Iraq exit strategy will be expensive

One of the many large U.S. military bases in Iraq, Forward Operating Base Remagen is seen in a photo relased by the U.S. military in March 2006.

Measured in blood, the price tag in Iraq is absolute: 4,238 Americans have died during America’s six-year war. For Iraqis, the toll is far greater. Icasualties.org, which tracks body counts reported by the media, notes nearly 45,000 civilians have been killed since Iraq’s Shiite-led government was formed in April 2005; another Web site puts the tally since 2003 close to 100,000.

Yet as the Pentagon prepares its exit strategy in line with President Barack Obama’s announced plans to end the war by 2012, a wholly different calculus is emerging. With the end of combat rhetorically on the horizon, the cost of leaving is now measured in financial, logistical and, above all, political terms.

Obama told Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C., that while the United States would leave Iraq “sovereign, stable and self-reliant,” the price of staying had become too great. “What we will not do is let the pursuit of the perfect stand in the way of achievable goals,” the president said. “We cannot sustain indefinitely a commitment that has put a strain on our military and will cost the American people nearly a trillion dollars.”        Breaking News

NATO renews ties with Russia

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives to address a news conference after a NATO foreign ministers meeting at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, March 5, 2009.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO agreed on Thursday to resume formal ties with Russia, suspended after Moscow’s war with Georgia, in the hope of winning greater Russian support for its struggle to stabilize Afghanistan.

“We can and must find ways to work constructively with Russia where we share areas of common interest, including helping the people of Afghanistan,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.  Russia immediately welcomed the move agreed at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.

“This decision is positive,” its ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, told a news conference, calling it “promising in terms of stability and security in Afghanistan.”  But he regretted that ties would only be formally resumed after an April 3-4 NATO summit. “Russia is in no hurry on Afghanistan but NATO indeed should be hurrying and we are just surprised that this issue of the resuming of practical work is postponed for another month.”         Breaking News

Clinton denounces Israel over demolition of east jerusalem homes

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (L) and outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert smile during a meeting in Jerusalem March 3, 2009.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized Israel Wednesday over plans to demolish Palestinian homes in Arab East Jerusalem and said Washington would engage Israeli leaders on Jewish settlements.

Calling the planned destruction of more than 80 dwellings “unhelpful,” Clinton said after talks with Palestinian leaders: “It is an issue that we intend to raise with the government of Israel and the government at the municipal level in Jerusalem.”

Israel says the homes slated for demolition were built without permits.

Palestinians say authorization from Israel’s Jerusalem municipality is nearly impossible to obtain. They accuse Israel of trying to drive them out of East Jerusalem, territory captured in a 1967 war, to make room for Jewish families.        Breaking News

Mexico: Drug violence seems unstoppable

Mexican soldiers inspect vehicles at a checkpoint at the Paso del Norte international border crossing in Ciudad Juarez March 3, 2009.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Hundreds of heavily armed soldiers fanned out across Mexico’s bloodiest drug war city on Tuesday, trying to prevent a collapse in law and order just south of the U.S. border.

Sirens blared as the army staged one of its biggest troop build-ups in years in Ciudad Juarez, a desert city across the border from El Paso, Texas, where near-daily clashes between drug gangs and police have terrified residents.

Infamous in the 1990s for the unsolved murders of hundreds of women, Ciudad Juarez is now engulfed in the worst drug violence in Mexico as cartels in league with corrupt cops fight over one of the country’s most profitable smuggling routes.  More than 2,000 people have been murdered in the area over the past year and drug gang hitmen showed their power last month by forcing the city’s police chief to resign with a threat to keep killing police officers until he quit.        Breaking News

Assasins murder trial becomes an embarrassment for the Gotti family

John Alite, now star witness for the government in its case against alleged mobster Charles Carneglia, in a jail in Rio de Janeiro in 2004.

NEW YORK – The murder trial of a reputed Mafia assassin has become an embarrassment for both the family of late mob boss John Gotti and police, thanks to sensational testimony by the government’s star witness.

John Alite has linked his former best friend John “Junior” Gotti to a series of gangland slayings, boasted that he slept with reality television graduate Victoria Gotti and claimed two police officers were in on another hit. The defendant, Charles Carneglia, has dismissed the testimony against him as a betrayal by “rats” and “canaries.”

Most of the singing at Carneglia’s ongoing trial in Brooklyn has been done by Alite, a Gambino organized crime family associate who grew up wanting to be a made member but wasn’t allowed to because he’s Albanian, not Italian.

New York’s Gambino family has been the subject of a steady stream of government indictments and prosecutions since John Gotti, the so-called “Dapper Don,” was sentenced to life in prison in 1992. He died behind bars in 2002.        Breaking News

Obama to Medved: Lets deal with Iran’s long rang missiles

MOSCOW – President Barack Obama has written to his Russian counterpart suggesting U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe might be unnecessary if Moscow helped in blocking Iran’s progress toward building long-range missiles, senior administration officials said on Tuesday.

Plans for deploying U.S. missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic, ostensibly to guard against Iranian attacks on U.S. allies in Europe, are among a host of issues that soured U.S.-Russia relations during the former Bush administration. There have been indications Obama, who has vowed to shake up American foreign policy, might be willing to set aside the missile defense system.

“President Obama sent a letter to Medvedev that covered a broad range of issues, including missile defense and how it relates to the Iranian threat,” one senior administration official said on condition of anonymity to discuss private communications of the president.        Breaking News

Schwarzenegger opens tech fair in Germany

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California, pose for photographers in Hanover, northern Germany.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger opened a major technology fair in Germany Monday along with Chancellor Angela Merkel, and recalled his time in the country as a young man.

“We are gathering in challenging times,” Schwarzenegger acknowledged at the CeBIT fair, where California is the partner state this year.

However, he added that it is time “to stand up and refuse to fail.” The fair is “all about pumping up your business,” he said.  “Technology is our greatest asset,” Schwarzenegger said. “Technology is also helping us to develop cleaner cars … and to fight against climate change.”        Breaking News

Mexico loosing drug war to the Cartels

Members of the Mexican federal police and organise cocaine packages to be destroyed in Manzanillo port, Mexico.

If you asked Americans what countries posed a danger to the United States, most would probably point to an emboldened Iran, the militant havens of Afghanistan and Pakistan, or resurgent China and Russia.

But there is a growing fear in security circles that a nation at America’s doorstep may descend swiftly into chaos and prove an immediate threat. That country is Mexico, which is locked in an increasingly violent struggle with drug cartels.

“In terms of worst-case scenarios … two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico,” says a major study by the United States Joint Forces Command that came out at the end of 2008.        Breaking News

FBI plants spy in southern California mosque

SANTA ANA, California – The revelation that the FBI planted a spy in a Southern California mosque was explosive news in a Muslim community that has long suspected the government of even broader surveillance.

Muslim-American organizations have demanded an inquiry. Some say the news has rattled their faith in American democracy.

Despite the reaction, former FBI agents and federal prosecutors say spying on mosques is still one of the government’s best weapons to thwart terrorists and that the benefit to national security is likely to far outweigh any embarrassment to the agency.        Breaking News

Landmark case brewing between U.S. gun dealers and the state

PHOENIX — This week, an Arizona gun shop goes on trial in state court in what law-enforcement officials are calling a landmark case against gun dealers who sell weapons that end up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels, fueling horrific violence south of the border that killed more than 6,000 people last year.

X-Caliber Guns LLC, is accused of knowingly selling hundreds of weapons, mostly AK-47s, to buyers who were posing as fronts for Mexican drug gangs. The gun store’s owner, 47-year-old George Iknadosian, has maintained his innocence in court filings.  While the U.S. has long pressed Mexico to stop the flow of illegal drugs such as cocaine from crossing the border heading north, Mexico has complained that the U.S. doesn’t stop the flow of guns heading south.

Mexican and U.S. officials estimate that more than 90% of the weapons used by Mexican drug cartels come from the U.S.        Breaking News