US Involvement in Iraq Never Ended

Michael Z Youhana | Truthout | January 19, 2014

After decades of war, Iraq is a divided and shattered country that seems as far away from peace as ever. Neither the Iraq War nor US involvement in it has ever really ended.

It’s easier to start a war than to end one. The proof can be found in the unfolding crisis in Western Iraq.

On January 3, 2014, The New York Times reported that militants aligned with al-Qaeda had captured parts of the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi in western Iraq’s Anbar province. The collapse of the Iraqi security apparatus in these cities of note comes on the heels of a heavy-handed counterterrorism offensive in Anbar and a wave of resignations from the Iraqi Parliament in late December 2013.

These troubling developments affirm the recent assertion made by The London Review of Books’ Adam Schatz that, “The Iraq war is not over; it never really ended.”

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Hamid Karzai Reveals US Will Retain Nine Bases in Afghanistan

Emma Graham-Harrison | Guardian UK | Reader Supported News | May 10, 2013

President strikes conciliatory tone about larger-than-expected continuing deployment, despite frequent criticism of US forces

The United States wants to keep troops at nine bases across Afghanistan, the country’s president, Hamid Karzai, said on Thursday – a larger number than expected given Washington’s scaled-back ambitions for shaping the country’s future.

Karzai, who has often been a fierce critic of the foreign forces that have dominated his country for years, was surprisingly conciliatory about the prospect of a long-term US presence. Keeping American soldiers on the ground was in Afghan interests, he said, as long as the soldiers came with support for the Afghan government and economy.

“We can agree to give them the bases – them staying on after 2014 is for the good of Afghanistan,” Karzai said in a speech at Kabul University. “The condition is that they bring peace and security and take action quickly … on the basic strengthening of Afghanistan, helping the economy of Afghanistan.”

The uneasy allies are currently thrashing out a bilateral security agreement (BSA) to define the terms for their future co-operation, and Karzai’s comments were the first real insight into the slow and difficult negotiations.

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