Published: 00:00, Jan 23,2021
The question is when and how many more Americans will kill or be killed in that ‘graveyard of empires’ before the US accepts the inevitable. Common Dreams/flickr/Arby Reed
A Bidenesque tour of the United States of America’s regional and global military adventures, writes
Danny Sjursen
HARD as it is to believe in this time of record pandemic deaths, insurrection, and an unprecedented encore impeachment, Joe Biden is now officially at the helm of the US war machine. He is, in other words, the fourth president to oversee the US’s unending and unsuccessful post-9/11 military campaigns. In terms of active US combat, that’s only happened once before, in the Philippines, the US’s second-longest (if often forgotten) overseas combat campaign.
West Point biochemist warns about threat of bioweapons
Updated on: January 20, 2021 / 9:11 AM / CBS News
In this episode of
Intelligence Matters, host Michael Morell speaks with Dr. Ken Wickiser, a biochemist and associate dean of research at U.S. Military Academy West Point, about his piece Engineered Pathogens and Unnatural Biological Weapons: The Future Threat of Synthetic Biology. Wickiser describes the growing influence of synthetic biology and what can happen if it gets in the wrong hands. Listen to
Highlights
What is synthetic biology? Synthetic biology is the process of engineering natural genetic systems. In terms of engineering: taking what nature has provided us and optimizing it, co-opting it, repurposing it, making it more efficient, and making it more cost effective. In large part for good purposes, to make new and novel biomaterials, to make new and novel pharmaceuticals. To make existing pharmaceuticals cheaper, more abundant, more available
US-Iran tensions rise in Iraq, as Qassem Soleimani assassination anniversary nears
Iraqis fear a flare-up in sectarian tensions after Iran vowed revenge for killing military leader Qassem Soleimani in January. But some fear that factions within the Iraqi security forces could also threaten stability.
Qassem Soleimani s and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis killings sparked widespread protests in Iraq
January 3 marks the first anniversary of the death of senior Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani. The major general was killed in a US-directed drone attack while visiting Baghdad.
In a statement earlier this month, Iran s religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, repeated his country s desire for revenge. For Iraqis, this may well pose a danger.