Purpose Driven Lies and Gender Equality by Tina Dupuy What does a government bureaucrat being between you and your doctor look like? That was the go-to canard to scare Americans away from the health care reform bill (or single payer for that matter). So, imagine your doctor deciding he or she doesn’t want you to get a procedure. They don’t agree with it for whatever reason. Your doctor happily lies...

Since it became known that the soldier who allegedly killed 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children, in the March 11 rampage in Afghanistan, was based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord the question that has been asked most frequently is: “Is there something wrong with Joint Base Lewis-McChord?” One of our contributors noted: “There will be trials within trials going on. In addition to Sgt. Bales Joint...

UDDATE: AP and Memeorandum have finally noticed. Jerusalem Post: A gunman opened fire at a crowd of parents and children outside a Jewish school in Toulouse, France on Monday morning, killing four people. Eyewitnesses said the unknown assailant drove up to the Ozar Hatorah school’s entrance on a black scooter around 8:00 a.m. and fired at the gatherers with a heavy-calibre firearm and a pistol. Yonathan...

I did an update on the Robert Bales post below to link to this post at Cannonfire on the malaria drug Lariam but I think it deserves a little more attention. The first link was to this article in Counterpunch: Was Staff Sergeant Shooter On Dangerous Malaria Drug? Few remember the grisly summer of 2002 when four Fort Bragg soldiers’ wives were murdered within six weeks of each other and the malaria drug, Lariam,...

The former Army Ranger is pretty good at cutting green beans to a precise length. He can whip up everything from fish tacos to southwestern coleslaw to pork tenderloins glazed with molasses and sherry — and he makes sure the presentation is just right. Big deal, you may say. And, yes, it is a big deal for Jeremy Feldbusch. You see, Feldbusch — a former sergeant — is blind. He was hit by a 155...

A little less than a year ago, I explained why I did not shed a tear, why I did not feel any pity and why I experienced some closure when I heard that Ukraine-born John Demjanjuk, a guard at Sobibor, was found guilty by a German court of taking part in the murder of more than 28,000 Jews, including my relatives, at a death camp in World War II and was sentenced to five years in prison. Many felt that a five-year...

Robert Blales in photo via Stars and Stripes U.S. Identifies Army Sergeant in Killing of 16 in Afghanistan The military on Friday identified the soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers earlier this week as Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, a 38-year-old father of two who had been injured twice in combat over the course of four deployments and had, his lawyer said, an exemplary military record. …….. Pentagon...

if one were to read von Clausewitz, Lao Tzu, Machiavelli, or even the I Ching, the timing of announcements is high craft. I cant image any WHouse singing ‘Dum de tee dum, Oh yes, let’s just choose any old day to tell the subjects the king was in a cross hairs.’ Just my .02. I find much similarity between the inkspot country Vatican and most every regime in terms of much shuffling around behind...

The Washington Post’s David Igantius reports that the late terrorist chief Osama bin Laden had plans to try and assassinate President Barack Obama — partially because he felt that it would make Joe Biden President, and bin Laden felt Biden was unprepared for the office. Before his death, Osama bin Laden boldly commanded his network to organize special cells in Afghanistan and Pakistan to attack the...

We have read accounts of the incident that occurred on Wednesday at Camp Bastion Airfield in Helmand province, Afghanistan, as the aircraft carrying Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta taxied towards a gathering of dignitaries, including the newly-installed commander of Regional Command-Southwest. Chris Carroll over at the Stars and Stripes reports today from “aboard a military aircraft” that the “Panetta...

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to appear on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

In my departed friend Joe Heller’s great novel, a character explains that “Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can’t stop them from doing.” Republicans are now applying this logic to the choice of a Presidential candidate, with each side offering indisputable proof that, depending on who is doing the figures (a) Mitt Romney is on a “path to getting the delegates needed to...

Cardow, The Ottawa Citizen This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

China has launched an unexpected initiative for a political solution in Syria and lobbied a 22-nation Arab bloc for support on Tuesday. This is unusual for China, which usually remains non-committal on Middle East matters and lets the US and Europe take the lead. If it disagrees, it simply abstains in votes in the United Nations Security Council. The current initiative is not just a ploy to deflect flak from...

WASHINGTON — It was clear before Sunday’s horrific massacre of civilians that it’s past time for the U.S. mission in Afghanistan to end. Now the only question should be how quickly we can get our troops onto transport planes to fly them home. What are we accomplishing, aside from enraging the Afghan population we’re allegedly trying to protect? How are we supposed to convince...

As Afghans boil over with rage after a U.S. soldier reportedly left his base in the middle of the night to murder 16 Afghan civilians in their homes, according to this news account from Pakistan’s Frontier Post, the Taliban are claiming that the operation was the work of a group of soldiers, and that far more people were killed. Propaganda it may me. But in the fog of war, will the average Afghan be...

UPDATE: As promised yesterday, Invisible Children has released a new 8-minute video to answer some of the criticism the organization has received. Video courtesy Fox News: UPDATE: CNN’s Don Lemon interviewed ‘Kony 2012′ directors Jason Russell and Ben Keesey this afternoon about allegations by critics. Russell and Keesey revealed that they are preparing a 10-minute video addressing...

It sounds like a new cycle of violence is about to begin in Afghanistan, making efforts of the U.S. and Afghanistan government to do an orderly pullout and work out future ties much more difficult: NATO troops in Afghanistan are on high alert after the Taliban vowed to avenge the deaths of 16 innocent civilians – including nine children and three women – who were shot and killed by a rogue U.S. soldier...

After posting the “Stop Kony” story on another blog, several readers mentioned remarks defending the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) allegedly made by none other than Rush Limbaugh when President Obama announced the deployment of 100 military advisers to combat the LRA in central Africa. Incredulous, I checked the record. There are many accounts of Limbaugh’s defense of the LRA during his “show” on...

This bloody story out of Afghanistan constitutes a tragedy that is sure to aggravate U.S.-Afghanistan tensions as the U.S. winds up its operations there. An American soldier murdered 16 Afghan civiliansl, 9 of them children: A US soldier in Afghanistan has killed at least 16 civilians and wounded five after entering their homes in Kandahar province, senior local officials say. He left his military base in...