Tootfinder

Iraq to launch commission to prevent recruitment into Russian armed forces: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/10/iraq-to-launch-commission-to.html

Twenty years after the U.S. invaded Iraq,
the American consensus is clear:
It was wrong.
Neocons admit it.
Reaganite conservatives admit it.
Liberals who helped sell the war admit it.
Bret Stephens — well, Bret Stephens regrets nothing,
Even George W. Bush himself won’t come out and publicly defend the war he started,
leaving Peter Baker to write an entire article premised on the question,
but what if he did?
Yet as a society w…

The wrongest war

Iraq War critic, Venezuela mission defender: Vance's foreign policy journey (Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/11/jd-vance-venezuela-america-first/
http://www.memeorandum.com/260111/p22#a260111p22

As someone who was born just a couple years before the Fall of Saigon and who remembers very well the quagmire of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, I can’t understand how anyone older than me can be anything but appalled at the war with Venezuela in 2026, especially with what appears to be no concrete plan on how they are going to achieve success. Have you idiots learned nothing from these painful lessons?

Our propaganda networks are out in force recycling the “fucking for virginity” line from the Iraq war era to whitewash their new war.

“In my view, we are in an all-out war with the United States, Israel, and Europe;
they do not want our country to stand on its own feet,”
Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian said in an interview with the Supreme Leader’s official website.
He said the current war is worse than the Iraq war in the 1980s.
“If one understands it properly,
this war is far more complex and more difficult than that war.”
“In the war with Iraq, the situation was clear;
the…

Iran says it is in full-scale war with US, Israel and Europe
Iran’s president said on Saturday the country is facing a full-scale confrontation with the United States, Israel, and Europe, describing the pressure campaign against Tehran as more complex and damaging than the Iran–Iraq war.

Pete Hegseth, told soldiers under his command in Iraq to
ignore legal advice about when they were permitted to kill enemy combatants under their rules of engagement.
The anecdote is contained in a book Hegseth wrote last year in which he also repeatedly railed against the
constraints placed on “American warfighters” by the laws of war and the Geneva conventions.
Hegseth is currently under scrutiny for a 2 September attack on a boat purportedly carrying drugs in the Ca…

Peter Arnett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent who covered the Vietnam War for the AP and the first Gulf War for CNN, has died at 91 (John Rogers/Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/article/peter-arnett-dead-e1e6815b50fe416b9ecf08453e9e80c4

Peter Arnett, who reported on the Vietnam and Gulf wars, has died
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Peter Arnett, who traveled the world covering wars from Vietnam to Iraq, has died. His son says Arnett died in Newport Beach and was surrounded by friends and family. He had entered hospice on Saturday while suffering from prostate cancer. He was 91. Arnett’s reporting on the Vietnam War for The Associated Press won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in 1966. He is likely best remembered, however, for his gripping live reports of the 1991 U.S.-led…

'Iraq 2.0': Democrats seethe at Trump's surprise Venezuela strike (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/03/congress-democrats-war-powers-venezuela-reaction-00709636
http://www.memeorandum.com/260103/p38#a260103p38

Tulsi Gabbard MIA on Venezuela operation amid tensions over Trump policy
Trump’s top national security advisers in recent days have outdone one another, publicly extolling his decision to launch the risky military raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolšs Maduro.
But one key figure has been largely absent from public view:
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran who for years has spoken out against costly U.S. intervention…

Gabbard MIA on Venezuela operation, amid tensions with Trump policy
The director of national intelligence was conspicuously absent among Trump’s top national security advisers during the planning for the Maduro mission.

Rest well.
https://apnews.com/article/peter-arnett-dead-e1e6815b50fe416b9ecf08453e9e80c4

Peter Arnett, who reported on the Vietnam and Gulf wars, has died
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Peter Arnett, who traveled the world covering wars from Vietnam to Iraq, has died. His son says Arnett died in Newport Beach and was surrounded by friends and family. He had entered hospice on Saturday while suffering from prostate cancer. He was 91. Arnett’s reporting on the Vietnam War for The Associated Press won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in 1966. He is likely best remembered, however, for his gripping live reports of the 1991 U.S.-led…

Trump’s recent claims that the US should keep Venezuelan oil from seized tankers
are part of a broader belief in rightwing “resource imperialism”, experts say.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has escalated pressure on Venezuela, invoking drug-trafficking claims.
This month, the US intercepted two tankers carrying Venezuelan oil and began pursuing a third,
while intensifying its campaign against the country’s president, Nicolšs Maduro.
Critics have comp…

Critics have compared the offensive to the Iraq war, citing a familiar mix of regime-change rhetoric, security pretexts and oil interests. This month, the Trump administration labeled fentanyl – which it says flows from Venezuela – a “weapon of mass destruction”.
On Monday, Trump suggested oil seized from Venezuela could be treated as a US asset. “Maybe we will sell it, maybe we will keep it... Maybe we’ll use it in the strategic reserves. We’re keeping the ships also.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/24/trump-venezuela-oil-resource-imperialism?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other