{"id":247121,"date":"2016-06-01T10:40:51","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T10:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/americas-sinkhole-wars\/"},"modified":"2016-06-01T10:40:51","modified_gmt":"2016-06-01T10:40:51","slug":"americas-sinkhole-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/americas-sinkhole-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"America\u2019s Sinkhole Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Originally posted at TomDispatch<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s last week\u2019s good news on America\u2019s war fronts: finally,
\n there\u2019s light at the end of the tunnel!<\/p>\n

From one end of the Greater Middle East to the other, things are looking up
\n for Washington. A U.S. Air Force drone struck for the first time in Baluchistan
\n province and took out the leader of the Taliban with two
\n Hellfire missiles<\/a> (whereupon the Pakistani government denounced Washington
\n for violating<\/a>
\n the country\u2019s sovereignty). The action was taken, President Obama later
\n announced<\/a>, as part of \u201cour longstanding effort to bring peace and
\n prosperity to Afghanistan.\u201d (Admittedly, you may not have heard much about
\n such peace and prosperity recently with fierce fighting raging<\/a>
\n on Afghan battlefields, the Taliban gaining<\/a>
\n ground, the government in its usual pit of corruption, and the country maintaining
\n its proud position as the uncontested<\/a>
\n global leader in the production and sale of opium.)<\/p>\n

Soon after, the president paid a historic visit to Vietnam and finally put
\n to bed memories of a disastrous American war there in the only way conceivable
\n \u2013 by ensuring that American arms and munitions would once again be allowed<\/a>
\n <\/strong>to flow freely into that country. And while he was at it, he sternly
\n rebuked China (without mentioning it by name) for its actions<\/a>
\n in the waters off Vietnam. \u201cNations are sovereign,\u201d he said<\/a>,
\n \u201cand no matter how large or small a nation may be, its territory should be respected.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other side of the Greater Middle East, U.S. Green Berets were photographed<\/a>
\n in northern Syria engaged with Kurdish rebels in fighting aimed at someday retaking
\n Raqqa, the \u201ccapital\u201d of the Islamic State. Several<\/a>
\n of those soldiers were wearing<\/a>
\n the insignia of the Syrian Kurdish People\u2019s Protection Forces, or YPG
\n (which the Turkish government considers a terrorist outfit), even as the Pentagon
\n continued to insist<\/a>
\n that theirs was a non-combat role. In other words \u2013 in the good news category
\n \u2013 those boots, whatever the photos might seem to indicate, were not actually
\n on the ground. Meanwhile, some genuinely upbeat news arrived in the midst of
\n a little distinctly out-of-date bad news. Members of the U.S. team now conducting
\n the air war against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq told<\/a>
\n New York Times<\/em> reporter Eric Schmitt that, despite thousands<\/a>
\n of air strikes, their predecessors had essentially botched the job, thanks to
\n \u201cpoor intelligence collection and clumsy process for identifying targets.\u201d
\n Fortunately, they were now in charge and the results were stunning. The Islamic
\n State was finally being hit in its pocketbook, where it truly hurts, damaging
\n its \u201cability to pay its fighters, govern, and attract new recruits.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery bomb now has a greater impact,\u201d reported U.S. air war commander
\n Lieutenant General Charles…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Here\u2019s last week\u2019s good news on America\u2019s war fronts: finally, there\u2019s light at the end of the tunnel! From one end of the Greater Middle East to the other, things are looking up for Washington. A U.S. Air Force drone struck for the first time in Baluchistan province […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-247121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}