As I listened to the ever so stale and predictable lies spoken by President Obama tonight, I couldn't suppress the outright disgust and sense of betrayal that welled up inside me. He has inspired similar feelings before with his continuation of the shameless and unprecedented taxpayer bailout of Wall Street concurrent with his abandonment of foreclosed upon homebuyers, single-payer medical care, unemployed workers, and etc., but tonight was different. Tonight, as he spoke to his military audience, he was clearly little more than a programmed pathological talking head, the epitome of the governing puppet, producing lie after lie ever so smoothly to justify HIS and our government's tragically misguided war against Afghanistan.
I may tackle his stated reasons for deepening the quagmire at another time. . . . One of the half lies Obama told you tonight, contrary to an initial assertion in the article below, is that his escalation will "allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011." While technically, they might bring some troops home then, our "commitment" and occupation will quite likely remain for years to come, as in Germany, Korea, and Iraq, while the resentments we sow around the world, particularly in the Muslim world, will grow, grow grow.
By October of this year, Obama had already committed more Americans than Bush had to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is his second escalation of the Afghan war, and with the numbers announced tonight, added to the 13,000 support troops committed in October, and the troops from his first escalation of 21,000 in March, Obama will have shown the world convincingly that he intends exceed and continue the aggressive militarism of the Bush 2 administration.
We reap what we sow and chickens come home to roost. Obama, for obvious reasons, couldn't afford to tell you those truths tonight either.
12/2/09 PM-- Hey folks, after all these years, were still at war, isn't this terrific? Can't think of a single thing you'd rather spend it on! God Bless America!
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Here are some of tonight's (and tomorrow's) opinions on Obama's decision:
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The Obama Puppet
The world's least powerful man
December 3, 2009
by Paul Craig Roberts
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/12/03/the-obama-puppet/
. . . . No American national interest is served by the war in Afghanistan. As the former UK Ambassador Craig Murray disclosed, the purpose of the war is to protect U.S. interests in the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline. The cost of the war is many times greater than investment in the pipeline. The obvious solution is to develop and give the pipeline to the Afghans as partial compensation for the destruction we have inflicted on that country and its population, and bring the troops home.
The reason my sensible solutions cannot be effected is that the lobbies think that their entitlements would not survive if they were made obvious. They think that if the American people knew that the wars were being fought to enrich the armaments and oil industries, the people would put a halt to the wars.
In actual fact, the American people have no say about what “their” government does. Polls of the public show that half or more of the American people do not support the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan and do not support President Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Yet, the occupations and wars continue. According to General Stanley McChrystal, the additional 40,000 troops are enough to stalemate the war, that is, to keep it going forever, the ideal situation for the armaments lobby.
The people want health care, but the government does not listen.
The people want jobs, but Wall Street wants higher priced stocks and forces American firms to offshore the jobs to countries where labor is cheaper.
The American people have no effect on anything. They can affect nothing. They have become irrelevant like Obama. And they will remain irrelevant as long as organized interest groups can purchase the US government.
The inability of the American democracy to produce any results that the voters want is a demonstrated fact. The total unresponsiveness of government to the people is conservatism’s contribution to American democracy. Some years ago there was an effort to put government back into the hands of the people by constraining the ability of organized interest groups to pour enormous amounts of money into political campaigns and, thus, obligate the elected official to those whose money elected him. Conservatives said that any restraints would be a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.
The same “protectors” of “free speech” had no objection to the Israel Lobby’s passage of the “hate speech” bill, which has criminalized criticism of Israel’s genocidal treatment of the Palestinians and continuing theft of their lands.
In less than one year, President Obama has betrayed all of his supporters and broken all of his promises. He is the total captive of the oligarchy of the ruling interest groups.
Unless he is saved by an orchestrated 9/11-type event, Obama is a one-term president.
Indeed, the collapsing economy will doom him regardless of a “terrorist event.”
For entire article, see:
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/12/03/the-obama-puppet/
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Jim Hightower:
Obama's War
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24100.htm
By Jim Hightower
December 02, 2009 "Creators.com" -- Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to war we go! Pound the drums loudly, stand with your country proudly!
Wait, wait, wait — hold it right there. Cut the music, slow the rush, and let's all ponder what Barack Obama, Roberts Gates, Stanley McChrystal and Co. are getting us into ... and whether we really want to go there. After all, just because the White House and the Pentagon brass are waving the flag and insisting that a major escalation of America's military mission in Afghanistan is a "necessity" doesn't mean it is ... or that We the People must accept it.
Remember the wisdom of Mark Twain about war-whooping generals and politicians: "Loyalty to the country, always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it."
How many more dead and mangled American soldiers does the government's "new" Afghan policy deserve? How many more tens of billions of dollars should we let them siphon from our public treasury to fuel their war policy? How much more of our country's good name will they squander on what is essentially a civil war?
We've been lied to for nearly a decade about "success" in Iraq and Afghanistan — why do the hawks deserve our trust that this time will be different?
Their rationales for escalation are hardly confidence boosters. The goal, we're told, is to defeat the al-Qaida terrorist network that threatens our national security. Yes, but al-Qaida is not in Afghanistan! Nor is it one network. It has metastasized, with strongholds now in Pakistan, Indonesia, Morocco, Yemen and Somalia, plus even having enclaves in England and France.
Well, claims Obama himself, we must protect the democratic process in Afghanistan. Does he think we have suckerwrappers around our heads? America's chosen leader over there is President Hamid Karzai — a preening incompetent who was "elected" this year only through flagrant fraud and whose government is controlled by warlords, rife with corruption and opposed by the great majority of Afghans.
During the election campaign from July through October, 195 Americans were killed and more than 1,000 wounded to protect this guy's "democratic process." Why should even one more American die for Karzai?
Finally, Washington's war establishment asserts that adding some 30,000 more troops will let us greatly expand and train the Afghan army and police force during the next couple of years so they can secure their own country and we can leave.
Mission accomplished!
Nearly every independent military analyst, however, says this assertion is not just fantasy, it's delusional — it'll take at least 10 years to raise Afghanistan's largely illiterate and corrupt security forces to a level of barely adequate, costing us taxpayers more than $4 billion a year to train and support them.
Obama has been taken over by the military industrial hawks and national security theorists who play war games with other people's lives and money. I had hoped Obama might be a more forceful leader who would reject the same old interventionist mindset of those who profit from permanent war. But his newly announced Afghan policy shows he is not that leader.
So, we must look elsewhere, starting with ourselves. The first job of a citizen is to keep your mouth open. Obama is wrong on his policy — deadly wrong — and those of you who see this have both a moral and patriotic duty to reach out to others to inform, organize and mobilize our grassroots objections, taking common sense to high places.
Also, look to leaders in Congress who are standing up against Obama's war and finally beginning to reassert the legislative branch's constitutional responsibility to oversee and direct military policy. For example, Rep. Jim McGovern is pushing for a specific, congressionally mandated exit strategy; Rep. Barbara Lee wants to use Congress' control of the public purse strings to stop Obama's escalation; and Rep. David Obey is calling for a war tax on the richest Americans to put any escalation on-budget, rather than on a credit card for China to finance and future generations to pay.
This is no time to be deferential to executive authority. Stand up. Speak out. It's our country, not theirs. We are America — ultimately, we have the power and the responsibility.
Hightower broadcasts daily radio commentaries aired by more than 150 commercial and public stations, on Armed Forces Radio and Radio for Peace International. He also produces a weekly video blog that is carried on many popular websites (see it at http://www.jimhightower.com/.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM
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Why Obama’s Surge in Afghanistan?
By Shamus Cooke
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24101.htm
December 02, 2009 "Information Clearing House" - Tuesday’s announcement that President Obama will send an additional 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan — while begging his foreign allies to send an extra 10,000 — will have dramatic effects throughout the American and world society.
The hope that Obama’s election would drastically change U.S. foreign policy has been destroyed. The effects of his troop surge will change the minds of millions of Americans, who, until this point, were giving Obama the benefit of the doubt.
Such moments in history are capable of instantly removing piles of dust from the collective eyeball — just as the bank bailouts did.
The announcement will also send tremors throughout the military: many soldiers and their families remained silent about fighting with hopes that Obama would bring them home. They see little point in dying in a pointless war. Thus, morale is likely to continue deteriorating, while more brazen acts of defiance will surely increase.
The reasons behind the surge — Al Qaeda, “rooting out terrorism,” etc. — are unlikely to fool many people, with the exception of the media. This “war on terror” propaganda is based on the same illogical catch-phrases that Bush’s limited intelligence tripped over. Coming from Obama, such stupid reasoning sounds especially bizarre, akin to an evolutionary biologist forced to argue in favor of creationism.
Obama is compelled to tell the really big lie because the truth is too damning. If he remotely approached the real motives behind the war, the public would be pushed into total defiance — Obama’s new $660 billion military budget for 2010 would have caused mass demonstrations.
In reality, the war in Afghanistan was a convenient way for U.S. corporations — who dominate U.S. politics — to get a firmer hold in the resource-rich Middle East. For example, soon after Afghanistan was invaded, we were told that Iraq was a “ticking time bomb,” while now Obama assures us that Pakistan is the real threat — and don’t forget Iran! When considering the above military budget, these countries are threats to the U.S in the same way that a flea is a threat to an elephant.
Who really benefits from war in the Middle East? So far, U.S. weapons manufacturers have (Boeing, etc.), U.S. oil companies (Exxon, etc.), and the big banks that help move the spoils around (Citigroup, etc.) who also dominate the finances of the conquered country. Corporations that deal with “reconstruction” contracts love war (Halliburton, etc.), while also the multitude of “private contractors” that specialize in everything from cooking (Halliburton again) to mercenary fighting (Blackwater, etc.).
The many U.S. corporations that export abroad also benefit from the war, since a dominated country offers them a monopoly market to sell their goods in, or the ability to set up shop where none existed before. It is these collective interests that are driving Obama’s foreign policy; they would rather see the U.S. and Afghani people bled dry than allow a foreign competitor — China, Russia, etc. — to dominate Afghanistan’s resources and markets.
The U.S. is certainly not fighting terrorists in Afghanistan — the Al Qaeda bogey men and the “evil genius” Osama Bin Laden are not directing military operations from a cave. The vast majority of people fighting U.S. troops are not “Islamic extremists” (another catchphrase), but average citizens enraged by foreign troops rummaging around in their homes, patting them down at check points, indiscriminately detaining them at torture centers (U.S. Bagram Air base), and killing their family members.
Yes, many Afghanis are deeply religious, but the presence of U.S. troops is the motor force behind their “radicalism,” i.e. resistance to military occupation. Islam is not inherently violent, but a military occupation unquestionably is.
Those wishing to end these wars must end their reliance on the corporate-bought two-party system, and begin organizing independently. The anti-war movement was strong while Bush was President, based not only on mass outrage, but the cynical maneuvering of those sitting atop of Democratic Party front groups like MoveOn and others — who helped organize and fund anti-war (Bush) demonstrations.
When Obama became President, the leaders of these groups played a thoroughly destructive role in the anti-war movement, shifting away from the effective measures used against Bush, or abandoning the struggle altogether, taking their funding with them. This disruption in organization, plus the mass-effect of the Obama illusion, had a temporary derailing effect on organizing.
But Obama’s troop surge may very well breathe new life into the deflated movement. Demonstrations are being organized for the spring, and there is plenty of time to join local groups/coalitions to help with the planning.
Mass demonstrations are a very effective tool, since they educate about the undemocratic nature of the state, while showing demonstration participants that there is power in collective action. More importantly, large marches prove to U.S. soldiers that they will have public support if they collectively choose to publicly oppose the war (by marching in a demonstration), or individually opt not to fight in these illegal wars. The Vietnam War was ended largely because so many soldiers opposed the war, demonstrated against it, or refused to fight; a courage they found by the massive public support felt at home.
Mass demonstrations do not organize themselves. It will take ordinary people working together to make it happen, while collectively demanding:
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
END THE U.S. WARS IN THE MIDDLE EAST!
Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org). He can be reached at shamuscook@yahoo.com
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Here We Go Again
Posted on Dec 2, 2009
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/here_we_go_again_20091202/
By Robert Scheer
It is already a 30-year war begun by one Democratic president, and thanks to the political opportunism of the current commander in chief the Afghanistan war is still without end or logical purpose. President Barack Obama’s own top national security adviser has stated that there are fewer than 100 al-Qaida members in Afghanistan and that they are not capable of launching attacks. What superheroes they must be, then, to require 100,000 U.S. troops to contain them.
The president handled that absurdity by conflating al-Qaida, which he admitted is holed up in Pakistan, with the Taliban and denying the McChrystal report’s basic assumption that the enemy in Afghanistan is local in both origin and focus. Obama stated Tuesday in a speech announcing a major escalation of the war, “It’s important to recall why America and our allies were compelled to fight a war in Afghanistan in the first place.” But he then cut off any serious consideration of that question with the bald assertion that “we did not ask for this fight.”
Of course we did. The Islamic fanatics who seized power in Afghanistan were previously backed by the U.S. as “freedom fighters” in what was once marketed as a bold adventure in Cold War one-upmanship against the Soviets. It was President Jimmy Carter, aided by a young liberal hawk named Richard Holbrooke, now Obama’s civilian point man on Afghanistan, who decided to support Muslim fanatics there. Holbrooke began his government service as one of the “Best and the Brightest” in Vietnam and was involved with the rural pacification and Phoenix assassination program in that country, and he is now a big advocate of the counterinsurgency program proposed by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal to once again win the hearts and minds of locals who want none of it.
The current president’s military point man, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, served in Carter’s National Security Council and knows that Obama is speaking falsely when he asserts it was the Soviet occupation that gave rise to the Muslim insurgency that we abetted. Gates wrote a memoir in 1996 which, as his publisher proclaimed, exposed “Carter’s never-before-revealed covert support to Afghan mujahedeen—six months before the Soviets invaded.”
Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was asked in a 1998 interview with the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur if he regretted “having given arms and advice to future terrorists,” and he answered, “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?” Brzezinski made that statement three years before the 9/11 attack by those “stirred-up Muslims.”
So here we go again, selling firewater to the natives and calling it salvation. We have decided to prop up a hopelessly corrupt Afghan government because, as Obama argued in one of the more disgraceful passages of Tuesday’s West Point speech, “although it was marred by fraud, [the recent] election produced a government that is consistent with Afghanistan’s laws and constitution.”
To suggest that the Afghan government will be in seriously better shape 18 months after 30,000 additional U.S. and perhaps 5,000 more NATO troops are dispatched is bizarrely out of touch with the strategy of the McChrystal report, which calls for American troops to restructure life down to the level of the most forlorn village. Surely the civilian and military supporters of that approach who are cheering Obama on have been giving assurances that he will not be held to such an unrealistically short timeline. Evidence of this was offered in the president’s speech when he said of the planned withdrawal of some forces by July of 2011: “Just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground. We’ll continue to advise and assist Afghanistan’s security forces to ensure that they can succeed over the long haul.”
A very long haul indeed, if one checks the experience of Matthew Hoh, the former Marine captain who was credited with being as successful as anyone in implementing the counterinsurgency strategy now in vogue. In his letter of resignation as a foreign service officer in charge of one of the most hotly contested areas, Hoh wrote: “In the course of my five months of service in Afghanistan … I have lost understanding and confidence in the strategic purpose of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan. … I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul.”
Maybe they should have given Capt. Hoh the Noble Peace Prize.
AP / Charles Dharapak
President Barack Obama speaks about the war in Afghanistan at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.
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Some Simple Questions After Obama's Afghanistan War Speech
By David Sirota
Huffington Post/OpenLeft
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24102.htm
December 02, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- Just a few quick questions to ponder after President Obama's speech announcing a massive escalation in Afghanistan - the very first being shouldn't we be able to honestly answer these queries before mindlessly cheering on a deployment of more troops to a Central Asian war zone?
Here they are in no particular order:
- What percentage of those kids in the West Point audience will die because of this decision?
- Would you be OK sending yourself or a loved one over to face combat and potentially death for the mission Obama articulated in Afghanistan? If not, how could you support sending other people?
- Why do so many pundits and pro-Obama activists continue to focus on how "hard" and "difficult" and "trying" this decision is for President Obama, rather than on how "hard" and "difficult" and "trying" this will be for the soldiers who are killed? Doesn't Obama get to make this decision, and then go home to the comfortable confines of a butlered White House, while thousands of Americans will be sent 7,000 miles from home to face their potential deaths? Isn't the latter "harder" than the former?
- Where's the antiwar movement and the marches and the organizing and the protesting? Where's all those well-funded groups that protested George W. Bush's war policy? Or was all that really just about hating George Bush and embracing blind Partisan War Syndrome?
- In the days and weeks after this speech, will the White House's cynical new spin get ever more desperate and become, hey - at least an Afghanistan escalation holds out the possibility of making sure military combat casualties start outpacing military suicides?
- Simple budget question: Should we now believe that escalating the Afghanistan War at the same annual cost of universal health care will save more than 45,000 Americans a year (ie. the number of Americans who die every year for lack of health insurance)?
- Did CNN really turn a move to send thousands of Americans to potentially die in Central Asia into an over-stylized, hyper-marketed television show called "Decision Afghanistan?" Is the media really that soulless, or did my eyes betray me? Because it's really hard for me to believe that even in this cynical age, a television network tried to make a cheap reality-TV show out of life-and-death decision that could affect tens of thousands of people.
- Which is worse - a stupid person like George W. Bush starting a dumb occupation, or a smart person like Barack Obama following the lead of that stupid person, but actually escalating that occupation?
- The "we're going to escalate war to end war" refrain throughout the speech - have we heard that before somewhere? It sounds sorta like "we'll burn down the Vietnam villages to save them." Just curious if that's what we're talking about here - because, ya know, that worked out really well.
- Are we really expected to believe that massively escalating a war is the way to end a war? I mean, really? Like, is the public really looked at like we're that stupid? And a follow-up question: Are we really that stupid?
- If Obama's Afghan War strategy about escalating a war to end a war was a self-help strategy for, say, alcoholics, wouldn't it prescribe drinking more whiskey to stop drinking - and wouldn't we all laugh at that?
- How many pundits will insist that bowing down to the Military-Industrial complex and escalating this missionless war somehow shows "resolve" and "strength" and "toughness" and "leadership" and not embarrassing weakness?
- Would the Obamaphiles now telling us to "give President Obama a chance" with this decision and/or defending Obama's escalation - would these same people be saying we should "give President McCain a chance" and/or defending President McCain's escalation if he was the one in office making this decision?
David Sirota - Columnist, Creators Syndicate
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Obama's Third War- Pakistan
Obama quietly authorises expansion of war in Pakistan
Washington, Dec 2 (PTI):
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/39019/obama-quietly-authorises-expansion-war.html
As the US announced deepening of its involvement in Afghanistan by despatching 30,000 more troops, President Barack Obama has quietly authorised an expansion of war against terrorism in Pakistan under which CIA would widen its campaign of strikes against militants by unmanned drones.
The expanded operations by the CIA could include drone strikes in the southern province of Baluchistan, where senior Afghan Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding, New York Times reported today quoting officials.
CIA has submitted its plan to widen its campaign in Pakistan to the White House and has asked for commitment to jack up the agency's budget for operations inside the country.
CIA also wants to send more spies into the terrorist infested areas in Pakistan's tribal belt to try to infiltrate into groups like Taliban and other foreign militant groups.
But the Times said, Obama Administration was aware that any expansion of overt American presence in Pakistan could fuel anti-Americanism in a country that fears that US is plotting to run its government and seize its nuclear weapons.
So, the paper said Obama officials were working to get a weak, divided and suspicious Pakistani government to agree to the terms.
New York Times quoting US officials said that authorising drone strikes in Baluchistan was also planned as Americans believe that it is from there that top Taliban leaders direct many of the attacks on their troops in Afghanistan and that these are likely to increase as more US troops pour into the country.
The President endorsed intensification of the campaign against the al-Qaeda and its violent allies including even more operations targeting terrorist safe havens.
This message was delivered recently to Pakistani leaders and officials by General James Jones, the National Security Adviser. But the Pakistanis suspicious of Obama's intension have not yet agreed.
In his address to the cadets at the West Point Academy, the US President said that the murky border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan offers refuge to extremists of many strifes.
Obama identified the region as the birthplace of the September 11, 2001 attacks and said it was from here that new attacks are being plotted.
The stakes are much higher now, Obama said as al-Qaeda and other extremist groups were seeking nuclear weapons and "we have every reason to believe that they would use them.
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