP/Nicholas Kamm) August 30, 2010
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DAILY PHOTO OF IRAQIS

An Iraqi man works in an ice factory in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday,
Aug. 27, 2010. Iraqi lawmakers should use their salaries to
buy ice for the poor who are suffering through a miserably
hot summer without electricity, an aide to Iraq's top Shiite
cleric said Friday. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban) August 30, 2010

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DAILY PHOTO OF AFGHANS

An Afghan woman, second left, distributes election manifestoes
to a group of women, in Herat, west of Kabul, Afghanistan,
Friday, Aug. 27, 2010. Afghans will go to the polls for the
Parliamentary elections in September. (AP Photo/ Reza Shirmohammadi)
August 30, 2010
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DAILY PHOTO OF PAKISTANIS

A Pakistan family cross a deep flooded area to reach their homes,
Sunday, Aug. 29, 2010 in Sultan Kot, in southern Pakistan.
Floodwaters inundated a large town in southern Pakistan on
Sunday, spreading further destruction in an area where hundreds
of thousands of people who fled to higher ground are in dire
need of food and water. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed) August 30,
2010

more Pakistan photos>>
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Blackwater Paying Over $40 Million in Fines For Export Violations
Xe Services, the private military company formerly known as Blackwater
Worldwide, has reached an agreement with the U.S. State Department
to pay $42 million in fines for hundreds of violations of United
States export control regulations.......[more]
posted 22 August 2010
>>Gay
critic discharged from army
An Iraq war veteran who opposed the military's
"don't ask, don't tell" policy says he has received an
honorable discharge from the Army.......[more]
posted 23 July 2010
>>American
Military Casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan Now Exceed 500,000
Since 2001, the Pentagon has sought to downplay overall
U.S. military losses by artfully redefining what is a combat-related
casualty. .......[more]
posted 20 June 2010
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America leaves Iraq a toxic legacy of dumped hazardous materials
American troops going home from Iraq after seven painful years are
leaving behind a legacy that is literally toxic. .......[more]
posted 15 June 2010
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UK flags Afghanistan retreat and troop cuts The terrorist
threat to Britain from Afghanistan has declined, British Prime Minister
David Cameron said, as he promised to withdraw British troops from
the country as soon as possible.
.......[more]
posted 15 June 2010
recent news items >>
>>U.S. "Bling Bling" Embassy
The new U.S. Embassy is officially open for business in Baghdad.
And.... it was already built .... [more]
posted 30 june 2003
more news coverage about Iraq
 
 
 
 
 

 
Learn about a Texans for Peace initiative to assist women business
professionals and entrepreneurs in Baghdad.
Womens Business Center of Baghdad
Learn about Depleted Uranium (DU) and its effects on Iraq and our
soldiers:
International Coalition to
Ban DU
Uranium Medical Research Centre
Depleted
Uranium at the IAEA
Iraq War Images
more Iraq War photos>>
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Show your support...order an "End The War
in Iraq!" t-shirt today (we have yard signs and bumper stickers
too)
(reverse reads "Bring Our Troops Home Now!")
 
 
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17 US casualties; Afghan
"stalemate"; Billions wasted, missing in Iraq
One U.S. service memberwas wounded by a bomb in Basra on Friday.
Seven U.S. troops died and 9 more were injured in weekend attacks
in Afghanistan's embattled southern and eastern regions. Two servicemen
died in bombings Sunday in southern Afghanistan, while two others
were killed in a bomb attack in the south on Saturday, and three
in fighting in the east the same day. The 140,000 foreign troops
appear headed for more than 1,700 casualties this year according
to military statistics.
There have been ten times as many Taliban casualties already
this year (including 7,000 dead), however the Taliban numbers
may be several times larger than that of the troops. General David
Petraeus still proclaims that the Taliban are being beaten.....while
at the same time claiming that the U.S. may need to remain in
Afghanistan "for years" due to the fighting. Pentagon
officials are beginning to use the term "Stalemate"
to describe the 10-year-long war in Afghanistan.
Col. Lawrence Sellin was recently disciplined after generals
read an opinion piece he had written revealing "little of
substance" was done at the coalition's joint command in Afghanistan.
The senior American staff officer was fired after publishing a
rant against the bureaucracy and endless PowerPoint briefings
at NATO's Kabul headquarters. He painted a picture of a bloated
organization, swollen by the vanity of commanders, where endless
slide show presentations are given to brief "cognitively
challenged" generals. A spokesman for the joint command confirmed
Sellin, an army reservist with a PhD who was on his second tour
of Afghanistan, had been repositioned because of his remarks.
"He's no longer working at the joint command, he has been
sent back to his unit."
Afghan officials found the bodies Sunday of five kidnapped campaign
aides working for a female candidate in the western province of
Herat while fighting continued throughout the country. Forty-eight
Afghan schoolgirls were taken to hospital after a suspected gas-poisoning
attack on their school in the east of Kabul.
A bomb blast in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad
Monday killed a district chief and injured up to five others.
Officials found the bodies Sunday of five kidnapped campaign aides
working for a female candidate in the western province of Herat.
A $40 million prison sits in the desert north of Baghdad, empty.
A $165 million children's hospital goes unused in the south. As
the U.S. draws down in Iraq, it is leaving behind hundreds of
abandoned or incomplete projects. More than $5 billion in American
taxpayer funds has been wasted - more than 10 percent of the roughly
$50 billion the U.S. has spent on reconstruction in Iraq - according
to audits from a U.S. watchdog agency.
That amount is likely an underestimate, based on an analysis
of more than 300 reports by auditors with the special inspector
general for Iraq reconstruction. And it does not take into account
security costs, which have run almost 17 percent for some projects.
Investigators blamed delays on unrealistic timeframes, multiple
partners and funding sources, and security problems at sites....everything
except the people in the Pentagon who were in charge.
Over the weekend, there were at least 39 casualties throughout
Iraq as sporadic violence continued. posted
30 August, 2010
Marine Gen. plans "Several
more years" of war; 16 ISAF casualties; 470+ Iraqi casualties;
600,000 more Paks evacuated
Unwilling to concede defeat in a war that has already lasted
more than 9 years, the commandant of the United States Marine
Corps said Tuesday that he plans for U.S. troops to remain in
Afghanistan for "several more years" of war. General
James Conway attributes ongoing attacks by Taliban to the expectation
of U.S. withdrawal in 2011....rather than the occupation of
Afghanistan by American forces. General Conway claimed his Marines,
working with other foreign troops and Afghan forces, are making
progress. The sons of Vietnam are repeating their fathers' mistakes.
International Security Assistance [sic] Force (ISAF) casualties
continue to mount. Three Spanish soldiers were killed by an
Afghan police trainee on their base in Badghis province on Wednesday.
An Australian soldier was shot dead on Tuesday. Two French soldiers
were killed and three more were injured in attacks on Monday.
One Hungarian soldier died and three more were injured on an
attack on their convoy in northeastern Baghlan province on Monday.
One American died on Sunday and another was killed by an IED
on Monday. Another U.S. soldier died Tuesday from injuries he
received in combat.
On Thursday, Afghan fighters stormed an Afghan police post
and killed eight officers in northern Kunduz province. Some
civilians were also injured during the fighting. A roadside
bomb killed two Afghan soldiers in southern Zabul province.
Iraqis spent Thursday cleaning up from Wednesday
bomb attacks from one end of the country to another that left
at least 92 Iraqis dead and another 379 injured.
One car bomb in Kut killed least 20 people and wounded 90. In
Baghdad, a truck bomb killed 15 people and wounded at least
56 others. There were also bombings in Mosul, Kerbala, Dujail,
Ramadi, Fallujah, Muqdadiya, Samarra, Tirkit Buhriz, and Basra.
The Pentagon claims that these attacks are evidence
that U.S. withdrawal from Iraq has emboldened insurgents to
move into the vacuum left by American patrols. However, most
of the areas where the attacks occurred have seen little of
U.S. troop presence for months as those soldier retreated to
their bases.
Iraqis are concerned that the spreading violence
is due mostly to political opposition groups vying for power
in the aftermath of U.S. withdrawal but also from "dark
forces" from outside the country who want to creat havoc.
Leading the list of external suspects are clandestine operatives
from Iraq, Russia, Israel, Europe....and America. The U.S. has
more than 50,000 paramilitary contractors and operatives from
the CIA and other DHS agencies milling around in Iraq. Some
Iraqis believe that America wants to remain in Iraq and will
try to create an excuse for troops to stay. Others are more
concerned that rival internal groups - many with external support
from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and elsewhere - will tear the country
apart as they fight for territorial control.
Pakistan ordered the immediate evacuation of up to 600,000
people from towns and villages along southern reaches of the
Indus River as unprecedented monthlong floods sweep toward the
sea. We are sitting on the roof of our office now, waiting
for vehicles to help evacuate us, Sajad Ali Shah, a local
government official, said by telephone from Shahdadkot, a city
of 400,000 people in northern Sindh province, as water entered
streets. About 17.2 million people have already lost homes and
livelihoods to inundations that have killed 1,542 people, the
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs says. posted
26 August, 2010
13 US Casualties; US
airstrikes kill Afghan police, civilians; $800+ million pledged
to aid Paks
Three U.S. troops were killed and five injured in fighting
in the Jaji district of eastern Paktiya province, about 12 miles
from the border with Pakistan. Another soldier was killed by
a homemade bomb in Southern Afghanistan. A Marine was killed
on Friday and two more soldiers were pronounced dead on Saturday.
The deaths bring the number of total international forces killed
or injured in Afghanistan this month to 96, including 57 Americans,
including 28 dead.
Also, an American solider was killed in a rocket attack near
Basra, Iraq, on Sunday. The death raises to at least 4,416 the
number of U.S. military personal killed in Iraq since the war
began in March 2003.
A British soldier killed in a gun battle in southern Nad-e
Ali in Afghanistan's Helmand province on Saturday. Two Australian
soldiers were killed, and two injured when an IED exploded near
their vehicle during a patrol.
In western Afghanistan's Herat province, insurgents Saturday
ambushed a convoy carrying a provincial council member running
for a seat in next month's elections for the national parliament,
killing the man's brother.
U.S. airstrikes mistakenly killed three Afghan policeman in
Jowzjan province on Saturday. In Farah province, in western
Afghanistan, a woman and two children were accidentally killed
in an airstrike that was aimed at insurgents. The U.S. expressed
"regrets" for both of these war crimes. A U.S. drone
in Pakistan hit two vehicles in the village of Anghar Kala near
Miran Shah in northern Waziristan on Saturday.
Several people were killed or injured in fighting
in Kirkuk, Mosul, Mussayab Baghdad, Baqouba and Taji over the
weekend as political violence caused by the war continues throughout
Iraq.
Former Deputy National Security Advisor under
George W. Bush took over as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq this week
for the Barack Obama regime.
Neoconservatives in the U.S. are claiming "Victory"
in Iraq even as more soldiers are being sent there and advocates
for "global projection of force" remain in control
of the Pentagon and U.S. foreign policy. Next week young men
and women from Texas' 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment at Ft. Hood
will be sent to Iraq for "training". The regiment
will join Fort Hood's III Corps in Iraq, and the 1st Cavalry
Division's 4th Brigade Combat Team will deploy soon after. A
protest and other actions, led by Iraq Veteran's Against the
War (IVAW) will take place in Killeen, Texas today.
The world has given or pledged more than $800
million to help Pakistan cope with massive floods, the foreign
minister said Sunday, as a surging river in the south led authorities
to urge thousands more people to evacuate. The floods began
in late July in the northwest after exceptionally heavy monsoon
rains, expanding rivers that have since swamped eastern Punjab
province and Sindh province in the south. The deluge has affected
about one-fifth of Pakistan's territory, straining the civilian
government as it also struggles against al-Qaida and Taliban
violence. At least 6 million people have been made homeless
and 20 million affected overall. posted
22 August, 2010

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Call to End the Wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq
Texans for Peace actively tried
to prevent the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and is now working
to bring them to an end and make sure that amends are made.
The continuing war in Iraq and Afghanistan
exceeds the bounds of decency and diplomacy and those who
started this disaster are unlikely to end it ... unless
we demand it.
Texans for Peace continues
to call attention to this war, send "peace ambassadors" directly
to Iraq and Afghanistan, and bring you the latest information
on what is really going on over there. We call on you to work with us for peace;
"End The Wars - Bring Our Troops Home Now!" Answer the
call.
Charlie
Jackson, Texans for Peace
Charlie
Jackson, founder of Texans for Peace, has made four trips
to Iraq already during this war...spending time entirely outside
of the "Green Zone" protected areas. (2002-03, 2003,
2005, 2009). Jackson has traveled throughout 17 of Iraq's
18 provinces. During his most recent trip he visited Kurdistan,
Erbil and Kirkuk. He also sponsored a trip to Jordan (2007)
to visit with Iraqi refugees living there. Jackson reports
daily on conditions and issues surrounding the Iraq war as
a volunteer peacemaker.


photos
from various trips to Iraq
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