So now it’s official: I was right and the rest of the media was wrong about the war in Georgia last year. The EU just issued a report blaming Georgia for starting last year’s war with Russians. About 1 year and 1 month after I wrote the same thing. Unlike everyone else in the Western media, from the very start I wrote in The Nation that Georgia was to blame for starting the war, first here on Day 1 of the war, and then here a few days later. (more…)

I’ll talk about Gaza tomorrow, but I’ve got the day off and it’s not my idea of a good time. For now I’ll just say it turned out exactly like I said it would, but blecch, it’s not my idea of a good time and I’m not in the mood to gloat too much. So I’m going to purposely change the subject to this note I wrote myself on the way to work last week: “Supertrooper??? Not mil. @ all!! Column on misused mil. Lyrics” (more…)

When you look at the fighting in Gaza, or any of the other small, chronic wars we get these days, you notice that traditional war buffs, the ones who like to talk about WW II, don’t have much to say. If they say anything at all, it’s usually, “They should just wipe’em out!” Like, “Israel should just wipe the Pals out!” Or “America should just wipe Iraq off the map!”

And on paper, they’re right. Israel could kill every single man, woman and child in Gaza if it wanted to. And Hell, it probably does want to. So why doesn’t it? (more…)

From the moment Georgia launched its invasion against the breakaway region of South Ossetia this past August, sparking a wider war with neighboring Russia, the New York Times’s news coverage depicted Georgia as an innocent victim of Russia’s neo-imperialist evil. In doing so, the Times engaged in the sort of media malpractice that it promised its readers wouldn’t happen again after its disastrous coverage of the lead-up to the Iraq War. (more…)

Well ain’t that nice: Bono got another award. That’s what will help our world be a better and nicer place, Bono getting another award. What makes this one even more sickening than the rest is the name of the award: “Man of Peace.” That’s right: in case any of you had any doubts, on December 16, 2008, a bunch of moldy international moochers got together and officially named Bono this year’s man of peace.

There are a lot of people worth hating in this world, but I can’t think of anybody more in need of two bullets in the torso and one in the head than our friend Bono. (more…)

Will India and Pakistan ever finish the cat-fight and get on with a real war? “We live in hope,” like my grandma used to say — but don’t hold your breath. Listening to the Indian and Paki generals shaking their little fists at each other, with their little mustaches going up and down, hearing the Indians talk about how their patience is “almost” exhausted — it just gets me down.

This fag-slapping shit gives war a bad name.

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Zia ul-Haq: the Pakistani Dracula with the dead raccoon eyes.

Well, time to ease out of my chair and get back to work, because people have been yelling at me to finish off that “Islamablog” series I started about the hotel bomb in Islamabad. I warned you it was going to be a sample of what real-time war-nerding is about, and this time, durn it, it turned to be about me getting frustrated with how many possible angles there were here. I started to feel like it’d be easier for me to make a short list of everybody who definitely didn’t have a reason to bomb the Islamabad Marriott instead of trying to decide which of the two zillion good reasons was responsible for the bombing.

In fact, why not? Here’s my short list of who didn’t bomb the Marriott and why:

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Today’s Defendant: Bugs Bunny

Statement of the Grand Inquisitor: In seeking an example of sterling virtue worthy of canonization, one name clearly shines out above the rest: Bugs Bunny. In this humble rabbit we see the spirit of a god.
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This is my third entry on the big blast at the Islamabad Marriott. God, the name says it all: “Islamabad Marriott.” Talk about two words that don’t fit together very well. The town just wasn’t big enough for “Islamabad” and “Marriott,” especially when you see pictures of Marriott’s big sign, in fancy Disney letters. You can have an Islamabad or you can have a Marriott, but you can’t have both—not for long.

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It’s been tons of funs watching the dust settle over South Ossetia, watching everybody go crazy and do their best to avoid the fact that Putin kicked our proxy ass. If you’ve ever wondered how countries deal with military defeat, wonder no more, because you’ve just lived through it, and if you watched any tv, you saw loser propaganda in action 24/7.

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Here’s some more cool combat vids for you desk casualties. This time it’s Georgian troops shooting the Hell out of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, on the day they rolled in to retake the province after Bush and Cheney promised them the Russians wouldn’t dare do a thing. So it didn’t work out all that great, but on that first day, when it was Georgian upgraded T-72s vs. Ossetian civvies with AK-47s, our little allies had themselves a real barnburner of a time, and luckily, one of them took these vids to show his little Facebook friends. (more…)

Five days after Georgia invaded and seized the breakaway separatist region of South Ossetia, sparking a larger-scale Russian invasion to drive Georgian forces back and punish their leaders, Russia surprised its Western detractors by calling a halt to the country’s offensive. After all, the mainstream media, egged on by hawkish neocon pundits and their candidate John McCain, had everyone believing that Russia was hellbent on the full-scale annihilation and annexation of democratic Georgia.

But then came Tuesday’s cease-fire announcement–and we’re now forced to ask ourselves serious questions about the recent conflict: what really started it, how dangerous was it and what, with serious careful consideration, could be done to prevent it from turning into a worst-case scenario? (more…)

No dramatic photo compositions here, just grim pictures of burnt-out tanks, spent RPGs, charred human remains and columns of Russian armored machinery on patrol in South Ossetia and Georgia. Now updated with graphic photos straight from the battle scene. (more…)