Journal: Why they hate us (II): How many Muslims has the U.S. killed in the past 30 years?

Tom Friedman had an especially fatuous column in Sunday’s New York Times, which is saying something given his well-established capacity for smug self-assurance. According to Friedman, the big challenge we face in the Arab and Islamic world is “the Narrative” — his patronizing term for Muslim views about America’s supposedly negative role in the region. …

CENTCOM Week in Review Ending 28 Nov 09

Hot Topics AA: German minister resigns over airstrike in Afghanistan 11/27/09 AA: Organized crime in the Caucasus 11/28/09 AA: Tajikistan urges compromise on power grid with Uzbekistan 11/25/09 AA: International patience with Iran is “running out” 11/27/09 AE: Assessing fallout of Dubai’s credit disaster 11/27/09 AF: NATO Forces Find Crash Site of Helicopter in Afghanistan …

Journal: Obama-Clinton Implode Middle East

Obama Fails in Middle East Robert Dreyfuss on 11/06/2009 Chuck Spinney Sends….. The announcement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he will not run for reelection is the exclamation point on the utter collapse of the Obama adminstration’s Middle East policy. Launched to great expectations — the appointment of George Mitchell, Obama’s Cairo declaration that …

Journal: Afghanistan, Warning, Peak Oil, & Strategy

EXCLUSIVE: U.S. ignored warnings before deadly Afghan attack…Three intelligence reports dismissed days before eight U.S. soldiers killed Bill Gertz, October 16, 2009 Army Maj. T.G. Taylor, a spokesman for the Army’s Task Force Mountain Warrior, told The Times that the three reports did not stand out among hundreds of others and that the intelligence was …