Truthout 2/18

Iran May Be Seeking Nuclear Warhead, UN Watchdog Says
Warren Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers: "The United Nations' nuclear watchdog said Thursday that there are signs Iran is trying to develop a nuclear warhead that would fit atop a missile, its bluntest assertion to date questioning Tehran's claims to have an exclusively peaceful nuclear program."
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"Mass Casualties": The Dark Underbelly of Occupation; an Army Medic's Account
Dahr Jamail, Truthout: "'Look around,' the drill sergeant said. 'In a few years, or even a few months, several of you will be dead. Some of you will be severely wounded or so badly mutilated that your own mother can't stand the sight of you. And for the real unlucky ones, you will come home so emotionally disfigured that you wish you had died over there.'"
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Homeland Security Targets "Criminal Aliens"
William Fisher, Truthout: "A little-known program run by the Department of Homeland Security is using inaccurate databases and functioning "as little more than a dragnet to funnel even more people into the already overburdened" detention and deportation system of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, according to three civil rights organizations that have filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)."
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E.J. Dionne Jr. | Why the Democrats Are Losing
E.J. Dionne Jr., Op-Ed: "If you want to be honest, face these facts: At this moment, President Obama is losing, Democrats are losing and liberals are losing.... Who's winning? Republicans, conservatives, the practitioners of obstruction and the Tea Party."
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Officers Absent as Afghan Ambush Killed Five US Troops
Jonathan S. Landay, McClatchy Newspapers: "The absence of experienced senior leaders and inadequate action by officers in a tactical operations center, including a failure to provide effective artillery and air support, contributed to the deaths of five US troops and nine Afghans in a September 8 battle, an official investigation has found."
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Bagram, Obama's Secret Penal Colony
Le Nouvel Observateur: "It's the biggest American prison outside the United States. No journalist has ever been able to penetrate this no-law zone situated to the north of Kabul. Arbitrary detentions, humiliations, even torture, in the name of the 'war against terror' ... From Afghanistan, Sara Daniel reports horrific testimonies. After Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, the next scandal to threaten America?"
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White House, Republican Graham Team Up on Indefinite Detention Legislation
Kyle Berlin, Truthout: "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) said that he is working with the White House on legislation that would allow some alleged terrorists to be held indefinitely without trial."
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Jailed Taliban Leader Still a Pakistani Asset
Gareth Porter, OpEdNews: "Contrary to initial US suggestions that it signals reduced Pakistani support for the Taliban, the detention of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the operational leader of the Afghan Taliban, represents a shift by Pakistan to more open support for the Taliban in preparation for a peace settlement and US withdrawal."
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Magalie Marcelin's Death in Haiti "a Loss for the Whole Nation"
Beverly Bell, Truthout: "'A loss for the whole nation.' That is how one of Magalie Marcelin's friends described the death of this women's rights leader in Haiti's earthquake January 12. Magalie was at the forefront of the 1980's birth of the contemporary women's movement in Haiti ('contemporary' because recorded actions for gender equity go back as far as 1820). She started Kay Fanm, or Women's House, Haiti's first shelter for battered women, which was also a hub of feminist and antiviolent activities. She was instrumental in passing laws for women's equal rights in marriage, and for the criminalization of rape and domestic violence."
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William J. Astore | American Blitzkrieg
William J. Astore, TomDispatch.com: "I've always been interested in the German military, especially the Wehrmacht of World War II. As a young boy, I recall building many models, not just German Panther and Tiger tanks, but famous Luftwaffe planes as well. True, I built American tanks and planes, Shermans and Thunderbolts and Mustangs, but the German models always seemed 'cooler,' a little more exotic, a little more predatory. And the German military, to my adolescent imagination, seemed admirably tough and aggressive: hard-fighting, thoroughly professional, hanging on against long odds, especially against the same hordes of 'godless communists' that I knew we Americans were then facing down in the Cold War."
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GRITtv: STD Vaccines for Minors Without Parental Consent?
Esther Armah, GRITtv: "A new bill is making its way through the New York state legislature that would give minors the ability to consent to vaccinations for sexually transmitted infections, like Gardasil, the HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer. But parents are unhappy with the bill because it would allow children as young as nine to receive the immunization."
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