The one reason that led to the war in Iraq in the year 2003 was the possession of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, and it is the same reason, that has got the new Iraqi government all riled up. The new Saddam Hussein free Iraq is looking forward for its own nuclear capabilities which it emphasizes, is required to meet the nation’s energy demands and bolster its economy.

The Iraqi government is now requesting the United Nations to lift off the sanctions that have been applicable on Iraq since the times of Saddam Hussein. According to Raed Fahmi (Science and Technology Minister, Iraq),

“Our nuclear strategy is for civilian application of atomic energy and we believe we have the right and that certain obstacles contained in Resolution 707 should be lifted. We have a clear and transparent political strategy in close coordination with international bodies, and Iraq has the right to certain of its capacities. We are working to put into practice and respect all Iraq’s commitments, and we have raised this issue with the IAEA.”

However, Mr. Fahmi has stressed that, the Iraqi government hasn’t made any firm decision regarding its pursuit of nuclear power.

The sanctions on Iraq were imposed after the former President and dictator, Saddam Hussein invaded its neighbor, Kuwait. As per the sanctions approved by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 707, Iraq had been banned from initiating or conducting any sort of nuclear related activity, till the time, the Security Council could be convinced that, any such activities would not lead to proliferation of nuclear technology.

One of the leading oil producers in the middle east, Iraq still faces massive power losses and shortages due to poor infrastructure. However, Iraq has started a massive campaign to build new and improved power plants, that will take several years to complete. Therefore, Iraq is heavily depending on nuclear power, that it hopes will be allowed to produce.

Via Space War.

According to Marine officers Timothy Saint and Nicholas Smith, there are similarities between managing the war in Iraq and managing an office. They ‘learned a lot about leadership and management’ that they wish someone had told them while they were boot lieutenants during their service in Iraq. Both believe that most of what they learned applies to young managers in the corporate world.

Smith was a platoon commander for one tour to Iraq and an executive officer for his second tour, while Saint was a platoon commander on both tours and in between worked on the battalion staff. They offer some very timely corporate leadership lessons culled from the battlefield. They believe these management lessons, useful in a military war, will also be useful in the corporate battlefield. The lessons are basic, common sense, and mostly taken for granted in everyday life.

Firstly, listen and show respect. ‘If your subordinate’s way is 60% as good as your way, and the person who has to execute it is the subordinate, let him have his way. Why? He will execute his plan twice as well as yours simply because it is his.’

Secondly, inspect what you expect. ‘Our favorite Marine Corps catchphrase. It shows that you care about the work. Plus, the good ones like being inspected and the bad ones need it. This has to be true everywhere.’

Another one is get over yourself. ‘Nobody gives a crap about your MBA or anything else you’ve done. Learn the ropes and show competence before you try to get a reputation for being a brilliant innovator and bold reformer.’

And yet another is stick to your guns. ‘If a new plan or policy is unpopular or a major change to the status quo, people will be testing your will.’

Via Business Insider

It is said that there are ‘two poles in Washington: the counterinsurgency experts, or COIN-istas, who believe Afghanistan’s deteriorating security can only be reversed by adding tens of thousands of troops – perhaps as many as 80,000; and those who believe US interests in Afghanistan are few, and the best way to keep it on a low simmer is to employ a counterterrorism-like model – using drones, bombs, and special forces teams to keep Al Qaeda at bay.’ To say that the debate in Washington is protracted is an understatement. In all this, the decision of US Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates is said to be the most crucial.

Robert Gates holds the vital yet precarious advantage of swinging the vote in Obama’s decision on the Afghanistan war. As Pentagon chief, his advice on whether or not to grant the request of US generals for an escalation of troops in Afghanistan will determine the fate and future of said war. ‘The Defense secretary’s role in shaping Mr. Obama’s policy in Afghanistan is seen as a swing vote among the president’s counselors on the question at hand: Whether to send a surge of tens of thousands more troops to support the current counterinsurgency against the Taliban or to overhaul the mission entirely.’

However, Gates has in the past expressed concern about the size of the American “footprint” in Afghanistan. He is worried that ‘too many forces could look a lot like an occupation.’ Yet, he admits that ‘long-term needs of Afghanistan – good governance, economic opportunity, and a strong indigenous force – won’t magically appear without the help of the US military stabilizing the country.’

What is clear with Gates is his ‘genuine feeling for the troops. He personally handwrites letters to each family of those killed overseas.’ Bush made him Iraq’s “Mr. Fix-it.” Now, Obama expects him to do the same tinkering in Afghanistan.

Via The Christian Science Monitor

Since the massacre at the Fort Hood U.S army base where 13 people were shot to death and 30 more injured, the Muslim soldiers serving the U.S armed forces across the United States and overseas have been living in a constant fear of a fearsome backlash from fellow soldiers and comrades. On 5th November, 2009, a U.S Army Major, Nidal Malik Hasan, who was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas and was a psychiatrist at the base’s medical facility went on a killing spree and killed 13 people. This unprovoked and sudden attack from U.S service men and that too from a Muslim background is the one reason that, the commanders and Muslim soldiers alike are concerned about the growing religious rift among amongst U.S armed forces.

According to Gen. George W. Casey Jr,

”Our diversity, not only in our Army but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.”

The horrible incident at Fort Hood has been ruled out as a terrorist plot and authorities and investigators have stated that, Major Hasan heavily influenced by a concoction of political, religious and psychological factors.

Since the attack the army base, the Muslim groups, organizations and other high level Muslim clerics have all denounced the acts of Major Hasan and have stated that, the Major wasn’t part of any of the Muslim organizations. According to Ingrid Mattson (President, Islamic Society of North America),

“I don’t understand why the Muslim-American community has to take responsibility for him. The Army has had at least as much time and opportunity to form and shape this person as the Muslim community.”

However, there is still widespread hesitance among U.S Muslim soldiers when they are deployed ti Iraq or Afghanistan as in the case of Abdi Akgun, who was serving in the Marine Expeditionary Unit of the U.S Marines. Mr. Akgun was conflicted from within and was torn between his religion and hid duty for the country, as he was sent to Iraq and expected to combat fellow the insurgency.  According to Abdi Akgun,

“It’s kind of like the Civil War, where brothers fought each other across the Mason-Dixon line. I don’t want to stain my faith, I don’t want to stain my fellow Muslims, and I also don’t want to stain my country’s flag.”

Via New York Times.

The usual thinking about torture is that ‘pain will make the guilty confess.’ A whole new study coming out of Harvard University refutes that all the way around. These researchers are now saying that, contrary to popular belief, ‘the pain of torture can make even the innocent seem guilty.’ The research appears in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.  The study was undertaken by Kurt Gray, graduate student in psychology, and Daniel M. Wegner, professor of psychology. Both are with Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

According to Gray, “Our research suggests that torture may not uncover guilt so much as lead to its perception. It is as though people who know of the victim’s pain must somehow convince themselves that it was a good idea — and so come to believe that the person who was tortured deserved it.”

Gray adds, “Those who feel complicit with the torture have a need to justify the torture, and so link the victim’s pain to blame. On the other hand, those distant from torture have no need to justify it and so can sympathize with the suffering of the victim, linking pain to innocence. Seeing others in pain can perpetuate ideological differences about the justifiability of torture. Those who initially advocate torture see those harmed as guilty, unlike those who initially reject torture and its methods.”

The findings explain the mystery behind the controversial scandal that rocked the US prisons in Abu Ghraib. As the world now knows, prison guards routinely inflicted torture on detainees. ‘Prison guards, who are close to the suffering of detainees, see detainees as more guilty the more they suffer, unlike the more distant general public.’

There is still a debate as to whether torture can actually make a victim tell the truth. The new study suggests a whole new meaning of the practice of torture: ‘the mere fact that someone was tortured leads observers to think that the truth was found.’

Via ScienceDaily

In its first comprehensive tally released since the war began, Iraq pegs a violence casualty tally of at least 85,694 in the four-year period. The Human Rights Ministry report also declares that 147,195 were wounded during the same period. We have seen pictures of the gory and tragic deaths of Iraqi civilians (men, women, elderly, and children), as well as of Iraqi military and police, during one of the most controversial wars ever waged.

The published figures do ‘not cover US military deaths, insurgents, or foreigners, including contractors or U.S. forces. And it did not include the first months of the war after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.’ The report explains that ‘statistics from the initial months of the war have been extremely difficult to obtain as there was no functioning Iraqi government during that time and the interim government was not seated until mid-2004. The difficulties of quantifying the loss were compounded by the fact that records were not always compiled centrally, and the brutal insurgency sharply limited on-the-scene reporting. The U.S. military never shared its data.’

This first ever official tally by the government of Iraq had previously been ‘one of the closely guarded secrets of the war,’

Additional death data from the ministry’s report on the four-year period covered: 1,279 children, 2,334 women, 263 university professors, 21 judges, 95 lawyers, and 269 journalists perished. ‘The toll also included 15,000 unidentified bodies not claimed by families and buried in special cemeteries.’

Violence is said to have dramatically declined since the war’s worst years, but ‘Iraq’s death toll continued to climb.’ Just very recently, three near simultaneous blasts struck the southern Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing at least six people.

Via Newser

The Vietnam War showed the world ‘the futility of Western powers using force in somebody else’s country.’ The US learned some hard lessons from the failure. Today, ‘Vietnam haunts Barack Obama as he decides what to do in Afghanistan’ which he calls the ‘war of necessity.’

The US counter-insurgency strategy, while ‘seeking to exorcise the ghost of Vietnam,’ is ‘to protect the population rather than kill the enemy.’ Many are asking as to the validity of this comprehensive counter-insurgency strategy when Obama ‘sent more troops’ to Afghanistan and ‘appointed General McChrystal, a veteran of the Iraq war, to put it into action.’

Now, McChrystal is asking for additional 40,000 to 60,000 troops lest the military operations in Afghanistan falter and fall. Obama is still in the process of mulling over this request, unable to give a decision just yet. He admits to having a ‘skeptical’ mindset over the general’s request. He realizes along with the others, though, that ‘protecting the population’ needs soldiers on the ground. Many fear that Afghanistan may yet be Obama’s Vietnam.

But Afghanistan can hardly be compared with Vietnam. The Vietcong were strongly supported by North Vietnam and ultimately by China and Russia, all along communist lines. On the other hand, the Taliban may be safely ensconced in Pakistan but no state or country sponsors them.

The trick in winning in Afghanistan is not to regard it along the same military strategies employed in Vietnam. The best thing to do to ‘protect the population’ is to force Karzai to give Afghanistan better governance so as to prove to the population that government is better than the Taliban.

Via Economist.com

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have presided over more than a decade of almost continuous war. It started with air strikes on Iraq in 1998. Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iraq proper, and ‘a much bigger Afghan commitment’ followed.

Much of the sentiment regarding the largely Western-waged war on terror has made Britain regard the war in Afghanistan as a ‘good war.’

‘The Afghan mission seemed unarguably virtuous. This moral confidence, and the lower rates of casualties (until two years ago), help to explain why, for a long time, Afghanistan was overshadowed by Iraq in British debate. But there are now very few British servicemen in Iraq, against 9,000 in Afghanistan. Attention has switched—and the “good war” is looking more complicated.’

Britain is now shifting its view of Afghanistan, partly because of ‘the summer spike in British fatalities (to well over 200 in total since 2001), their faces and tragically young ages instantly relayed across the country. It is partly that the deployment has lasted so long, and the fighting in Helmand province has been so much bloodier than was once expected.’

The economic reality of the world today, with the West obviously feeling the financial crunch, ‘has raised doubts over the wisdom of retaining such grandiose military ambitions. Afghanistan has for many come to seem a flawed war of choice rather than of necessity.’

Via The Economist

A US federal jury sentenced to five consecutive life terms a former American soldier for raping and fatally shooting an Iraqi girl aged 14, as well as killing three of her family members. The carnage happened while Steven Dale Green, 24, of Midland, Texas, was serving in Iraq in 2006.

‘Green shot and killed the teen’s mother, father and sister, then became the third soldier to rape her before shooting her in the face. Her body was set on fire March 12, 2006, at their rural home outside Mahmoudiya, Iraq, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.’

The former soldier whom the Army suspended due to a personality disorder was convicted last May of 17 counts of which he was charged, including rape, murder, and obstruction of justice. Green, who will have no option to use any mechanism to reduce his sentence, admitted his guilt in a brief statement during the hearing.

According to the indictment, the crime was planned between Green and other soldiers when they played cards and drank whiskey at a checkpoint. In their conversation, they talked about having sex with Iraqi women.

Two of the soldiers,  Spc James Barker and Sergeant Paul Cortez, are serving sentences of 90 and 100 years respectively in confinement in a military compound. When he pleaded guilty, Cortez said he held the hands of 14 year old girl while being raped by Barker and Green. A fourth soldier, Jesse Spielman, was sentenced on 5 August 2007 to 110 years in prison for the same acts. Evidence showed that Spielman, 22, was guilty of the crimes of rape, conspiracy to commit rape, forced entry into a home, and participation in the murder of four people. The three soldiers convicted may appeal their sentences in 2016.

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Via Fox News

Many people were killed and hundreds injured in various deadly bomb explosions which rocked Baghdad today. The coordinated mortar fire and car bomb attacks were mainly targeted at all official government buildings including the most deadly one near Foreign Ministry. Sunni extremists are suspected to be responsible for these attacks.

The attacks have happened just a week ahead of holy month of Ramadan and on the eve of sixth anniversary of truck bomb that hit had UN compound and killed special envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 22 other people.

Nothing seems to have changed in spite of prolonged war on terror on Iraqi soil and execution of Saddam Hussein. Spokesperson for Iraqi Army’s Baghdad operations has accused Baathist alliance, the party of Saddam Hussein for these attacks.

After the America’s withdrawal of troops and end of its war on terrorism, new sectarian warfare seems to be beginning on Iraqi soil before the national elections due in next few months. It is indeed unfortunate that peace still eludes common people of Iraq; hundreds continue to die in worse violent attacks.

Via Timesonline