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What are US Goals in Afghanistan?
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is making a big mistake in escalating U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan where he already has acknowledged he doesn't believe victory is possible.
We should ask: What are we doing there seven years after the 9/11 attacks by the al-Qaida network? Historically, the country has lacked a strong central government and has been governed by locally strong tribal leaders and warlords.
Al-Qaida was able to take advantage of this loose structure and turn Afghanistan into the plotting ground for the terrorists who struck the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York.
But what are our goals there in 2009?
While the U.S. is supposed to wind down its presence in Iraq in 19 months (rather than the 16 months promised by Obama on the campaign trail), the president has ordered a military buildup in Afghanistan to more than 50,000 troops, both from the U.S. and other NATO members.
He would leave 50,000 Americans in Iraq to cope with the resistance there. Such was the folly of President George W. Bush, who invaded Iraq after his hawkish neoconservative advisers told him we would triumph in a few weeks.
To this day none of Bush's reasons for attacking Iraq have held up to examination. There were no weapons of mass destruction, no Iraqi ties to al-Qaida and no threat to the United States.
There have been no apologies from Bush or his cohorts.
When Obama visited Afghanistan last summer as a presidential candidate, he joined several other senators in a get-tough statement that said: "We need a great sense of urgency because the threat from the Taliban and al-Qaida is growing and we must act. We need determination because it will take time to prevail. But with the right strategy and the resources to back it up, we will get the job done."
What exactly is the job that he says needs to get done? What is the U.S. exit strategy? Does anyone in power remember the lessons we were supposed to have learned from Vietnam?
Afghanistan is known as the "graveyard of empires" because of the repeated failure of invaders over the centuries to achieve their goals in that rugged country.
U.S. prowling around in Afghanistan hasn't aroused anti-war protests as did the March 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. I am puzzled about this. It seems to me we are leaping out of the frying pan into the fire!
American public aversion to our military adventures in Afghanistan has been fueled by our shock at the toll that U.S. planes and aerial drones have inflicted on Afghan civilians.
There have been indications that Obama may start diplomatic overtures to the Taliban at a time when the human and financial costs of the two wars are wearing down the U.S. as it struggles with an economic depression that has no end in sight.
According to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, the president is evaluating the situation in Afghanistan.
Obama would do well to study the trajectory that took us into the Vietnam War and the terrible price we paid there. We lost the war and fled by helicopters from Saigon.
Both Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon thought that they could win in Vietnam, but they were brought down as much by the American people -- who rebelled against the war -- as they were by the North Vietnamese.
Obama could go deeper in history and check out President Dwight D. Eisenhower's career for a lesson on how to end a war.
When running for the White House in 1952, when the American public was growing frustrated about the long U.S. involvement in the Korean War, Eisenhower told voters: "I shall go to Korea."
And he did. The Korean War ended in a standoff in 1953 -- much to the relief of the American people.
Despite some ensuing skirmishes in the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas, a truce has endured ever since.
During the 2008 campaign, Obama indicated that he was willing to speak to all parties in the military or diplomatic disputes we were involved in. He was criticized for his plan for outreach to the militants in Afghanistan.
But there is no alternative.
Sooner or later American presidents should learn that people will always fight for their country against a foreign invader. And peace should be the only goal.
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85 Comments so far
Show AllSioux Rose
Intelligent minds look for logical bases for determinations; but there IS no logic in the moves of a nation under thrall to Mars and its rules. So long as the military industrial complex makes war the chief U.S. "business enterprise," reasons are more like excuses, and they change with the PR campaigns of successive administrations. What is needed is an all-out call against arms, a boycott of militarism, and reprioritizing of goals around taxes and what the collecting of public money SHOULD involve and support.
America is way off track, a giant seeking about for someone or some nation to pounce upon. Instead of using its might, its power, its "God shed his grace on thee assets" to build up holistic systems around the world, ones that support life from an ecologically sound and sustaining standpoint, there's all this militaristic posturing, and through it, the loss of lives on a scale that would make any amoral tyrant proud. What a record; and we wonder why there is so much pain and loss in our land, as if the boomerang of karma would bow down to America's hubristic sense of exceptionalism?
The goals have been enunciated many times. Brzezinski wrote "The Grand Chessboard" decades ago detailing how the United States MUST dominate the Caspian basin in order to dominate the world.
The Goal is as old as human history. A given nation think it their divine right to rule over the world with all nations under her dominion.
The Goal in Afghanistan is for the same reasons there are Military bases in Japan, South Korea, East Europe and dozens of other countries the world over and why the United States of America seeks to build even more of them.
The reason Obama's policies have only superficial changes from that of Bush, is because they are in fact the same policies.
Sioux Rose
GW: Good points.
Brzezinski published "The Grand Chessboard" not "decades ago" but in 1997.
That is to say, the "turbo-dominance" policy of the USA is fairly recent; though the more relaxed dominance strategies of "the American Century" go back to WWII, and before that to the dominance-strategy of industrializing the world based on combustion-engine cars combined with systems of oil-delivery and control.
As for explicit US/NATO goals in Afghanistan, there are none. The behaviour is like that of a big bully drunk roaming a room demanding respect, with no other rationally thought-out point to the bullying. Call it crying havoc for the fun of it - fun or not.
We had no more right to attack Afghanistan than we did to attack Iraq. (It had a regime we didn't like who refused to extradite bin Laden as the U.S. has refused, too, to extradite terrorists.)
The Afghans, on the other hand, have every right to kill Americans.
one old atheist
I agree with you except the Taliban did say they would try bin Laden, (CNN, 10-7-01, U.S. rejects Taliban offer to try bin Laden). Not good enuf, the Taliban, when Dubya had them out to Crawford for the weekend refused to build us a pipiline.
We never planned to deal with them, our goal was to invade, install our oil man Karzai into power and everything would fall into place from there. A literal cakewalk, except American politicians and greedy corporate types refuse to look back at history of failures.
Yes. But the Taliban gov't didn't even refuse to extradite bin Laden. They only asked for proof (of bin Laden complicity in 9-11), and then offered to negotiate. Whether Taliban were ever in a position to "hand over" bin Laden is moot - they'd have had to catch him first.
Bush wouldn't take a tentative 'yes' for a definitive 'yes', and preferred to attack. So it goes.
Sunil Ram, a military and security expert with international consulting firm Alexis International expressed the view, on TheRealNews.com, that keeping Afganistan unstable prevents the Chinese and Russians from building pipelines in the region, and that is the main purpose behind the fighting.
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=3390
The US will continue its genocide of Muslims (in part to please the Israeli lobby) and anyone with resources that we want until we are made to believe that we will pay dearly for our trespasses, just like there will be no peace in Palestine until the Intifada knocks on our front doors in Crown Heights and Coney Island.
You don't see us f++cking with the Russians and the Chinese, do you?...that's because they can tear us a brand new arse hole if we attack them...we are punks...we only pick on the weak.
Amir
clapatme@yahoo.com
Not only do we only pick on the weak, but the vaunted U.S. Military Machine, the largest, most powerful military in the world, supposedly, is incapable of even "pacifying" one single city, Baghdad. A trillion dollars a year for military endeavors and the military can't pacify even one city. That sure is money well spent, isn't it? Not to mention all the horrible war wounds and deaths of civilians. Soldiers and mercenaries are expected to die. Civilians are supposed to be protected. War is the ultimate obscenity.
d.k.shaw
Sioux Rose
EKATON: I think there are enough in high eschelons of the MIC who act like large boys that just want to play with weapons, and what better place to "try them out" then in a "theater" of war against actual "flesh and blood living action figures." I think the emotional growth/empathy of a lot of the persons behind these decisions is so painfully stunted, as to make this type of experiment in weapons of mass destruction, a positive use of time, energy and resources to them; that and getting well-paid from the corporations that directly profit through war and have now entangled themselves prominently enough in media to SELL war as PRODUCT. (Hello, Andrew 'greeting Card.')
Amir, or nycdread- this is what it is indeed, and it's been the elephant in the room of all our so called foreign policy decisions since this whole mess began. How come no one else ever seems to notice that all the "bad people" in the u.s. world view are Muslims? is this not remarkable? Does anyone think it's just a little bit peculiar that our million plus dead in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine are all Muslims? Or that among all the 30,000- 60,000 prisoners in our entire gulag there is not even ONE christian or jew? Has the cia ever named any terrorist who was not Muslim? when was a christian ever stopped in an airport and rendered to Saudi Arabia for torture? it is one big global pogram against Muslims. But why does no one seem to notice this?
Sioux Rose
ROBERT: I never heard that before, a new and interesting take on the real geo-political motivations and the strategies behind them. Hmm...
"that keeping Afganistan unstable prevents the Chinese and Russians from building pipelines in the region,"
I didnt think of this but it makes absolute sense !! The Afghans as usual are pawns in this never-ending game of chess.
And again and again I say, though I try to say it in different ways -
The goal is the same as when Congress enacted it as Public Law 107-40 back in 2001, 'preventing future terrorism' by our enemies (who are al-Qaeda and the Taliban, as announced by Bush). I say again that in over seven years nobody has explained what that means, how we recognize victory.
This goal of preventing future behavior is unachievable - victory is impossible.
Defeat is unacceptable, at least not before the inevitable catastrophe.
Withdrawal is also impossible, as Mr. Obama will not withdraw troops and risk being politically eviscerated if something blows up somewhere and al-Qaeda is blamed.
America is stuck, stuck, stuck, and Mr. Obama will only continue with 'more of the same' in an effort to put off disaster while he is in office (same as LBJ tried).
Congress started this mess, this unwinnable war, and Congress must clean it up. Don't get your hopes up (hope only applies to Mr. Obama, evidently), because most of the idiots who got us into this mess are still in power.
Instead of being punished for getting America stuck, they have been rewarded with re-election, over and over.
YOU ARE WRONG ON THE GOAL OF US IMPERIALISM IN AFGHANISTAN !!
The goal of US imperialism in Afghanistan is to steal the Opium drug from Afghanistan and to make money out of the Opium trade. Remember that CIA is a Cocain Importing Agency
The only way to accomplish that is to leave them alone. Government has no business interfering with other nations. Speaking of nutjobs, let's get rid of the rightwing nutjobs in this country first. Got a problem with that?
Jason Jordan
Sandpoint, Idaho
It wasn't the country of Afghanistan that committed 9-11. It was a bunch of Saudi Arabians (friends of Bush) who did this. They only took advantage of the type of government that Afghanistan had to plot and plan the 9-11 airplane plot. They were originally trained by our CIA to fight against the Russians. We are responssible for the whole damn 9-11 fiasco to begin with. It ssure as hell was not Afghanistan.
'I don't hear the guy from Saddleback church advocating suicide bombings.' Nope, but does he condemn the assasination of docotors or bombings of health clinics here at home? Afghanistan had no suicide bombers until the USofA invaded. Afghanis openly thank us for bringing them in.
Oregoncharles
We can start right in our own towns. Educate, organize. Endear yourselves to the people, hold rallies, organize benefits for the suffering, etc. Be the change you want to see in the world but be sure to draw a line over which you will not cross. One of the greatest environmentalists of all time, David Brower (once president of Sierra Club before they began their destructive cuddle with corporations) made this comment: "Whenever I compromised, I lost." I think it's the way Palestinians must feel.
"U.S. prowling around in Afghanistan hasn't aroused antiwar protests as did the March 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. I am puzzled about this."
Although I took part in antiwar picketing opposing use of military force to bring about "regime change" in Afghanistan in late 2001 and in Iraq in early 2003, I don't see what there is to be so puzzled about.
Simply put, there was a plausible, factual connection between the Taliban's harboring of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and the 9/11 WTC terrorist attack. There was no connection whatsoever however between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein's regime or the people of Iraq. Under international law, US military intervention in Afghanistan could rationally be characterized as a legitimate retaliatory response to having been attacked. The US invasion of Iraq could not rationally be considered a lawful act of national self defense.
I agree entirely with Helen Thomas's assessment of the current situation. Eight years have passed. Bush pissed away any chance of using US military force for the limited purpose of capturing Osama bin Laden and Zwahiri, and neutralizing the threat of al Qaeda. Today, continuing or escalating the US/NATO ground presence in Afghanistan is virtually identical to the dynamic of Vietnam. Afghan nationalism is solidly against the foreign infidels. In terms of the United States' national interest, we no longer have a dog in that fight.
I still believe Barack Obama will step up to the plate and do what needs to be done - withdraw. He not only knows what happened in Afghanistan to the Russians, the British, and Alexander the Great. He also knows what happened to LBJ.
Obama needs to publicly declare an exit strategy from Afghanistan in order to avoid a similar one term fate. If it takes antiwar protests to bring the troops home, the Republicans will be laughing all the way to the bank.
Bill from Saginaw
If Obama would like to ensure his reelection in 2012 all he needs to do is close all U.S. military bases abroad, including Iraq and Afghanistan, and bring all the troops home. He'll win by a landslide no matter who the Republicans decide to nominate.
Terrorism. The War on Terrorism. The Global War on Terrorism. Well. 100,000 people die on average every year in the USA due to medical malpractice. 50,000 die on the roads every year on average. And there are tens of thousands of gun deaths in this country on average yearly.
So far, over the last 8 years, fewer than 500 people a year have been killed on average due to terrorism in the U.S. The 200,000 killed by medical malpractice, traffic "accidents" (in quotes because very few are actually accidents, most are caused by alcohol or aggressive driving or some combination) and shootings in the U.S. barely raise an eyebrow. So instead of investing two trillion dollars, so far, in the Global War on Terrorism, might it not be money better spent on resolving those other situations that kill 400 times as many people yearly as terrorism?
Terrorist acts need to be addressed by police agencies through investigations, arrests, charges, trials, convictions and hangings, NOT by spending a trillion dollars a year on militarist interventionist foreign policy.
How many people has the United States killed and labelled as "collateral damage" in its efforts to "eradicate terrorists". It is surely WAY more than the 500 a year on average killed in the U.S. by terrorists since 911. WHO ARE THE REAL TERRORISTS?
Your chances of being killed this year by a doctor, a drunk driver, or a madman wielding a gun in the USA are about 1 in 1500. Your chances of being killed by a terrorist in the USA this year are about 1 in 600,000.
Some things to think about.
d.k.shaw
d.k.shaw
Sioux Rose
EKATON: Excellent use of perspective to show the folly in its true light. Your statistics are those that would NEVER be heard/aired on Fox Network!
"Obama needs to publicly declare an exit strategy from Afghanistan in order to avoid a similar one term fate."
I agree with pretty much all you say but this statement above seems to be an all-pervasive 'progressive' response. So what happens to the death and destruction we have helped wreak on Afghanistan, not just these last 8 years but the last 30-40 years since the Reagan era ? Should we once again walk away and leave the Afghans to face the wrath of the virulent, brutal Taliban ?
I agree that U.S. troops need to be withdrawn immediately as they are the single most important recruiting tool for the Taliban. However walking away alone is not the answer. Shirking our responsibility is amoral. We helped create the Taliban along with Pakistan and its our moral responsibility to help destroy it.
We need to involve Russia, Iran, India, China in a co-ordinated regional approach to solving this problem. We need to use our leverage ($$$) in arm-twisting the Pakistani generals in confronting this beast. The Talibs are at the brink of capturing Peshawar which in regional terms is akin to controlling almost a third of Pakistan.
Withdrawing U.S. troops is just one step in the process. Its a knee-jerk response by Progressives and Liberals of all stripes. In all probability Obama will sign a deal with Hekmatyar or some other asswipe 'moderate' and declare victory and walk away .. like a deadbeat Dad !
no dice Bill. plausible? maybe to you. factual? never proved. Mullah Omar asked bush for proof, and bush said "we don't need proof. we know he's guilty" unwittingly writing the script that would define his administration's novel idea of justice, and fill the gulag with prisoners against whom no charges were brought.
but i digress. "harboring al-Qaeda" could be considered uncool, but it's a long way from justification for raining bombs on the innocent women and children of Afghanistan- at all, ever, never mind the 8 years and counting it's been going on.
the line of "reasoning" that leads from 9/11 wtc to the assault on Afghanistan is too tortured to be accepted by reasonable people. don't ask me why so many bought it. But it's long past time we lost it. you too.
HELLO ALL: I AM SORRY BUT YOU GUYS ARE ALL WRONG ON THE GOAL OF US IMPERIALISM IN AFGHANISTAN !!
The goal of US imperialism in Afghanistan is to steal the Opium drug from Afghanistan and to make money out of the Opium trade. Remember that CIA is a Cocain Importing Agency
"Poor Mexico, poor Mexico. So far away from God, and so close to the United States." -Porfirio Diaz, Mexican Nationalist, Ex-President
The goals in Afghanistan are:
1. To accelerate the depletion of our treasury.
2. To provide a followup humiliation to Iraq, to demonstrate the ineffectuality of our foreign policy and to deflate the morale of American militants.
3. To show the third world that so-called Superpowers can be defeated and need not be taken seriously.
4. To apprise our allies that our learning disability is not simply confined to the banking industry.
5. To establish the perception, and subsequently the reality, that as a silly, bankrupt and incompetent kleptocracy, America should be moved to the margins of international affairs.
Ms. Thomas should understand that these are attainable and laudable goals, a natural, Darwinian process by which failed experiments are discarded and better energies are given the chance to compete. I would like to see us become a smaller country (or several smaller countries) with more humility and more wisdom and a chastened, quiet, unexceptional populace.
Sioux Rose
VOX: Well-stated.
"War for peace" is like raping for virginity. --Jeremiah Wright
Amir
What are US Goals in Afghanistan?
1. Unconditional surrender of the Taliban and all bandit gangs and warlords.
2. VICTORY!
3. Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out.
4. Turn the survivors into Afghan versions of Texas Republicans and members of the First Church of the Talking Rattlensake who roll on the ground and speak in tongues.
5. To invest heavily in the Karzai Fund which is currently paying investors dividends of 43% per quarter.
If Obama is going to drag this country into Afghanistan, I apologize for voting for him. I can't believe he's even thinking of it. Unlike Vietnam and even the earlier days of Iraq, there is no money to fund this bloody occupation.
Jason Jordan
Sandpoint, Idaho
Apology is not enough. Where were you during the campaign? President George W. Brown made abundantly clear that he was going to escalate Afghanistan and continue Bush's policies.
Excuse me, but it was George W. Bush who dragged this country into Afghanistan. Obama is stupidly escalating the war there.
If we could just put an end to Zionist media control...worldwide, the Americans, English...you name it, would be informed enough to demand accountability from their governments, and politicians would be empowered to speak the truth and to oppose genocidal escapades abroad that only serve the smallest minority on the world stage.
Amir
What are US Goals in Afghanistan?
To commit as many Crimes Against Humanity as inhumanly possible. Next question.
Absolutely. This is to go along with our crimes against humanity in Gaza and Iraq. We are very good at committing crimes against humanity with no consequences to the perpetrators.
What are US goals concerning Iran?
What are US goals concerning Iran?
To commit as many Crimes Against Humanity as inhumanly possible. Next question.
Doesn't anyone find it odd that 9/11 did not happen until the Taliban turned down UnoCal bids to build pipeline across Afghanistan. This even after the Taliban leaders were wined and dined in Houston by the, then, UnoCal rep fin Asia, Mr. Kharzai!
The subsequent attack on Afghanistan was already in motion when we demanded Bin Laden from the Taliban, who refused to comply unless given proof.
What a coincidence.
But I could be wrong !
You are wrong about the last bit.
Mullah Omar responded to George Bush's ultimatum favorably in late 2001. As head of the Taliban government, Mullah Omar confirmed that bin Laden and Zwahiri were living in Afghanistan. He said he would withdraw the traditional hospitality extended to fellow Muslims, and deliver Osama and his cohorts into the custody of a "neutral Muslim nation", if the United States would agree not to invade.
The Bush White House promptly rejected this offer, and put a million dollar bounty on Mullah Omar's head (while warming up the B-52's on Diego Garcia). So much for exhausting your diplomatic options.
The stated reason for slamming shut this window of opportunity to dismantle al Qaeda and avoid a needless war in Afghanistan was that the United States was not going to get involved in "lengthy negotiations" with the Taliban, a government the US did not recognize diplomatically and which had a history of harboring international jihadis.
I do not believe there is any historical basis in fact for saying that the Taliban "refused to comply unless given proof", as you put it.
Bill from Saginaw
Obama's goal--not to "lose" Afghanistan on his watch.
Then there are the energy supply routes.
And then he can say the economy is unfixable because of all the wars we must fight.
All the wars plus our lousy economy are bringing the ship of state (USS Titanic)down!
And then he can say that Social Security and Medicare are too expensive and must be terminated because of all the wars we must fight. And then he can say national health care or single-payer health care would be too expensive because of all the wars we must fight. And then he can say that the federal government can no longer send money to the states for highway building and maintenance or for education because of all the wars we must fight.
American simply cannot afford ANY social safety net of any kind because of all the God Damned Mother Fucking Wars we "MUST" fight.
d.k.shaw
Sioux Rose
EKATON: This does seem to be the program that Mars/Mammon supporters are bringing to fruition wittingly or otherwise.
I don't think so. I think obama was kind of trapped- is trapped- in the web of bushcheney war lies, and is having a hard time digging his way out. not a bad metaphor, maybe- how do you dig out of a web? that is what it's like though. Also the other huge thing is how heavily the dems and especially hillary bought into the bush thing.
on the other hand there is no clear reason obama had to try to hit Afghanistan harder. When bush began this assault i remember Eduardo Galeano's succinct description: "killing the killed and bombing the bombed". so how many years of nonstop war should any country have to endure? is 30 years not enough? yeah it is and way way too much especially for Afghanistan, so poor, so hungry, so cold. you'd have to be really crazy to want to inflict more pain on them. no entiendo nada
Here's another indicator along those very lines. Shinseki is discussing the idea being floated by the Omamba administration to the effect of having war veterans pay for their service related injuries through private insurance.
http://www.infowars.com/obama-wants-vets-to-pay-for-service-related-injuries/
Maybe Obama's Afghanistan's adventure is for giving the dogs of war some red meat else they turn on him.
Maybe if by negotiating from power he gets Bin Laden, he can leave Afghanistan as a hero. If he doesn't get Bin Laden, what would it to do him politically?
Let's give the man some credit for the things he's doing right.
There seems to be more left and right wing conservative vitriol directed at Obama here than was ever directed at the Bushites who bombed US.
Maybe conservative's strategy here is to make Obama think "progressives are ungrateful, demanding, miserly and insulting assholes who don't deserve any help so I may as well go with the conservative oligarchy that gives me lots of money and power. And who will kill me if I don't".
I think it's more an example of a political candidate getting trapped in his own campaign rhetoric.
Remember, John Kerry ran in 2004 against George Bush on a platform that accused Bush of "taking his eye off the ball" by invading Iraq when he should have concentrated on catching Osama bin Laden instead. Obama, like most of the other Democratic primary candidates in 2008, picked up on this same theme. It was a message probably dreamed up by some Washington DLC political strategists who calculated this was the way to dance around the troop withdrawal from Iraq issue by changing the subject slightly, while appearing to be "tougher on the real terrorists" than the GOP.
It didn't work for Kerry obviously, but neither did it hurt Obama (the antiwar candidate) much in 2008. But as they say, elections do have consequences. Having promised to end the bad war in Iraq so that we could concentrate on the more righteous cause in the Hindu kush, how does Obama extricate himself gracefully from this horrendous policy decision, one that flowed directly from campaign issue framing strategies?
I still have hope that when the big "review" President Obama ordered several weeks ago is finally complete, Barack may well reverse course in Afghanistan completely and announce an exit strategy timetable.
The fact that it's nominally a NATO operation can provide Obama some political cover. If Richard Holbrooke, Robert Gates, Leon Panetta and Hillary also loyally run interference for him, Obama can couch the policy change as realpolitik trumping the neocons' ideological addiction to using military force as the policy tool of first choice, rather than last resort.
Bill from Saginaw
Come on Bill, Obama was never a Peace candidate. He is not now a President in favor of peace. He did say that he wanted to WIN the war in Afghanistan. We will not win that war. The United States will follow the Soviet Union and the British Empire in being defeated by the people of Afghanistan.
The point of the endless wars is to make profits for the people who funded Obama's campaign.
President Obama is in favor of giving our tax funds to the war and the bailout of the banksters---but his budget leaves no funds for our domestic programs. Half of our tax income is going to the wars and the other half to the bailouts. Any pittance for our domestic programs will be borrowed from the very same banksters who got our tax funds. What a deal they got!! We secure the loan for the money we give to them. They get the money AND INTEREST ON THE GIFT.
Wake up American workers. We are being screwed. At what point will it be clear to the people whose brains have been damaged by the TV news that we have been had? Turn off that boob tube and look around.
He's doing many things right, like beginning to reverse the Bush regime's war against science. I realize he has to govern after 30+ years of brutal, reactionary rule and that's a delicate balancing act. What I'm upset about most of all is that he won't go after the Bush regime for its blatant crimes, not even offer up a minimal response like a truth commission (forget about reconciliation). The Republican party is fanatical, dedicated to stupidity, virulently crooked and vicious beyond description. Those bastards have to be arrested and tried or they'll be back because the Republicans seem to have made the decision that George Wanker Bush was never a lodge brother after all. So they will move even further to the right, into out and out fascism.
Why not let others (a special prosecutor?) go after the Bushites? If he does, he risks being caught up in a partisan maelstrom that will prevent him from doing anything else.