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Neo-Cons Get Warm and Fuzzy Over "War President"
WASHINGTON - U.S. President Barack Obama's plan for a 30,000-troop surge and a troop withdrawal timeline beginning in 18 months has caught criticism from both Democrat and Republican lawmakers.
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks with army cadets after speaking about Afghanistan policy at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, December 1, 2009. Neo-con hawkish foreign policy experts - who have lobbied the White House since August to escalate U.S. involvement in Afghanistan - are christening Obama the new "War President".
REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton But a small group of hawkish foreign policy experts - who have lobbied the White House since August to escalate U.S. involvement in Afghanistan - are christening Obama the new "War President".
The response to Obama's Tuesday night speech at the West Point Military Academy has largely been less than enthusiastic, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle finding plenty in the administration's Afghanistan plan that fails to live up to their expectations. Republicans have hammered the White House on Obama's decision to begin a drawdown of U.S. forces in 18 months, while Democrats largely expressed ambivalence or dismay over the administration's willingness to commit 30,000 more soldiers to a war seen by many as unwinnable and costly at a time when the U.S. economy is barely in recovery from the global financial crisis.
The White House's rollout of the 30,000 troop surge did little to convince an already skeptical Congress, but foreign policy hawks who have accused the president of "dithering" in making a decision on Afghanistan are praising the administration's willingness to make the "tough" commitment to escalate the U.S. commitment in the war in Afghanistan.
Indeed, their approval of the White House's decision to commit 30,000 troops is the culmination of a campaign led by the newly formed Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI).
FPI held its first event in March, titled "Afghanistan: Planning for Success", and a second event in September - "Advancing and Defending Democracy" - which focused on counterinsurgency in combating the Taliban and al Qaeda.
The newly formed group is headed up by the Weekly Standard's editor Bill Kristol; foreign policy adviser to the McCain presidential campaign Robert Kagan; and former policy adviser in the George W. Bush administration Dan Senor.
Kagan and Kristol were also co-founders and directors of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a number of whose 1997 charter members, including the elder Cheney, former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, and their two top aides I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Paul Wolfowitz, respectively, played key roles in promoting the 2003 invasion of Iraq and Bush's other first-term policies when the hawks exercised their greatest influence.
The core leadership of FPI has waged their campaign in countless editorials and columns published in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard.
These articles have often been highly critical, at times suggesting that Obama's unwillingness to give General Stanley McChrystal the 20,000 to 40,000 troops requested in his September report to Defense Secretary Robert Gates amounted to "dithering" and projected U.S. weakness to the Taliban, al Qaeda, and U.S. allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Senor described himself as, "pleasantly surprised" and "quite encouraged by the president's decision" in a Republican National Committee sponsored conference call.
"It seems to me that Obama deserves even more credit for courage than Bush did, for he has risked much more. By the time Bush decided to support the surge in Iraq in early 2007, his presidency was over and discredited, brought down in large part by his own disastrous decision not to send the right number of troops in 2003, 2004, 2005 or 2006," wrote Kagan in The Washington Post on Wednesday.
"Obama has had to make this decision with most of his presidency still ahead of him. Bush had nothing to lose. Obama could lose everything," Kagan concluded.
The theme of heralding Obama as a stoic decision-maker in the face of an administration and Congress that seek to "manage American decline" - as Kagan wrote - was also echoed by Bill Kristol in The Washington Post on Wednesday.
"By mid-2010, Obama will have more than doubled the number of American troops in Afghanistan since he became president; he will have empowered his general, Stanley McChrystal, to fight the war pretty much as he thinks necessary to in order to win; and he will have retroactively, as it were, acknowledged that he and his party were wrong about the Iraq surge in 2007 - after all, the rationale for this surge is identical to Bush's, and the hope is for a similar success. He will also have embraced the use of military force as a key instrument of national power," wrote Kristol.
The heralding of Obama as "A War President" - which was the title of Kristol's article in The Washington Post - is a striking change of tone from some of the same pundits who were vociferously attacking the administration for every major policy initiative as recently as last week.
"Just what is Barack Obama as president making of our American destiny? The answer, increasingly obvious, is...a hash. It's worse than most of us expected. His dithering on Afghanistan is deplorable, his appeasing of Iran disgraceful, his trying to heap new burdens on a struggling economy destructive. Add to this his sending Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for a circus-like court trial," wrote Kristol in the Nov. 23 edition of the Weekly Standard.
"The next three years are going to be long and difficult ones for our economy, our military and our country," he wrote.
The hawkish Wall Street Journal editorial board - which on Sept. 10 suggested that Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize because he sees the U.S. "as weaker than it was and the rest of the planet as stronger", and on Sept. 18 described the administration's decision to scrap a missile defence agreement with Poland and the Czech Republic as following "Mr. Obama's trend of courting adversaries while smacking allies" - also exhibited a noticeable change in tone in praising the White House's decision to surge troop levels.
"We support Mr. Obama's decision, and this national effort, notwithstanding our concerns about the determination of the president and his party to see it through. Now that he's committed, so is the country, and one of our abiding principles is that nations should never start (much less escalate) wars they don't intend to win," said the Journal's editorial board on Wednesday.
The board's qualified endorsement of the White House's war plan seems to reflect both the Republican concerns that Obama may use the 18-month deadline as an excuse to withdraw from Afghanistan before the Taliban and al Qaeda are defeated and foreign policy hawks - such as those at FPI - who are pleased with the administration's decision to commit more fully to the war in Afghanistan.
Hawks, such as Kagan and Kristol, may have to argue in 18 months for an extension of the withdrawal deadline but in similarly worded statements they both expressed confidence that this would not be a problem.
"If we and our Afghan allied partners are succeeding [by July 2011], the timing [of the withdrawal] may make sense. If we aren't it won't. It will not be any easier for Obama to embrace defeat in 18 months than it is today," wrote Kagan in the Washington Post in response to concerns about the timeline for withdrawal.
"[T]he July 2011 date also buys Obama time. It enables him to push off pressure to begin withdrawing, or to rethink the basic strategy, for 18 months. We've come pretty far from all the talk about off ramps at three or six-month intervals in 2010 that we were hearing just a little while ago," Kristol wrote on the Weekly Standard's blog on Tuesday.
For hawks like Kristol, Kagan and Senor who have been calling for a surge in U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan since August, Obama's announcement on Tuesday night was a high-point in their campaign of op-ed's, column's and conference's to push the Obama White House in the direction of an escalation in Afghanistan.
Kristol concluded his blog post on a confident note.
"In a way, Obama is now saying: We're surging and fighting for the next 18 months; see you in July 2011. That's about as good as we're going to get."
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52 Comments so far
Show AllSome of us knew he was going to be the next "War President" before November 2008.
You're either are for the war or against it. Obama is for the war (always has been, no surprise here). And now he is responsible for the war crimes that go along with these 'wars', but doesn't it feel much better under Obama than under Bush? Oh I know, we are just following orders.
The mock surprise that Obama is another war criminal is a nice touch.
Vote third party is you want change, vote democrate if you want more 'republican' policies. Actually substitute corporate for either democratic or repubican because that is who is really benefits.
..."Hawks, such as Kagan and Kristol"
Hawks? The author mis-uses the anthropomorphic metaphor. The more fitting one is Warpig or Vulture. I cannot envision a pale wrinkly old bastard like Kristol or Cheney looking like such a beautiful animal like a "hawk". I wish people would pay attention to the power of metaphor, and stop falling into the metaphorical frames of their political enemies.
I am glad that I am not the only one who saw the almost verbatim repetition of the necon lies. Those neocon lies have been discredited and exposed as fantasy, but who needs facts?
Obama lends renewed credibility to: Cheney/Perle/Wolfie/Kagan/Kristol et al.
Now that is change we can believe in
Sorry, but I think vultures are beautiful birds too. Ever hear of a condor? Porcine are intelligent clean (when given a chance) animals and have their place in nature, along with domestic pigs which we like to slaughter and eat. As far as I know they have never waged war. What these people are goes way beyond anything in the animal kingdom. I would say the nearest thing is the creature from the Movie 'Alien'.
Stop insulting the animal kingdom, you'll have to come up with something like "Staler" (Stalin and Hitler}
tough crowd here: how bout a pile of sh@# metaphor?
"The next three years are going to be long and difficult ones for our economy, our military and our country."
True. And difficult times calls for difficult measures.
Difficult Measure 1: The 'war' must be a cost-plus-zero operation. Due to the challenges facing our economy, Military Contractors must do their Patriotic War Duty and provide goods and services at cost until the 'war' is 'won.' The billions saved will strengthen our economy while removing the profiteer incentive that notoriously prolongs 'war' unnecessarily.
Difficult Measure 2: arrest all former PNAC members for crimes against the state, or at least ban them from ever writing or speaking in public again.
Honey, you really don't get the name of the game, which is profit. That's why your ideas, while intelligent and worthy, don't stand a chance. And in our 'democracy', you can't ban people from speaking their minds, even when they are mindless idiots supporting those who have no good in store for them, yelling and cursing and holding tea parties and otherwise making fools of themselves. You can arrest those progressives (otherwise known as leftists) who protest, but that's somehow different.
It's too late for good ideas. The only thing left is not such a good idea: revolution. Sad but true. We have been turned into a banana republic, only don't know it yet. We had best take a page out of the book of those leaders in Latin America who know all about dealing with banana republics.
I know, I've worked it out. BHO is planning to formally unite both Parties in '12 into the RepugliCrats and will run as the only candidate for all the people. His Repug friends can preemptively kill off any other contenders for King of America while his Dim friends can compliment his clean good looks, his handsome smile, and his well spoken winning manner, while America burns to the ground.
But truth is stranger then fiction, as the rich ruling class has Obama setup to take all the blame for our three big disasters, economy, medicine and National Debt.
And this shows just how brainwashed our self-absorbed majority really is, for the only way to break our enslavement by the rich is to go liberal, but surely this time next year the majority will demand that government go conservative all the way.
**yawn**
Bush was a buffoon to anyone with a mind. Obama is frightening. He's such a slick, good looking, articulate monster, the perfect figure head for our corporate society. Oh, and he's black too. What more could the powers that be ask for? I had high hopes, even though I knew they were silly, and even though I voted for Ralph. I even thought he might do some good for my people (homosexuals) in the military. My hopes have been dashed, and that infuriates me. The most you can say for Obama is that he's a Democrat rather than a Republican. That's not very high praise.
You're so right on, George. Obama is much, much scarier than bush. It was easy to oppose those in-your-face neocons--bush the idiot, cheney the soulless, inhuman warmonger--but it sure is difficult to oppose a democrat who talks so commandingly and is so charasmatic.
He's a Constitutional lawyer, for heaven's sake, OF COURSE he'll undo all the stuff bush did to human and civil rights; he comes from the working class, OF COURSE he'll support main street over wall street; he's a family man, OF COURSE he'll support the most effective and least costly way to health care reform like single payer or Medicare for all; he's both compassionate and smart, OF COURSE he'll join the ban on land mines and would only commit troops to war as a last resort....
Obama, elegant man, great actor, loyal to his buddies and tireless worker for their cause...and the most effective contrivance ever found to stifle opposition and ensure against mass protest.
Scarry!
At least I think he signed the new Hate Crimes bill.
One thing I consider is that the surge in troops could make it easier now for Obama to negotiate an end to the war, by giving him cover from the Chicken Hawks.
This year and next would be a good time for him to negotiate peace in the Middle East, If he wants it.
We'll See
Hope springs eternal.
Only when we realize that Obama punk'd his supporters and he never intended to do anything but his corporate masters' bidding will we have a chance for real change.
Lets vow not to be taken in by the charlatans in the Democratic Party. Instead, let's radicalize the political left and throw off the yoke of the lying fascists, like Obama.
Jim 4:28 -------- your hope would have some possibility expect for the fact that Obama has failed in almost every other endeavor for good and has succeded in almost all his negative endeavores.
Of course he signed the Hate Crimes Bill. It was attached to the war funding bill, which is why Kucinich ended up voting against it. Nice little trick that was, attaching an important bill like this -- a no-brainer for Dems and Obama to sign -- to another bill to continue the war crimes. When this was reported it was made to sound like this was a stand-alone bill, which it should have been.
OK, it should have been but that is the way most bills get passed.
Here are some things that are also good.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/30/progressives
_and_obama_are_doing_better_than_we_th/index.php
Our War economy will eat up the good things...
We don't have an alternative president now with 3 years to go, so stay active.
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/
"I even thought he might do some good for my people (homosexuals)..."
Okay, this is going too far.
I realize you probably didn't mean it this way, but lazy writing is -in my opinion- only excusable up to a point.
"homosexuals" canNOT be anyone's "people". For the simple reason that "homosexuals" (as Gore Vidal has pointed out it should really be Homosexual-ISTS, because that word is a noun) are not a "people" in any meaningful sense of the word.
Now, don't get angry with me, because I am on your side. But you my friend have been caught in a trap, been duped, tricked, and hornswaggled. And whether consciously or not, and in however small a way, you are working against the very ends that you must surely mean to be working for.
Extending Indentity to sexual habit or preference is one thing (which is also fraught with dangers for the true Liberal or Libertine) but concretizing that Identity so thoroughly in your mind that you come to think (however unconsciously) of the portion of a people who share that Identity as some wholly seperate and other "people" is quite another.
I am sure you think I am berating you for little or nothing, and that I am myself failing an essential test of Libertinism by doing so. Perhaps I am. But there is a reason for this. Look at the mental trap and goal-defeating contradiction that such (presumed) Deep Identification has resulted in in your post:
You actually write that you were hoping that Obama might do some "good" for Homosexualists in the military!
What "good" could that POSSIBLY be, pray tell?
Bringing them home from endless Imperial invasions and occupations in foreign lands?
Bringing to justice those who commited Crimes Against the Peace and Crimes Against Humanity by initiating such invasions and occupations?
Shutting down the bloated and destructive Imperium itself, and returning the U.S.A. to the status of Constitutional Republic, so that there may be some honor in service to its military organizations?
Ending the dominance of our Public sphere (Congress, Administration, Courts, and Treasury) by a minority of wealthy individuals and undead capital Corporations to the detriment of the majority and the People as a whole?
Mitigating the harshness and injustice of a capital and market system in which becoming a professional killer and risking one's life (I.E. joining the military) is one of the few options left for young people (not born into priviledge) to pursue if they do not wish to spend there lives in destitution and drudgery?
Is it any of these true "goods"?
Or is it merely what most who speak about "good" for "gays in the military" are interested in: their right to be as open and "out of the closet" in their Homosexualist Indentity as they are in their Military, "Patriot", or "American" ones?
If your honset answer to my last question is "yes", then hopefully you can see where you went wrong without further beratement from me.
Don't forget how those who work against what I presume are your libertine and social justice goals can and do manipulate such poorly thought-out attitudes and statements. They then become the means by which many who would be for the basic Democratic and Human Rights understandings that underly your (presumed) liberal views are turn against first your views, and then those understandings themselves.
/likely unnecessary and uncool lecture OFF.
-matti.
I was hoping that he would take away the burden of having to hide one's sexual preference, in other words, don't ask, don't tell. My statement was clear to lefties and neo-cons alike, but evidently not to pedants, lawyers, professors, and others who like to split hairs. Here's another consideration: at present the military is voluntary. But it hasn't always been, and might not always be. When I quit college and was subsequently called up for the draft back in the early 60s, I answered all the forms honestly (except the ones about suicide and having nightmares--I knew what was expected of the 'sick' homosexual) and was given a 1-Y deferment. That's what I was aiming for. I had been coached by some of my gay friends who also had no use for the little war heating up in Vietnam. I knew I'd never be asking for a federal or state job so a I-Y was of little consequence to me. But there were thousands of gay men who were drafted, and many of them were kicked out of the service after being just as dedicated and courageous as their straight counterparts. This also happened during the second WW.
Personally, I think a gay man or woman who joins our volunteer military is misguided and a fool. I am against war and definitely against our military/industrial complex. I hate what these 'little' incursions of ours are doing to our children, not to mention the grief they are causing in what modern gobbledygook calls collateral damage. But that's not what I was talking about when I said I hoped Obama would do something about the position of gays in the military. It was an example of a broken promise, one that was of personal importance.
Reporter Eli Clifton, is he so dense as to not know that paid actor politicians run a make believe government, that corporate owned and funded media is the brainwash element of our enslaving government?
For an absolute, and if a reporter is not using new light to force new darkness to give way, then he is in the process of generating the newest and latest darkness that will surely force old light to give way.
Are you a photoatomic physicist now, too? Or are you just a snarky asshole?
"...if a reporter is not using new light to force new darkness to give way, then he is in the process of generating the newest and latest darkness that will surely force old light to give way." –(Alabama_john)
–A nice turn of phrase. In America it is all about generating darkness in all things. You are right to say that even light is merely an aspect of darkness in the American chiaroscuro. However– for more accuracy and emphasis– one may add that the darkness is all in the red of the blood pigment.
Rendering 'blood' is what America is about. As in Blackwater, as in Black light. The Blood Meridian. Yes. Even the light is black.
–(Jill Bains)
One wonders how a Kristol or a Kagan can wield such "Influence" in foreign policy matters given their "station" in life.
In truth they are merely the public face of those wielding the true power from the background. They are puppets dancing to anothers tune.
Puppet is too nice a word. I think of them as lackeys.
Obama looks like a scared confused kid in the photo...
Not saying he is...just saying that's what he looks like in the photo...
Deer in the headlights, if I ever saw one!
The next big move for the Obama's is to join the religious sect called the Family.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
To me Obama looks increasingly haggard, consumed with worry and very, very afraid. I think either CIA/NSA spooks or Pentagon "consultants" who are ex-spooks and/or former military special forces types now working for the MIC/Petroleum oligarchs have this guy on a very tight choker with his family and everyone that means anything to him under their threat of "extreme prejudice."
He behaves as if he is the hostage of a shadow "business coup" government who has almost succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome but yet quite enough to visibly lose all his fear and loathing. Either that or he is a Manchurian Candidate and the drugs aren't being administered with enough regularity.
kw
I had the same impression from the picture: A small boy who is very, very afraid. Actually sad. But in the end these are all minute impressions. Intelligence is not shown by the absence of mistakes but by the inability to learn through mistakes.
Obama looks healthy as ever, and surely coming out of Chicago ganster politics he knew exactly what to expect, he being the paid actor President of Empire USA.
Whatever the aspect of Obama's visage may reveal, is that the plausible scenario you outline would be the same for any American President, as a matter of course.
No one can be President of the United States without an a priori and knowing intent to effect the fascist agenda that is the American raison d'être.These realities are not 'discovered' after the fact. Recent American history is all conspiracy.
Perhaps the 'stricken' look Obama wears is the vestigial trace of a conscience coming to the surface–a 'good' man betraying some remorse for the crimes he is forced to administer at the behest of others? A happy little fantasy as it forlornly assumes the man did not know what he was getting into!
It would be comforting to indulge such sentimentality ,as long as one knew it was exactly that: Sentimentality. It leaves open the possibility that Obama–overcome by conscience–will pull the plug and 'clusterfuck' all the MIC/NSA/CIA/Pentagon fascists. That won't happen– not because he is 'afraid'– but because he does not want to. –(Jill Bains)
take the money you have to do the crime! its the american presidential way!
If Kristol and Kagan et al. are so gung ho for sending other people's children, they should send their own to Afghanistan.
Neo-Cons; they seem to be only interested with amassing or destroying all of the nation's wealth so we will suffer and die in poverty while our children suffer and die in endless wars and our grandchildren suffer and die paying for this catastrophy.
Welcome to Neo-Rhodesia, from breadbasket to the world to basketcase of the world.
The neocons I have seen on MSM don't seem to be warm and fuzzy. They seem quite angry at the prospects of a withdrawal. The likes of Kristol seem to be too stupid to understand the reality that Obama has given the generals enough rope to hang themselves. Does anyone outside of a rabid, slathering neocon fool expect any level of success in Afghanistan via US military action? Everyone outside of these neocon idiots knows that the generals will deliver a giant bag of nothing in July 2011 and we can then begin the withdrawal with only marginalized right wing fools howling for a "do over". It increasingly appears that all of Junior's ill-advised forays will be dismantled in a span of less than 4 years. As they say in the Marines, HOORAH!
uh lefty he did not give them rope he is one of them!
this is who he really is.i would love to see kristol
out in the field in afghanistan having to carry a
gun getting shot at and having to change his shorts
every half hour or so or so due to extreme fear!
bet you he would stop all his insane blather about
war! its always those who have never seen the horror
of war up close that scream for it the most!
Life is simple, black and white. Ds good Rs bad
Lefty is in to Orwellian speak. Hence the handle "lefty". You could build a great alternative energy power plant from his constant efforts to avoid rocking the boat.
Lefty's motto:
Status Quo Et Secula Seculorum.
O = W
BEST BANKERS ---- BONUS?
Bankers should be paid more then a floor sweeper, why?
Reward for achievement, why?
For would not a martyr consider us ingrates if we dared offer him any kind of reward for his self-sacrifice? And our fallen solders martyred in war, would it not be idol worship if gifts were brought to a temple in their honor?
Its like a father who is treated with ingrate contempt by his family all year, then come Christmas they get their god-egos inflated giving dad gifts purchased with money he earned. For grateful submission is all a father expects and the unkindest cut of all is such an ingrate thing as mutual gratification.
For most corrupting to the fabric of society is rewards for achievement. For the hallmark of a good and moral man is he who achieves without expecting anything in return. Whereas a clear sign of one with a dishonest character not to be trusted is a man who refuses to achieve unless wealth and glory is his reward.
Happy Sunday to all you "lefties"
I'm pissed.
I'm pissed because the candidate that said he was going to wage war in other countries, bail out the banks in our country and be Israel's best friend was elected.
I'm pissed because I'm wondering if there are so many people that comment on these stories on commondreams about how "let down" they are when they were seemingly too "high" on the obama koolaid or too uniformed about the history of american politics that they didn't vote for someone other than a republican or democrat, how the hell did this guy get elected?
Oh. Right.
HE WASN'T THE BEST CANDIDATE, BUT THE LESSER OF THE TWO EVILS.
AND A VOTE FOR A THIRD PARTY WAS A VOTE FOR THE REPUBLICAN.
Fuck that in 2008 and Fuck that forever.
You voted for him so live with the consequences!
Just like the children of Afghanistan will, just like the people in Gaza will and just like the homeless guy sleeping in the woods that I took hot coffee and food to this morning. did i mention that the low last night got to 16 degrees.
But screw the aforementioned people right, because unlike you, they didn't vote for Obama. Wonder what they would say to you if they could comment on your "mistake" that you all feel so bad about.
don't make the same mistake in future elections. learn from your mistakes.
teach your kids, teach your friends.
vote third party
Sincerely
We are all pissed too but which 3rd party?
Name one that has a good record of taking care of the homeless in the USA.
I am looking for one that can deliver but from experience all the parties have failed to do good for the people.
They all think they have the answer but the system is winner take all... which is all take and all talk.
Bring America Back !!!!
****Of course the Repubby and Demmy Neocons are cozy with Obama's adopton of the fairytale Wars on Terror !
****With his 15 minutes of "dalliance" on the so called
Afghan Surge, it almost looked like Obama finally was going
to stand up to the MI Complex.
****But sadly, it is clear Team Obama is playing the game of wartime poker, making the timing of troop pullouts co-incide with his Re:election campaign. Ergo, they want to rely on the old time-honored legacy that says Americans never unvote a wartime President from Office. The old don't change Horses in the Middle of the war-Stream theory.
***Oh Please, don't vote us out now, when we are just beginning to pull out our troops !!!! Four years too late on the campaign promises, but they will definitely do the Sitting Wartime President Gambit !!! Thats what they're
doin !!
KUCINICH FOR PRESIDENT.
isn't there a rope or something like that, with cheney's name on it, hanging in the gallows of nuremberg or the hague? the crimes that this man has gotten away with boggle the mind! and cheney has dodged more drafts than a hobo in a busted up barn during a north dakota winter! when he ran out of deferments to evade vietnam, he hurried to conceive his babbling daughter liz, and fertile lynn successfully obliged him, keeping her onerous husband safely out of military uniform. did we really elect that guy in 2000, or am i just in the middle of a long and terrible dream? a modern day rip van winkle would never want to wake up to see the america of 2009.
rest easy election was stolen!
Cheney is a made man. To show you how connected this murderer is and how deep into the power structure his roots go listen to the story of a murder by police in Chicago 40 years ago of a black leader (Democracy Now with Amy Goodman). You can easily download the sound and listen at your leisure.
Here's what happened:
In 1969 Nixon conspired with Hoover (FBI chief) to "disrupt and destroy" the black movement in general and the black panthers in particular as part of the cointel program. The idea was to keep a "black messiah" from rising up. So any charismatic leader was targeted (Gee, do you suppose Hoover was doing this stuff in 1968 as well? Uhhh, maybe...). So orders were given from Nixon and Hoover to kill the head of the Black Panthers.
All this was kept from the American public until the Church Congressional committe in the 70s tried to bring it out. Then two White House staffers vociferously intervened in the Church Committe investigations to keep Nixon and Hoover's responsibility for ordering the Black Panther's Murder under wraps. They succeeded. It was buried again. All the police involved in the hit were never prosecuted.
The names of the White House staffers that saved Nixon and Hoover's asses were Cheney and Rumsfield.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/4/the_assassination_of_fred_hampton_how
Now consider, briefly, who was who during the Ford adminstration. Hello Bush daddy. Do you see how this nest of criminal vipers is tight? Do you see how they protect each other's back? If you think this is limited to republicans, you are delusional. Criminal conspiracies are limited to criminals, not political parties.
The bottom line is that we were AND WE ARE governed by criminals that need to be brought to justice. The government is not going to end because every single president and his staff are tried for crimes. THEY ARE NOT THE USA, GOD DAMNIT! Stop being loyal to elected leaders and start being loyal to justice. WTF is this touchy feely crap about defending a president or his staff because they are holy and were doing the murders for our own good? How stupid can you be?
OUTLAWS must NOT be protected by the LAW! If Cheney, Rumsfield, Geithner, Bernake and several presidents and their staffs aren't tried for their responsibility in frauds, grand larceny and murder, then we will have anarchy in this country. Even people like Henry8 will realize that abiding by the law is a fool's game in the USA, where the criminals have taken over.
and can you imagine the right wing hysteria that we would see and hear if chelsea clinton were a draft baby? it's rarely covered in the establishment media that liz cheney was born 9 months and 3 days after cheney ran out of his last educational deferment. and under the unwritten rules of our mainstream media, ann coulter and glenn beck can grace the covers of time or newsweek, but noam chomsky never will. i challenge any conservative to say there is a left wing media out there!
the right will be just fine with chelsea. she's marrying a Goldie guy.