Where were the voices of conscience on the tenth anniversary of the Iraq War?

Tracing our coverage of the war, from Lewis H. Lapham to Andrew J. Bacevich 

A Christian martyr. Two American citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, were killed by a CIA drone in Yemen. Awlaki, a cleric whose speeches purportedly inspired young Muslim radicals, had been added to the CIA�??s list of terrorist targets in early 2010. According to the U.S. government, Awlaki, who has never been tried or convicted of a crime in the United States, directed several failed terrorist plots. Khan, who edited a jihadi magazine, was never an official U.S. target. “Make no mistake,” said President Barack Obama, “this is further proof that Al Qaeda and its affiliates will find no safe …

An earthquake with a Richter magnitude of 5.9 and an epicenter in Mineral, Virginia, shook much of the East Coast, and Irene, a Category 1 hurricane, made landfall in North Carolina and continued up the Atlantic seaboard, killing at least 38 people in 10 states. The unusually large and slow hurricane caused an estimated $7 billion in damages, mostly due to flooding, and left millions of people without power. In Tuxedo Park, N.Y., Irene pushed at least 15 heating-oil trucks into the Ramapo River, spilling large amounts of fuel into the water. “An environmental disaster is floating down the river,” …

After eating a bowl of oatmeal and drafting ten talking points, Senator Bernie Sanders (Ind., Vt.) spoke for nine hours in opposition to the tax-cut deal struck between President Obama and congressional Republicans. “We should be embarrassed,” he said, “that we are for one second talking about a proposal that gives tax breaks to billionaires while we are ignoring the needs of working families, low-income people and the middle class.”WPCBSNYTMark Madoff, son of Bernard L. Madoff, hanged himself in his Manhattan apartment while his toddler slept in a nearby bedroom; court documents filed last year suggest that Mark Madoff made …

An American cattleman. An 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck central Chile, killing at least 700 people and displacing more than 2 million. At least 100 aftershocks followed, including one that measured 6.1 on the Richter scale, and a Pacific-wide tsunami alert was issued for the first 24 hours after the quake. A four-inch wave struck Japan.New York TimesHeavy downpours (beginning several weeks before Haiti’s traditional rainy season) triggered floods that killed at least eight Haitians; storm system Xynthia killed more than 45 people in Portugal, Spain,Germany, and France; and following a blizzard that left New York City covered with more than 2 …

The wire master and his puppets, 1875. The top military commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, apologized for a NATO airstrike that killed 27 civilians and wounded 14 near Kandahar; the victims’ convoy was mistaken for Taliban vehicles. “I have made it clear to our forces,” said McChrystal, “that… inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their trust and confidence in our mission.”CNNMullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was second in command to the Taliban’s spiritual leader, Mullar Muhammad Omar, was captured in a joint U.S.-Pakistani raid in Karachi.BBCAfter posting to the web a 3,000-word manifesto about the federal tax code, Catholicism, …

Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D., Mass.) died of brain cancer at age 77 and was buried near his brothers John and Robert at Arlington National Cemetery. He served 46 years in the Senate, where he was an advocate for voting rights for minorities (and 18-year-olds), the rights of the disabled, the abolition of the draft, and–less successfully–health care reform. “The place won’t be the same without him,” said Senator John McCain (R., Ariz.). Rush Limbaugh said that Kennedy was “the lion of the Senate” and that “we were his prey.” “He left a woman to drown,” tweeted Fox News analyst …

CIA director Leon Panetta admitted that the agency, initially under orders from then-Vice President Dick Cheney, kept secret from Congress the existence of a special counterterrorism program for eight years. Panetta also said that the program–intended to deploy small teams to assassinate Al Qaeda leaders–was canceled last month.New York TimesAttorney General Eric Holder was considering the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate CIAtorture (shackling, punching, beating, waterboarding with extra water, and violating the U.N. Convention Against Torture) under the Bush Administration, despite the resistance of the White House, which believes that its legislative agenda would be hindered by a …

Iraq held its first National Sovereignty Day in honor of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraqi cities. A celebration was held with poets and singers in Baghdad’s al-Zawraa park and former Vice President Dick Cheney said that he was worried that the withdrawal would “waste all the tremendous sacrifice that has gotten us to this point.” Two hundred Iraqis were killed or wounded in the last ten days of June.CNNThe Washington TimesA federal court judge in New York City sentenced Bernard Madoff to 150 years in prison, calling Madoff “extraordinarily evil” and noting that none of the financier’s family …

The Sri Lankan government declared an end to their 26-year war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers, after a final battle in which Tiger leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran was killed along with hundreds of other rebel fighters. More than 70,000 people died in the course of the conflict. “This battle has reached its bitter end,” said a rebel spokesman. “We have decided to silence our guns.” Observers questioned the methods of Sri Lanka’s military, and foreign ministers of European Union nations said they were “appalled” by reports of high civilian death counts. A spokesman for the U.N.’s …

Caught in the Web, 1860. President Obama signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and unveiled a $275 billion plan to help some of the 6 million homeowners facing foreclosure in the next three years. Some Republican governors said they would refuse stimulus aid that required their states to expand unemployment insurance. “If Republican governors do not want this money,” said Nathan Daschle, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, “Democratic governors will put it to good use.” LATCNNCNNBloombergCBS via CQ EconomistChicago TribuneThe Washington PostThe New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York TimesRepublican National Committee Chairman Michael …

Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the forty-fourth president of the United States.NY TimesIn his inaugural remarks, President Obama attributed many of the nation’s problems to a “collective failure to make hard choices.” “Starting today,” he said, “we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.” NY TimesFormer vice president Dick Cheney attended the inauguration in a wheelchair,NY TimesSenator Edward Kennedy had a seizure,CNNAretha Franklin’s voice cracked,CNNand Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Gabriela Montero, and Anthony McGill performed with the aid of a backing track.MSNBC.comBoxing promoter Don King said that of all biblical …

Democrats were outvoting Republicans in all nine states that track the party affiliations of early voters, indicating a likely election victory for Barack Obama. George Mason University“It’s gonna get nasty,” Obama told a crowd in Missouri.CNNRepublicans claimed that Democrats were coercing dementia patients to cast absentee ballots,Des Moines Registerand fliers posted in black neighborhoods of Philadelphia falsely warned that voters with unpaid parking tickets would be arrested at the polls.APIt was reported that Obama‘s half-aunt Zeitun Onyango lives in a Boston housing project and is an illegal immigrant–a detail likely leaked by the Bush Administration against the procedures of the …

Caught in the Web, 1860. After many years of increasing borrowing and at least thirteen months of evidence of an impending catastrophe, American financial institutions faced the worst credit crisis since the Great Depression. “The world,” explained Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “no longer has the capacity to absorb fake U.S. dollars.”EconomistThe Wall Street JournalBloombergGlobal stock markets lost $3.1 trillion in four days, and American International Group (AIG), the world’s biggest insurance company and a leader in the $62 trillion credit-default swap market, was nearly bankrupted. “The private market has screwed itself up,” said Representative Barney Frank (D., Mass.), “and they …

The Treasury Department seized control of mortgage and loan giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, firing the companies’ chief executives and promising to provide as much as $200 billion to prevent insolvency.New York TimesThe jobless rate rose from 5.7 percent to a five-year high of 6.1 percent, with more than 84,000 jobs lost in August,Yahoo and Senator John McCain accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency.KTLA.com“This campaign is not about issues,” said McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis. “This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.”Washington PostIt emerged that McCain did not properly …

After more than a week of fighting and one failed cease-fire, Russia and Georgia signed a revised cease-fire agreement, but Russian troops remained within 25 miles of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev promised French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who negotiated the agreement, that Russian forces would soon withdraw from Georgia. He also insisted that troops would remain in the breakaway Georgian territory South Ossetia. “The superpower showed that she was able to defend her people,” said Marina Katayeva, a 30-year-old Russian doctor. “Now we will be more respected.” Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Russians were “twenty-first-century barbarians” who …

Caught in the Web, 1860. The military junta in Myanmar put the official death toll from last week’s Cyclone Nargis (Urdu for “daffodil”) at 28,458, while foreign observers, taking into account that heavy rains were expected to continue, with malaria, tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid, and dysentery to follow, expected that as many as 100,000 people would die. Before distributing foreign-aid packages, the junta re-labeled them with the names of its generals; a referendum on a new constitution that will perpetuate the junta’s rule was not delayed. “Let’s go cast a vote,” sang two female pop vocalists on state-run television. “With sincere …

With the assistance of the Federal Reserve, JPMorgan Chase acquired its rival Bear Stearns for $236.2 million, or $2 a share, about 1 percent of the bank’s value two weeks ago. Bear Stearns Chairman Jimmy Cayne competed in the North American Bridge Championship in Detroit as the buyout transpired, winning fourth in IMP-scoring pairs.ReutersNorth American Bridge ChampionshipsABCThe dollar fell to record lows against the euro,BBCand former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said the current financial crisis was the worst since World War II.FTNearly two hundred Eliot Spitzer-related domain names were registered in the wake of the resignation of the New …

At 20 points along the Gaza Strip’s southern border, Hamas operatives detonated explosives to topple an Israeli-built fence, allowing as many as 200,000 Palestinians�??13 percent of the territory’s population�??to cross into Egypt and shop. The Gazans purchased camels, candy, cement, chairs, cheese, cigarettes, computers, cows, doughnuts, gasoline, generators, goats, mattresses, medicine, motorcycles, pistols, potato chips, sheep, snack cakes, soap, and televisions. Supplies at Egyptian shops dwindled, prices spiked, and fistfights ensued. Several Gazan women married Egyptians, and the Israel Defense Force patrolled its southern border for would-be suicide bombers and hostage takers.New York TimesJerusalem PostAFPDublin IndependentSeif al-Islam Qaddafi, the 36-year-old …