This past weekend we received once more distressing news from Afghanistan. There had been a tragic and failed attempt to rescue Linda Norgrove, the 36 year-old British aid worker who had been kidnapped last month by armed men wearing the uniform of the Afghan army.<!–more–> It would appear that a decision to launch the rescue operation was agreed by the Nato forces as it was feared that Linda Norgrove was in danger of being taken by his captors to the al-Qaeda in Pakistan. While that decision is debatable and impossible to judge now when it is too late to be sorry due to the tragic developments that finally took place. Unaware of the decision being made and in most cases even of the abduction of the aid worker, most of us heard the news when the British Foreign Office released a statement explaining that Linda had been killed by the explosion of a bomb one of her captors had detonated during the attempt by her American would be rescuers to liberate her. It was only later on, when the Americans reviewed the video of the operation that they changed the story. Apparently, it was one of the American troops that threw a grenade which ended up killing Linda. Thus Monday British Prime Minister, David Cameron said that he had to announce the “deeply regrettable” news that Linda Norgrove was not after all killed when one of her captors detonated a suicide vest but probably by an American grenade.Many of us are now wondering what really happened as it seems that we had already been there before. The case of Pat Tillman is the most documented one that comes to mind. Has this been another attempt at a cover up? That the Americans were the ones involved in the so called rescue it is understandable as Linda was hold in an area of Afghanistan the American troops are in charge. The main questions are the almost sudden decision for the rescue at that time, why the American troops threw grenades in such an attemp and why they went to such length to explain the alledge cause of Linda’s death when the reality was bound to come out? A reality which has made President Obama phone Prime Minister Cameron to promise to “get to the bottom” of last Friday failed rescue attempt.

In a televised address from the Oval Office, President Obama declared last evening an end to the seven-year Iraq war in a rather gloomy speech befitting a grim and violent war. He said that the United states had met its responsibility towards Iraq and that now it was time to turn to problems at home. Read the rest of this entry »

Many of us still remember the uproar when in 1971 Daniel Ellsberg, the former United States marine and military analyst, set off a crisis by leaking the “Pentagon Papers” to several newspapers, the New York Times among them. Read the rest of this entry »

All is not as perfect in Afghanistan as the military would like to be or would like us to believe. The problem is that together with the American conventional forces and coalition troops plus the Afghan troops, there are American Special Operation forces that are also taking part in the Afghan war. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday the European Parliament rejected a deal that would have allowed the United States government to access European bank transfers. The European lawmakers voted 378-196 against the deal with 31 abstentions. Read the rest of this entry »

There is a question frequently asked by Europeans and to which is difficult to answer: How come in the United States you have a hard time electing a woman for president? Even Latin American countries with their strongly oriented male culture have managed to elect women as presidents, just think Nicaragua, Panama, Chile and Argentina. Read the rest of this entry »

Today President Obama and Vice President Biden were in Tampa, Florida. The president, in a move that is almost a tradition, is going to travel to several states to bring the plans he talked about in his State of the Union last Wednesday to the citizens. The idea is to try to convince them so that the plans can be implemented. Read the rest of this entry »