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TechnoratiObama's Undeclared War Against Pakistan Continues, Despite His Attempt to Downplay It
In a new interview, Obama said he has “no intention” of sending US troops into Pakistan. But US troops are already in the country and US drones attack Pakistan regularly.
Three days after his inauguration, on January 23, 2009, President Barack Obama ordered US predator drones to attack sites inside of Pakistan, reportedly killing 15 people. It was the first documented attack ordered by the new US Commander in Chief inside of Pakistan. Since that first Obama-authorized attack, the US has regularly bombed Pakistan, killing scores of civilians. The New York Times reported that the attacks were clear evidence Obama "is continuing, and in some cases extending, Bush administration policy." In the first 99 days of 2009, more than 150 people were reportedly killed in these drone attacks. The most recent documented attack was reportedly last Thursday in Waziristan. Since 2006, the US drone strikes have killed 687 people (as of April). That amounts to about 38 deaths a month just from drone attacks.
![[]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/obamawars_scahill.jpg "obamawars_scahill.jpg")
The use of these attack drones by Obama should not come
as a surprise to anyone who followed his presidential campaign closely.
As a candidate, Obama made clear that Pakistan's sovereignty was
subservient to US interests, saying he would attack with or without
the approval of the Pakistani government. Obama said if the US had
"actionable intelligence" that "high value" targets were in Pakistan,
the US would attack. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, echoed
those sentiments on the campaign trail and "did not rule out U.S.
attacks inside Pakistan, citing the missile attacks her husband,
then-President Bill Clinton, ordered against Osama bin Laden in
Afghanistan in 1998. ‘If we had actionable intelligence that Osama bin
Laden or other high-value targets were in Pakistan I would ensure that
they were targeted and killed or captured,' she said."
Last weekend, Obama granted his first extended interview with a Pakistani media outlet, the newspaper Dawn:
Responding to a question about drone attacks inside Pakistan's tribal zone, Mr Obama said he did not comment on specific operations.‘But I will tell you that we have no intention of sending US troops into Pakistan. Pakistan and its military are dealing with their security issues.'
There are a number of issues raised by this brief response offered by Obama. First, the only difference between using these attack drones and using actual US soldiers on the ground is that the soldiers are living beings. These drones sanitize war and reduce the US death toll while still unleashing military hell disproportionately on civilians. The bottom line is that the use of drones inside the borders of Pakistan amounts to the same violation of sovereignty that would result from sending US soldiers inside the country. Obama defended the attacks in the Dawn interview, saying:
"Our primary goal is to be a partner and a friend to Pakistan and to allow Pakistan to thrive on its own terms, respecting its own traditions, respecting its own culture. We simply want to make sure that our common enemies, which are extremists who would kill innocent civilians, that that kind of activity is stopped, and we believe that it has to be stopped whether it's in the United States or in Pakistan or anywhere in the world."
Despite Obama's comments about respecting Pakistan "on its own terms," this is how Reuters recently described the arrangement between Pakistan and the US regarding drone attacks:
U.S. ally Pakistan objects to the U.S. missile strikes, saying they violate its sovereignty and undermine efforts to deal with militancy because they inflame public anger and bolster support for the militants.Washington says the missile strikes are carried out under an agreement with Islamabad that allows Pakistani leaders to publicly criticise the attacks. Pakistan denies any such agreement.
Pakistan is now the biggest recipient of US aid with the House of Representatives recently approving a tripling of money to Pakistan to about $1.5 billion a year for five years. Moreover, US special forces are already operating inside of Pakistan, along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Baluchistan. According to the Wall Street Journal, US Special Forces are:
training Pakistan's Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force responsible for battling the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, who cross freely between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the officials said. The U.S. trainers aren't meant to fight alongside the Pakistanis or accompany them into battle, in part because there will be so few Special Forces personnel in the two training camps.A senior American military officer said he hoped Islamabad would gradually allow the U.S. to expand its training footprint inside Pakistan's borders.
In February, The New York Times reported that US forces are also engaged in other activities inside of Pakistan:
American Special Operations troops based in Afghanistan have also carried out a number of operations into Pakistan's tribal areas since early September, when a commando raid that killed a number of militants was publicly condemned by Pakistani officials. According to a senior American military official, the commando missions since September have been primarily to gather intelligence.
It is clear-and has been for a long time- that the Obama administration is radically expanding the US war in Afghanistan deeply into Pakistan. Whether it is through US military trainers (that's what they were called in Vietnam too), drone attacks or commando raids inside the country, the US is militarily entrenched in Pakistan. It makes Obama's comment that "[W]e have no intention of sending US troops into Pakistan" simply unbelievable.
For a sense of how significant US operations are and will continue to be for years and years to come, just look at the US plan to build an almost $1 billion massive US "embassy" in Islamabad, which is reportedly modeled after the imperial city they call a US embassy in Baghdad. As we know very clearly from Iraq, such a complex will result in an immediate surge in the deployment of US soldiers, mercenaries and other contractors.
50 Comments so far
Show AllThe "Obama Wars" poster could say more than anyone.
'Obama said if the US had "actionable intelligence" that "high value" targets were in Pakistan, the US would attack.'
What would happen if those same "high-value targets" were in Uzbekistan? In Iran? In China?
I dunno. Seems to me that the words Obama and impeach in the same sentence are becoming less mutually exclusive each day.
Surely there are a couple "high value targets" in North Korea, no? How come the U.S. is so reluctant to pick a fight with somebody that can fight back? Isn't that just a bit cowardly, going around the world beating up on the weak? Oh. I forgot. We are bringing them democracy. I hope they like our version of it.
Cannot help but wonder, What in hell do they teach students in the Ivy Leagues? Are they all for War and making money?
Begin with George HW Bush, Clinton, Bush Jr, and now our saviour, Obama, who is bombing Pakistan and Afghanistan...
Time for the working classes to remove themselves from
Move-on and go on to Move-out of the Democratic party.
Let us sit the next election out and see how many of our
fearless leaders get elected.
Obviously "Ethics" must be an elective seminar at these schools.
"Ric Tailcap June 23rd, 2009 11:56 am
Had Saddam Hussein sold that license and the license to extract oil at below market rates too, he'd still be in power. In other words, if he would have sold his country out he'd be alive today gainfully employed working for the good guys, the USA."
WHAT is the point of saying that, as if anyone can't easily firgure it out for themselves; that Saddam Hussein [should] have sold out to the ruling elites of the U.S. government? I don't think it's what was meant, but there's otherwise no point in the above words, for there's nothing informative about them.
Another article at CD for June 22nd is about the new U.S. cmder in Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal, saying he's ordering greater restrictions or control over air strikes and he's a special ops, black ops, military "man" or beast. Expect, I believe anyway, greater emphasis on the black "special" ops if there's a real decrease in airstrikes. And don't expect, I believe anyway, a lessening in the psychopathic criminality of the U.S. in all or any of this.
He's of the likes of the Operation Phoenix fiends, and one or two good resources or references on this are stated in my post just before this one.
Very good article, one to certainly appreciate, and what it illustrates is, again, the agenda of the real ruling "elites" of the government of the U.S.A. and whatever they control or else influence so strongly through it that it's nearly having full control of this 'it', like, f.e., the IMF to a strong degree, and the World Bank, rather entirely, but also the UNSC and therefore much of the UN, what it's allowed to do and not; well, it illustrates their agenda for seriously trying to achieve "full spectrum dominance", which some people refer to as "global dominance".
"Full spectrum" is, perhaps anyway, more fitting due to being a little more precise in terms of meaning; as opposed to "global". "Full spectrum" means militarily, including the U.S. plan for militarising space, as well as geographically globally, worldwide, and economically, while all of this requires also the geopolitical aspect. "Global dominance" may not quite as immediately infer the full scope of the spectrum referred to in "full spectrum dominance"; or so I'm conjecturing for now, anyway.
John Pilger's documentary investigation and report "War on Democracy" is fitting enough for reference, and former CIA agent John Stockwell has a definitely fitting lecture in both video and transcript formats at InformationClearningHouse.info, a 1987 lecture in which he tells much about secret CIA black ops.
More specifically relevant with respect to "full spectrum" dominance are two pieces. One is the video presentation Pepe Escobar did for TheRealNews.com and for which there's a copy at Youtube. The other piece is the following.
""Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order"
Review of F. William Engdahl's book",
by Stephen Lendman, June 22, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14046
Another recent piece by Stephen Lendman that is a fitting reference is the following one.
"Afghanistan's Operation Phoenix",
by Stephen Lendman, June 17, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13999
John Stockwell provides a fair bit of information on the secrets of the blackness of Op. Phoenix, which the U.S. government LIED to everyone, the public, about, having deceitfully pretended this was about aide when the U.S. government heads definitely knew this was not about aide at all. It was HELL operating.
And Dahr Jamail recently enough wrote at least a couple of articles on the HTS of the U.S. DoD or Pentagon, its new Human Terrain System program or operation using sociopathic, and worse, anthropologists, socio-psychologists, ... who'll be soldiers in apparence and accompanying U.S. military units and their operations.
"Full spectrum dominance" [is] the plan.
>>
Pakistan is now the biggest recipient of US aid with the House of Representatives recently approving a tripling of money to Pakistan to about $1.5 billion a year for five years.
<<
Elsewhere I have read that foreign aid to Israel averages $2.8 billion a year. Something doesn't square up.
Overall, some excellent commentary in this thread.
Jeremey Scahill-- "As a candidate, Obama made clear that Pakistan's sovereignty was subservient to US interests,"
Pakistans sovereignty has always been subserviant to U.S. interests. If you replace Pakistan with any other country in the world, this staement will still hold true. Obama will never challenge this basic tenet of American 'values'. If anyone on the Left or Right expected him to do so they are being delusional.
What Jeremy never states clearly is the complicity of the Pakistani Generals in perpetuating this embrace. By sidestepping it he essentially absolves them of any blame and that's just not acceptable.
Pakistans Generals and ISI have been as guilty as the U.S. in bringing their own country to the brink of disaster. Pushtuns on both sides of the border as well as the victims of terror in South Asia have the Pakistani Military and ISI to blame for their sorrows.
Yes, I think that you are right regarding the Pakistani generals.
That is what I was referring to in one of my earlier posts below. They basically sold the USA a license to kill Pakistanis (and others who happen to be on Pakistan's territory) and to meddle in the affairs of the country.
Had Saddam Hussein sold that license and the license to extract oil at below market rates too, he'd still be in power. In other words, if he would have sold his country out he'd be alive today gainfully employed working for the good guys, the USA.
Actually he did and was very cozy with the U.S. (remember Rummy) until he sort of ... got out of hand ! The Dons then decided he gotta go.
riddimboy, when you said, "Obama will never challenge this basic tenet of American 'values'", it reminded me of Simone Weil's insightful comment, which was certainly related to her experiences with the NAZI EMPIRE in Germany:
"What a country (or worse, an Empire) calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war."
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
It's a simple plan. Once the natives are pacified, Monsanto and ADM will start planting GM wheat and corn (after all the rivers are dammed up), factory farms will proliferate, cattle will roam the foothills, and McD's and Burger King will compete with Taco Bell and Dunkin Doughnuts on every corner. Soon the population will balloon to obesity, heart disease and diabetes will become epidemic and young American doctors will move in to become the drug pushers for Big Pharma. Of course we'll need the regions oil for all this civilizing.
It is truly sickening onto death.
It seems to me that the Washington ruling class has taken a big step over the edge into complete madness. How can it be that nuclear weapons have lost their deterrence? We are bombing, repeatedly, a nation that is a nuclear power. Pakistan has hundreds of nukes. They don't need ICBMs to get one into the U.S. One of those cheap drug running miniature submarines would do quite nicely to place a nuke in San Pedro harbor or up the Hudson near the George Washington bridge.
If we keep killing innocent civilians with our remote control airplanes in Pakistan it is only a matter of time until we suffer the ultimate retaliation. Pakistan cannot withstand millions of internally displaced citizens as a result of U.S. actions indefinitely without radicals who will take military action against us coming to power. Pakistan is a big, complex country and its citizens have a lot of pride.
Incidentally, I was in tribal Pakistan when Obama made his comments about bombing Pakistan if he felt like it. I don't think it was very big news here, but, I assure you, it was the banner headline in the papers there.
The Enemy to the United States is any country that dare to defy what is demanded. Terrorist are the ones who dare fight back a against aggession. The United States now practice all that other countries were condemned in doing. Nazi Germany for one, invading what ever country they chose.
The price for Pakistan's being "now the biggest recipient of US aid with the House of Representatives recently approving a tripling of money to Pakistan to about $1.5 billion a year for five years" is that the U.S. now has license to kill Pakistan's citizens at its own discretion. A sweet deal, ain't it?
Of course, one may wonder who those Pakistanis are that made that deal.
Obama sez:
"... and we believe that it [whatever the U.S. considers to be terrorism] has to be stopped whether it's in the United States or in Pakistan or anywhere in the world."
Thank you, Savior Obama, for taking care of them evil terrorists "anywhere in the world."
Nobody's safe without Obama's watching over the whole planet.
Let's face it: the United States is the indispensable nation, the one without which the whole place would sink into murderous chaos.
The United States is the guarantor of law and order.
How come Obama be the only dude in the world to talk that way?
During the same time frame that US is bombing Pakistan with drones and Pakistani officials declare the US ...."... violate its sovereignty and undermine efforts to deal with militancy because they inflame public anger and bolster support for the militants.".... al Qaeda leader says secure Pakistan nuclear weapons and use them in the fight against the US.
..."God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans and the mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans," Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the leader of al Qaeda's in Afghanistan, said in an interview with Al Jazeera television.
Abu al-Yazid was responding to a question about U.S. safeguards to seize control over Pakistan's nuclear weapons in case Islamist fighters came close to doing so.
"We expect that the Pakistani army would be defeated (in Swat) ... and that would be its end everywhere, God willing."....
http://alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LL556282.htm
I often wonder how it is that politicians,"W", Cheney, ...or Obama, do not hear themselves described in their own words as they speak them, and that they do not catch the tragic irony: Obama says, "...extremists who would kill innocent civilians, that that kind of activity is stopped, and we believe that it has to be stopped whether it's in the United States or in Pakistan or anywhere in the world."
And ~150 people (including many innocent civilians) have been killed since January 2009 by missiles fired from US drones. I agree with Obama that this activity (this killing of innocent civilians) must be stopped!
I wonder: how do we get our politicians to see themselves at the same time they point their accusing fingers at others?
----------
And, yes, I clearly remember, bombing Pakistan was one of Obama's campaign promises. I remember wondering at the time, was this a false promise designed to win favor from the sector of our society that believes in the efficacy of military might, or did he really believed in what he was saying? The answer to my question is now clear.
----------
I am consistently bewildered and horrified how people - including Obama and Congress - can rationalize bombing people (literally shredding and crushing people's bodies) without apparent empathy for the devastation and suffering.
One part of me cynically remands that I must, based on the evidence, accept this horror as human nature; another part of me clings to knowing, also based on experiential evidence, that human beings are innately designed for and capable of empathy.
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I also wonder, do our politicians genuinely not see peaceful means of resolving conflicts, or do they not want to resolve conflicts peacefully? Does their violence arise from lack of information, from lack of belief, or from lack of perceived freedom to resolve conflicts peacefully?
You said it beautifully...Thankyou!
peace808, you wonder, "I am consistently bewildered and horrified how people - including Obama and Congress - can rationalize bombing people (literally shredding and crushing people's bodies) without apparent empathy"?
Are you kidding?
peace, I am bewildered how you can imagine that the ruling-elite 'corporate financial Empire' the controls our country (and war machinery) behind the facade of its two-party 'Vichy' sham of democracy could possibly even perceive what "empathy" is --- let alone exhibit any empathy.
peace, this is an EMPIRE you are talking about -- and a global elite corporate Empire at that.
Empire can't feel "empathy" ---- are you crazy?
Corporations can't feel "empathy" --- are you delusional?
Elitists (and sociopaths) by nature can't feel anything like "empathy" --- have you ever known a true elitist who felt empathy??
peace, you could just as well be "bewildered" that the NAZI EMPIRE showed no "apparent empathy".
Let's start showing a little reality and candor about what we are dealing with here, peace (and any others similarly unaware of the nature of EMPIRE).
Any confusion about the nature of EMPIRE, and any such mis-guided attempts to "personify" Empire as normal and human-like in its behavior are not only irrational and ineffective, but also dangerous to those committed to the kinds of actions that it will take to take-down this final, perfected, and most dangerous form of EMPIRE ever to occur in our world.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
PS. Sorry for being a bit harsh, peace. But just because the ruling-elite 'corporate financial Empire' (nominally headquartered in the US (U.K. Israel, and other former nation-states) has not yet thrust the tip of its spear deeply into the faces and eyes of people who are nominally citizens in the countries in which it controls power, and just because it temporarily utilizes a somewhat 'friendly' form of fascism in the countries it operates from, does not mean that it would not deploy tow-trucks with wire rope nooses in an instant to choke the life out of you and yours if it sensed the need to treat your life with the exact same disdain and utter contempt with which it treats Iraqis, Afghanistanis, and other subjects in its overseas territories who get in the way of its financial and geo-strategic goals.
peace808 and amacd nice dialog thanks. What fascinates me is the apparent blindness to the empire's inhumanity by people who would normally be considered paradigms of empathy: the elementary school teachers I work with.
The treachery and cruelty the empire visits on third world peoples completely eludes them because it's being carried out by the charismatic Obama. I kid you not.
Today, one of them, Mr. Murphy, Murphy's Law I guess, actually said that Obama wants to end the wars but can't just yet. He was insinuating that he would, as soon as he could, but that Obama's sincere desire to end the wars was beyond question.
When I inquired how it was he planned to end a war by sending more troops, he responded, "Oh, you're referring to Afghanistan. That's different, it's the Taliban." When I told him we had dirtied hands in creating them as an offshoot of the mujahideen that we supported against the Soviets, that we had supplied Saddam with WMD to use against the Iranians, and that the MIC had a vested interest in continuing the wars for profit and Obama was obliging, he looked puzzled, remained silent a minute, then responded that if he were Obama he wouldn't be taking on the MIC in his first term either.
I guess he, like supposedly Obama, think it's better to continue the wars than risk the consequences. In other words, Obama's actions are justified because he can't buck the system yet. I guess eventually Murphys will argue that we are supposed to support his reelection because that is when he will grow a nice, big fat, pair of balls and stand up the MIC (he will have nothing to lose). Sure he will, I said, the excuse then will be that he doesn't want to blow it for the next Democrat, so the war will continue.
So, like frogs that never jumped out of the slowly warming waters, they got cooked. These normally empathetic citizens, have fallen hook-line-sinker for the absurd notion that Obama is actually an agent of peace but has his hands temporarily tied and just needs more time. The innocents that get killed in the meantime are what to Mr. Murphy? Well-intentioned mistakes? Collateral damage? You figure.
The important part to keep in mind is that this is not some moron speaking, Mr. Murphy is a college educated "professional" and he is completely in the mainstream. This mentality is what we are up against. God help us.
I wonder if he watches Fox Channel. I'll have to ask him.
I don't mind the harshness. I appreciate your point and the level of danger. If I am hearing you correctly, you are saying basically, it's dangerous to look for empathy from an inhumane institutional structure - that in this organizational structure, the militarism and corporate structures in our government that you call EMPIRE, the human beings involved in the structure are blinded to suffering, they lose their capacity for empathy, in the pursuit of the institutional financial and geo-strategic goals. Did I get that right?
A couple questions for you:
I am curious as to what you mean by the "the kinds of actions that it will take to take-down this final, perfected, and most dangerous form of EMPIRE"? What kinds of actions do you imagine would be effective and how?
And, do you consider it dangerous to chip away at the foundations of EMPIRE by cultivating (re-awakening) the capacity for empathy within the human beings who currently support (in a myriad of ways) EMPIRE's inhumane institutional structures?
Do you see value, as I do, in seeing the humanness (including their capacity for empathy) in the people involved in advancing EMPIRE while also realistically seeing and candidly naming the inhumanity of the EMPIRE itself?
peace808, I'll answer your last question first --- No, I do not see humanness in those "advancing EMPIRE", since empire is an abomination of 'humanness' --- like cancer is an abomination of life.
Thus my answer to your first question is that the "kinds of actions" to diagnose and confront Empire throughout history and today have been that same kinds of actions that are effectively used against cancer --- to excise it (and to do so before it can hide and metastasize).
peace, the following are two letters from readers of WSWS, who may explain their attitudes toward elite Empire with more emotional and sensitive insight than I have been able to convey. I thought that Carolyn and 'RH' explain the elite (sociopathic) ‘will to power’ embodied in actions such as economic oppression and torture from an historical perspective with a more humanitarian insight might resonate with your own.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/corr-j23.shtml
On “Obama calls for cuts in Medicare and Medicaid”
"This is abominable. I’m speechless! Obama has now openly admitted that he is perfectly willing to let people languish and die to preserve the profits of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. I would like to hear, now, all of the Obama apologists explain to me how this is “change you can believe in”! All I can envision at this moment is death creeping over the nation. Cut Medicare and Medicaid? Tax the already shrinking health benefits provided by decreasing jobs at lower wages? These people couldn’t do a better job of fomenting a revolution if they tried.
Like the aristocrats in France in the 18th century, today’s ruling elite cares nothing for the vast majority of human beings, who to them are just working units to sweep the floors and clean the toilets—the famous “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” Well, we all know what happened to the aristocrats of France—and of Russia, for that matter!
The combination of anger and despair washing over me at this moment surely will be felt by the rest of the working population. The Obama supporters keep repeating, “give him time.” Well, he’s had time and now we see what he’s done with it. How much more time are they willing to give him to utterly destroy them?
The assault on the lives of working people can no longer be tolerated. The approaching dystopia in which we are expected to live cannot be allowed to come to fruition. Workers must raise their voices as one in a loud “Basta!” Enough!"
Carolyn
California, USA
16 June 2009
On “Obama smoothes passage of war spending bill by pledging to suppress torture photos”
"Since it first came to light, the issue of torture has nagged me with a persistent question: why? Why would the Bush/Cheney regime risk challenging not only the Geneva Conventions, the Declaration of Human Rights and other consensus documents, treaties and agreements as well as the overwhelming anthropologic and historical evidence of what men do to other men to carry out these practices, unilaterally asserted in name of the USA?
I cannot help thinking that, at the base lies legal precedent and the establishment of a “legal space” to allow complete and total freedom of action with regard to an individual’s psychological and emotive processes in distinction to his or her material basis. Besides the significance of this in our own epoch and the pretexts offered to defend “enhanced interrogation techniques” and other euphemisms, lies a particular historical basis in universal questions surrounding the “soul-body” dichotomy and its radical division into two separate entities and the assertion of ruling classes of all ages of unilateral authority over some individual(s) when deemed autocratically justified. Instructive in these things would be the Stalin purges and treatment of “deviationists” not in accord with his and his bureaucracy’s domestic/foreign policies and programs.
Our current “debates” will continue, yet at base, these practices have so far remained un-addressed, unchallenged legally either domestically or by the other core powers. It is a dangerous, barbaric and completely irrational “window” to leave open. It legalizes autocratic rule in the manner of patriarchy or monarchy resting upon idiosyncratic and ultimately irrational premises. That those who planned, designed and carried out (and I’m relatively certain they continue) these policies and practices walk free among the people is an insult to humanity impossible to translate into language."
RH
15 June 2009
In any case, peace, peace to you and yours.
Alan
I don't think you will EVER find empathy from these clowns.
They are up to their eyebrows in lies and deceit, they ARE lies and deceit.
I won't waste my time with people like that.
I'm afraid they don't want to "resolve conflicts" at all. They use conflict to extend their own power and wealth, which in some way makes them feel better about themselves, or safer or something. All the reasons they give for their militarism are rationalizations.
I wonder at what point in his life Obama began to think of himself as OBAMA.
Speaking of false titles - War is War, whether BO "declares" it or not.
If Pakistan sent drones to D.C. and rained Hellfire missiles down upon "suspected" terrorists in Georgetown, that would be considered an act of War.
If N.Korea lobs a few missiles into Honolulu - act of War? Of course...
If Mexico dropped a few 2000 lb bombs into Houston in pursuit of a drug lord - act of War.
And when WE bomb a non-threatening sovereign nation, it's an act of War, whether BO wants to call it a happy liberation party or not...
And of course we are at war with Pakistan. We are dropping bombs there. What else can one call it? Well, actually OBAMA has fomented CIVIL WAR in Pakistan.
It's a genocidal slaughter of the Pashtuns for a pipeline.
And for Israel.
You have explained the entire thing in ten words.
BARACK OBAMA is just following orders as the hand-picked lackey of The Powerful. Just follow the money and who profits from all of this Perpetual Warfare.
From dreams of Camelot to Obyssmalot's Abyssmalot.
As a resident global citizen of Planet Earth, NOT IN MY NAME do you create more Killing Fields and more pain and suffering for my fellow beings and all the earth's living things.
There is something seriously wrong with all of you who confer and agree on what you are perpetrating. There is something seriously wrong with your minds and your hearts ... that this is what you come up with as some kind of reasonable plan to manage whatever it is you think you are managing for the betterment of this nation and this world.
Frankly, I am stunned almost every day by the sheer stupidity and callousness of what is being decided by those in authority, including those psychologically twisted partners from other nations who reiterate and reiterate their paranoid or greedy fantasies like a broken record. When did the pharmaceutical companies start manufacturing EVIL pills to sprinkle on the luncheon salads?
You who happen to be governing us now, in no way, represent the best possibilities for this country or the world. With all the flaws and warts and mistakes of past policies, one would think we would have learned something. ... But, oh, I keep forgetting ... it's about POWER, CONTROL, MONEY ... the centuries'-old MANTRA.
... AND, it's also all about the kind of sickness of soul that has marked every horror figure or collection of horror figures in history who have brought grief to humankind.
When the imagination gets caught in some dark, narrow tunnel and all that is life-affirming is absent, one can clearly hear the death knells for today, tomorrow and the future, ... except we're running out of time.
NOT IN MY NAME
Carol K. Littlebrant
Planet Earth
******************************************************
Humans are members
of the same body,
all created from
the same essence.
If one limb is in pain,
others cannot be at ease.
If you are indifferent
to other people's pain,
you cannot be called
a human.
-Saadi-
(13th century Persian poet)
Carol, thanks for the Persian poem --- reminds me of Simone Weil.
Alan
Good!!!
I support any war against any country that enslaves half (or more) of the population.
Next Stop Saudie Arabia!
Bombs need ammonium nitrate to be produced. Ammonium nitrate is basic fertilizer. The nation may have to make a choice. It could be that the Chinese will determine which by investing all their spare money in one or the other industry.
Ammonium nitrate is used for improvised (terrorist) devices but not required for regular munitions such as TNT.
Obama is just another slick politican who lied so that people would vote for him. How many promises has he broken so far?
As someone stated I don't know why anyone is surprised as he broke his promises during the campaign when first he said he wasn't going to vote for FISA and then he did. That was an eye opener for me so I knew then he couldn't be trusted to keep his word. Yet, people believed him to be honest and that he would end the war and bring the troops home.
Real Liberals and Progressives I think are waking up to the truth that they were sold a bill of goods and were fooled. Hopefully, this will encourage and inspire them to form a real progressive party and leave the fake Democratic party behind, because the Democrats are not going to bring us real change.
To a considerable extent, the attacks on the US on 9/11 were little more than predator drones more precisely aimed. As our predator drone's continue to take civilian lives, it becomes obvious that the old cliché is true. "Choose your enemies wisely, for you become more like them."
As far as Pakistan being the country receiving the largest amount of US foreign aid. It is ironic that the country who comes in second is Israel. Neither of these countries have shown any effectiveness in achieving peace, nor neutralizing the violence that confronts them. They are both examples of "malicious incompetence". The dollar value of the aid exceeds the goal of its intent. Failure breeds a continuing cash cow.
>>
Neither of these countries have shown any effectiveness in achieving peace, nor neutralizing the violence that confronts them.
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I think the real intent of the aid is to keep the strife active and ongoing. The Straussian neoconservative policy, of which Obama is obviously a believer, demands constant warfare and deceit of the populace.
EKATON, precisely, "demands constant warfare and deceit of the populace".
"What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war." Simone Weil.
-- We simply want to make sure that our common enemies, which are extremists who would kill innocent civilians, that that kind of activity is stopped --
Sometimes he even sounds like Dubya.
And notice that he has to try to identify who 'our common enemies' are. We've been fighting a war against these enemies for over 7 years and the President still feels the need to identify who it is that we are fighting against. Who is it, again? Oh, yeah, that's right, the future terrorists ('extremists who WOULD kill').
We're fighting to prevent future terrorism, thanks to our despicable and corrupt Congress-monkeys who set that as the military's goal and refuse to clean up their mess.
The enemy is ANYONE who "hates" the U.S.
Apparently, the Obama administration thinks the enemy is anything that isn't a corporation.
What a false title.
Obama declared that he was going to bomb Pakistan during the Democratic Primary!!!
I guess you weren't listening to him...
Hello SteelGray, read Scahill's article again. He mentions Obamacain's campaign statement.
In terms of credibility, Obamacain in 120 days has reached the level Bush reached in a few years. One cannot believe a damn word he says.
Obama also defended Axelrod's attempt to blame Hillary Clinton for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Lynn Sweet's reaction is still online:
h**p://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/12/sweet_obama_says_no_i_i_i_i_i.html
But, you are right. Obama promised to bomb Pakistan, and that was the central point behind Axelrod/Obama's shot at Hillary Clinton --that because she voted for the use of force against Iraq, she left Central Asia and Pakistan open --- and that because of her judgment call, Bhutto is dead.
Interesting how things have gone since those days on the campaign trail. Seems like another world. Antiwar progressives/Change, yes we can... are now having to decide if they are going to sign up and do their part to secure the peace near, middle, very far east...(FUGS). The question is are they going to sign up to push America via gun or carrot...MIL and private contracts or Peacecorps and America Houses?
One thing is for sure, bombing Pakistan is one of the few campaign promises Obama has managed to keep.