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Obama's War
Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to war we go! Pound the drums loudly, stand with your country proudly!
Wait, wait, wait — hold it right there. Cut the music, slow the rush, and let's all ponder what Barack Obama, Roberts Gates, Stanley McChrystal and Co. are getting us into ... and whether we really want to go there. After all, just because the White House and the Pentagon brass are waving the flag and insisting that a major escalation of America's military mission in Afghanistan is a "necessity" doesn't mean it is ... or that We the People must accept it.
Remember the wisdom of Mark Twain about war-whooping generals and politicians: "Loyalty to the country, always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it."
How many more dead and mangled American soldiers does the government's "new" Afghan policy deserve? How many more tens of billions of dollars should we let them siphon from our public treasury to fuel their war policy? How much more of our country's good name will they squander on what is essentially a civil war?
We've been lied to for nearly a decade about "success" in Iraq and Afghanistan — why do the hawks deserve our trust that this time will be different?
Their rationales for escalation are hardly confidence boosters. The goal, we're told, is to defeat the al-Qaida terrorist network that threatens our national security. Yes, but al-Qaida is not in Afghanistan! Nor is it one network. It has metastasized, with strongholds now in Pakistan, Indonesia, Morocco, Yemen and Somalia, plus even having enclaves in England and France.
Well, claims Obama himself, we must protect the democratic process in Afghanistan. Does he think we have suckerwrappers around our heads? America's chosen leader over there is President Hamid Karzai — a preening incompetent who was "elected" this year only through flagrant fraud and whose government is controlled by warlords, rife with corruption and opposed by the great majority of Afghans.
During the election campaign from July through October, 195 Americans were killed and more than 1,000 wounded to protect this guy's "democratic process." Why should even one more American die for Karzai?
Finally, Washington's war establishment asserts that adding some 30,000 more troops will let us greatly expand and train the Afghan army and police force during the next couple of years so they can secure their own country and we can leave.
Mission accomplished!Nearly every independent military analyst, however, says this assertion is not just fantasy, it's delusional — it'll take at least 10 years to raise Afghanistan's largely illiterate and corrupt security forces to a level of barely adequate, costing us taxpayers more than $4 billion a year to train and support them.
Obama has been taken over by the military industrial hawks and national security theorists who play war games with other people's lives and money. I had hoped Obama might be a more forceful leader who would reject the same old interventionist mindset of those who profit from permanent war. But his newly announced Afghan policy shows he is not that leader.
So, we must look elsewhere, starting with ourselves. The first job of a citizen is to keep your mouth open. Obama is wrong on his policy — deadly wrong — and those of you who see this have both a moral and patriotic duty to reach out to others to inform, organize and mobilize our grassroots objections, taking common sense to high places.
Also, look to leaders in Congress who are standing up against Obama's war and finally beginning to reassert the legislative branch's constitutional responsibility to oversee and direct military policy. For example, Rep. Jim McGovern is pushing for a specific, congressionally mandated exit strategy; Rep. Barbara Lee wants to use Congress' control of the public purse strings to stop Obama's escalation; and Rep. David Obey is calling for a war tax on the richest Americans to put any escalation on-budget, rather than on a credit card for China to finance and future generations to pay.
This is no time to be deferential to executive authority. Stand up. Speak out. It's our country, not theirs. We are America — ultimately, we have the power and the responsibility.
98 Comments so far
Show AllVoices such as Jim Hightower's are drowned in a torrent of:
Stop Making Sense!
None of the protests that took place yesterday or the ones last night at West Point made the MSM and they didn't make NPR -- at least not in my neck of the woods. Doesn't mean that people of common sense should stop writing, raising their voices and protesting, however. But it is frustrating and depressing.
True... war and resisting war is depressing while the media makes a living presenting it as entertainment.
I noticed the same thing. Or, I noticed the absence of the same thing. The NY Times includes one picture of a few protesters on its front web page, in a lineup of 10 or so others showing Obama speaking and gladhanding with cadets. Other than that, it's as if no real protest took place. This is exactly the same game plan corporate media followed during the Bush years of terror. Ignore the protesters and they effectively don't exist. I was in Washington marching with a hundred thousand or so others, March 15, 2003, and there was scarcely a peep in MSM about it. Bush invaded Iraq a few days later and they weren't about to disturb those festivities by calling attention to countless millions (around the world) protesting the impending war crime they proceeded to whitewash for 8 years.
It's the same now. Obama's war crime will be just as protected and defended against scurrilous attack from dirty hippies and America haters as Bush's serial crimes were. It's the Fourth Estate's duty in America's long and tortured ambitious project of world domination. Our tyrannical military calls this, self-admiringly, Full Spectrum Dominance. Obama gets sexually aroused just thinking about it.
In that case, we have got to form affinity groups which will go out and talk to people one on one, so that some of the new people can also form organizing teams. An expanding torrent of organizing.
Our peace movement leaders have been playing to the media for decades, and it has never worked.
You know what they say about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, don't you. That's right - insanity, according to Albert Einstein.
Don't you think we should be trying something different? The media are not going to give the peace movement a fair shake. They represent, no they ARE, the oligarchy. Instead of talking to an imaginary TV screen, let's try talking to humans.
And that, right there, is the only activity that ever works for the non-oligarchs like us. You've nailed it to the wall for all to see who're willing to look.
genicon
Silence, Like A Cancer Grows.
S&G
If Sara was Pres. us lefties would get off our butts!
Actually I was thinking while watching the latest twilight zone moment in amerikan History that he was actually starting to sound like ms Palen. The man can not give a speech without his
teleprompter to the left and the right of him..You know come to think of it if I am to be lead down the path to the end times I would rather look at Sara.
Come to think of it she seems to me to give a much better speech. At least she can show some passion.
come on now all together USA,USA, USA.. RAH RAH RAH GOD SAVE THE EMPIRE
"If Sara was Pres. us lefties would get off our butts!". Maybe, but if there were a draft for the cannon fodder, that would REALLY get us moving. Which is exactly why there will never be a draft, isn't it? (Sssh! Quiet! There's a war on!)
@gladtobeincanada:
No draft is needed these days with unemployment over 10% and growing. Unemployment is the most effective recruitment tool. It's a perfect situation for the ruling class: they can preside over endless wars that benefit the MIC without the public resistance only an involuntary draft can produce.
The rich get richer while the poor go get maimed and killed on the other side of the planet. It's absolutely f**kin' brilliant!
what a hypocritical bunch we are!
what more can we who didn't vote for Obummer do to get you lefties off your butts!?!
doesn't say much about democrats in general in my opinion. even the whacky bunch on the far right who were out in force protesting Obama the Socialist (ohhh, i'm so scared) Health Care changes have more balls than democrats!
No? Prove me wrong and show how you feel to the world. Not just typing comments on commondreams for other "lefties" to read and comment on.
prove it!
ps. and oh yes, I'll be out there in front of my federal building with my sign protesting the war, like i did when gaza was attacked and where was BO (stink) vacationing in Hawaii with his two darling lil girls not saying a word or doing a thing
"Loyalty to the country, always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it." Mark Twain
Let's not forget there would be no war without soldiers.
Want to end the war?
Enlisted men and women: STAY HOME!
sue1403,
Please don't put the enlisted men and women in the middle of this. Most believe the armed forces marketing brochures that they are defending America. Some are sociopaths who enjoy killing people or forcing people to submit to their will.
Lets not look to them to take a stand. You and I need to.
The last president who thwarted the war wishes of the MIC was shot in the head on a public street in full view by people who were never called to answer for this crime.
This guy's got to get into a helicopter 4 or 5 times a week.
Remember Paul Wellstone.
"The last president who thwarted the war wishes of the MIC was shot in the head"
And yet it seems that no one understood that this event meant that the USA was an oligarchy. Columnists and politicians continue to refer to the USA as a "democracy" unironically, as if they don't know what this implies when your oligarchy kills a president and gets away with it.
@generalcommentator
So you're implying the President did not know the fate of Presidents that "thwart the wishes of the MIC" until after he was inaugurated? Even if this were the case (highly unlikely) should we not maintain the AUDACITY OF HOPE that he would be courageous enough to risk martyrdom to change the paradigm of the US secret military oligarchy empire?
Would it be too much to ask a President to secretly document and expose his/her corporate overloards, even if it meant risking his/her life? Could you imagine what kind of an eternal hero of humanity this President would become?
Let's not have too many illusions about the antiwar stances of the likes of Hightower. While voices like his are needed to stop the madness, his viewpoint still suffers from the myopia so typical of Americans living in a bubble of their own making. For example the reasons he gives for the Afghan war's senselessness leave out its primary victims: the Afghans themselves. I am sick and tired of hearing war critics lament the dead GIs, the drain on the public purse, and so on, with no mention that we are committing acts of aggression on large populations in various parts of the globe, and that far more people are dying from these acts than among those who are committing them.
Second, Hightower lends credence to the founding lie of the Afghan war with statements like this:
"The goal, we're told, is to defeat the al-Qaida terrorist network that threatens our national security. Yes, but al-Qaida is not in Afghanistan! Nor is it one network. It has metastasized, with strongholds now in Pakistan, Indonesia, Morocco, Yemen and Somalia, plus even having enclaves in England and France."
In so doing he undercuts what should be one of the most powerful weapons of any antiwar critique: that never has any concrete evidence been presented to the public that either the Taliban government, or even their mysterious guest, Osama bin Laden, and his even more mysterious organization had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks.
Thus does Hightower adopt, in his plea to end the war, the very same misleading language used to justify the war. In one fell swoop, Hightower implies that bin Laden commanded the operation that flew the planes and brought down the towers (all three) and that the Taliban government was complicit in this, and he includes all subsequent Islamic militancy under the copious umbrella of the MSM's no. 1 bugaboo, al-Qaeda. I can't think of a better way to undermine one's own purpose than this.
So, yes, let visible public figures like Hightower call for an end to the war, the more the better, but let us not be fooled for a minute into thinking that it will end there. The entire enterprise of these "long wars" must be dismantled semantically, forensically, morally and politically. Otherwise we shall fall into the same trap the next time there is a terrorist attack in the West, whether real or false-flag.
Good points. I couldn't agree more that we consistently forget the victims of our wars -- the 100,000 (or is it 1,000,000) Iraqi war dead, the 4,200,000 Iraqis displaced by the war, 1,500,000 of whom are living in camps in Syria, Jordan and other Iraq neighbors (http://www.refintl.org/where-we-work/middle-east/iraq). Let's not forget the 2,000,000 Vietnamese killed in the Vietnam war.
The US is flying Predator Drones firing Hellfire missiles, a number of which have slaughtered Afghani women and children. What better recruiting tool do Islamic extremists need? Imagine if the tables were turned. How would YOU react? Perhaps you'd be listening to Christian extremists.
What's the motivation for this war? Several come to mind:
1) The military-industrial complex needs enemies, especially powerless ones with languages few Americans speak. The beauty of this war, from their point of view, is that it CREATES ENEMIES. And further "need" for our outsized military.
2) The MIC needs a distant country for target practice and a distant population for cannon fodder. Like a viscious dog, it needs exercise, and the waste of ammunition and equipment means millions more in profits for the weapons makers.
3) If the US can finally subdue (I mean "liberate") Afghanistan, there's also the golden opportunity to complete a natural gas pipeline. (See the excellent article by Gary Leupp: http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp11302009.html)
The Afghan war is win-win...unless you're a human being that is.
Thus does Hightower adopt, in his plea to end the war, the very same misleading language used to justify the war.
--------------------------------------
That's the biggest victory of the rightwingers: that they control the very words that people use to talk about what's happening. They've successfully framed everything up to suit themselves, and the "liberal" establishment obediently conforms to that frame.
Which raises the question: are the "liberal" thoughtherders useful idiots or fellow-travellers? And if they're a mix, who's which?
I wrote an article at
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2394874/what_should_obama_do_in_afghanistan.html?cat=75
Please read. It details that, as the article states "Our technological advanced military is useless against fourth generation warfare as the article continues "Fourth generation warfare is defined as an "evolved form of insurgency that uses all available networks - political, economic, social, military - to convince the enemy's decision makers that their strategic goals are either unachievable or too costly for the perceived benefit." Unlike past wars, it does not win by defeating an enemy's military forces, but by defeating their political will. Fourth generation warfare is not new, but has been evolving for over seventy years. It is the only type of warfare known to have defeated major military powers. It defeated America in Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia; the French in Vietnam and Algeria; and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan".The defeat of major powers by weaker opponents makes it essential to understand this form of warfare and adapt accordingly. Success against a fourth generation opponent is contingent on the willingness and ability of a state to adapt to this fundamentally different type of war."
What kind of political strategy is it for Obama to support a policy that runs counter to his base? Does he feel comfortable having the GOP as allies? They already are saying that he is dithering and not supporting our troops.
Why is this a surprise? Obama as Senator called Afghanistan the war we should fight. He said in his campaign that his goal was to "eliminate" Al Qaeda and its Taliban sympathizers and now he repeats the Bush Doctrine that we have the right to preemptive war anywhere we think we might be attacked. This guy is not hard to read. Why did anyone ever think he was anything but a hawk? Is it because he like Henry Kissenger won a Nobel Peace Prize?
I don't recall Obama being taken over by the military hawks. A look back at his record in the Senate shows that he chose to be part of it. Even John Kerry wasn't this cowardly about it. But that doesn't mean that Obama is necessarily a coward. He hasn't apologized or admitted to wrongdoing. He was questioned about maintaining the same war hawks in charge of the military and the Pentagon and he stuck to it. I don't recall Obama promising any change on the wars. He promised to go after Afghanistan and Pakistan the typical send-the-troops way when he ran for president. Even my neighboring representative Walter Jones who used to be the "freedom fries" clown stays opposed to sending troops to Afghanistan despite his district being a military stronghold.
The only thing that's going to work are sustained protests. That is the kind that don't go away on a massive scale. we all were there at the beginning of the Iraq war, literally millions of us in San Francisco and Ny City alone but it didn't sustain. Of course the mainstream media ignores this, does one think that it will be easy? they don't give these protests any 'oxygen' in the mainstream media-they learned their lesson during the Vietnam protests. We need sacrifice of time and energy. We need young leaders who will put in the work to organize effectively and persistently. We need determination and to get off our butts and off the computer.
The only general strike I can think of is voting outside the two party duopoly but first the media has to be reformed to include other parties. Mckinney, who I voted for, and others opposed sending troops to Afghanistan but had no coverage on the air.
A general strike means something else. It's not about voting. Look up general strike. It takes too long to explain it here.
Pardon me but I already know which general strike Jill was referring to but I don't think that it will work in this country. I would be interested in your explanation on how you expect a general strike to force the Republicans and Democrats to change at a time when they are protected by modern technology. Wouldn't you agree that voting for the Green Party is a peaceful general strike against the two war parties?
Our only hope is that Rash Limpdick and his ilk will oppose anything that Nobama decides to do, and somehow miraculously the war will end.
So tragically true. He seems to somehow respond to right wing extremist/Tea baggers than to his base. The more he caters to them, the more they scream their hatred and bigotry. So much Orwellian
JH is great, but thinking Obomba has been seduced by the "mic & national security theorists," is Wrong; The SAME SAME SAME(neocon) forces that drove this country to war against poor Iraq now push us deeper and longer in AfPak.
Last month it was "gas pipelines". NO. Israel drives much of this war.
Israel/DC=Attack Islam. NeoCONS. Where for art thou? DC.
The Bomber is a minaret, puppet sycophant Whore. Fun to loathe but his masters are the True Enemies of Peace in the ME and wherever Arabs gather.
As Always, my Love for the beautiful millions of Jews who grace this world and are not part of the manipulations and mania.
the corporate media isn't going to actually report protests unless they become violent, and there's the irony peace protests have to become violent to expect any coverage.
And stop kidding yourselves the corporations knowing fine well the majority of the country was for Obama, backed him financially and now are calling the tune.
"it's meet the new boss same as the old boss,
we did get fooled again "
"...why do the hawks deserve our trust that this time will be different?"
The hawks don't deserve our trust. They serve their own profit making complex, and Obama serves them.
The hawks deserve to be investigated for war profiteering, for waging war on false pretenses, for putting our troops in harm's way for no good reason other than the nebulous "Al Qaida" perpetual global threat, a threat which can be used for decades to come, being so ill defined and unproven.
You're right, Bliss. There seems to be a pattern emerging from among the "groups" who wield power with (i.e. "bribe") our Congress members. The Healthcare Industry is fast turning "Healthcare Reform" into a tremendous new source of enrichment for themselves and the military hawks are asking for trillions of more money to continue the fiasco in Afghanistan which is killing our young military by the thousands.
Congress sits on its ass and spends months descussing it, as we watch our hopes for genuine healthcare reform and ending the fiasco in Afghanistan being dashed bit by bit in reports we hear each day.
Do they think we're stupid??? We already know where all this is going to end up - and it will most definitely will NOT be what the people who elected these idiots want.
Let's face it - we have an anti-populist government, peopled by the wealthy class and the MIC! And it will stay that way until the people realize they're being used by the wealthy as pawns and they rise up, as one, in opposition to the outrages that are being perpetrated against them daily - with impunity!!!
Any war is everybody's war.
The war in Afghanistan is sponsored by the same folks who sponsored every other war on the planet.
Obama is just the war in "blackface"--maybe a first in the US, but not in Africa.
But the sponsors count on racism (the real face of political correctness) to make Obama untouchable and impune--at least until the next presidential election, when they will probably trot out a person of hispanic origin.
If we are all still around, that is.
So, Obama's "plan" has nine key points, so I read. That makes it Plan 9 From Outer Space, with Obama as Ed Wood.
No. Plan 9 from Outer Space was put together alot better than Obama's Afghan war plan.
Protests won't stop this war but here are two things that might:
1) Draft
2) A tax on gas to pay for it
That is a great idea. A $5/gallon war tax.
The draft was ended after Vietnam. At the time the anti-war protesters thought this was a great victory. Of course it wasn't. Ending the draft meant that there would be no more draft resistance, hence no more interest on the part of most, especially young, Americans who sure as hell didn't want to be sent off to fight idiotic wars but now didn't have to think about it. The all-volunteer military can operate in a vacuum, doing whatever the generals want to do in order to secure their promotion to the top ranks via the essential battlefield experience. And, of course, what they want to do is maintain a state of perpetual war.
It helps that they now have a Commander-in-Chief who apparently hasn't read the Consitution (of which he's supposed to be a scholar) to the extent of understanding that it's the C-in-C who makes the decisions and calls the shots and not some uniformed underling like McChrystal or Petrayeus.
We now have a combination of "1984" and Vonnegut's "Player Piano." Perpetual war. We are truly fucked.
If there is a war tax, it damn sure shouldn't be a gasoline tax. Any tax to fund this idiocy should not be a regressive tax that punishes the poor and the middle class who are already taking it in the ass! How about an obscene profits tax on the defense contractors and other war profiteers? How about raising the income tax rate to 90 percent on incomes over $500,000 per year?
"How about an obscene profits tax on the defense contractors and other war profiteers? How about raising the income tax rate to 90 percent on incomes over $500,000 per year?"
Neither of your suggestions will get the very people who are being hit hardest by war expenditures out in the streets. No money for single-payer national health care which would cover those people, but plenty of money for drones, missles, guns and conquest. A $5/gallon gasoline tax has the potential to cause a national strike. The peasants, and I am one, need to become angry enough to take up torches, pitchforks and piano wire.
I don't think he is a slave of the MIC, I think he sold himself to the MIC to get elected.
When fox even gave OH BUMMER coverage, I knew he was a sell out!
Obama promised change and he has delivered. He has changed Iraq to Afghanistan. After a couple hundred thousand more people die, our next president might "change" to another country. Iran maybe?
Not Iran. Venezuela is next. The U.S. will execute a huge buildup of those seven military bases recently provided for access in Colombia. There will be a "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" off the coast of Venezuela, or there will be reports of "Venezuelan Terrorist Attacks Inside Colombia". One or both of these will require a joint U.S./Colombia invasion of Venezuela. It is coming. I give it 24 months. By the end of 2011.
You may be right.
In 2007, Venezuela was the seventh-largest net oil exporter in the world. It had net oil exports of 1.9 million barrels per day (bbl/d), seventh-largest in the world and the largest in the Western Hemisphere.
In October 2008, Venezuela launched its latest oil bid round, the first held under President Chavez. The round included the extra-heavy oil reserves in the Orinoco Belt that are in the process of certification. This round specifically focused on 7 blocks in the Carabobo area. PdVSA would take a majority stake in each venture, which would include integrated upstream and upgrading projects. According to government estimates, the blocks could contain at least 12.5 billion barrels of recoverable reserves and could eventually produce over 800,000 bbl/d of upgraded crude oil.
According to Oil and Gas Journal (OGJ), Venezuela had 99.0 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in mid 2009, the largest amount in South America.
Venezuela contains billions of barrels in extra-heavy crude oil and bitumen deposits, most of which are situated in the Orinoco Belt in central Venezuela. Estimates of the recoverable reserves from the Orinoco Belt range from 100 to 270 billion barrels.
So when you say they are next. I can believe it.
Interesting!
Man I bet all the "hope and change" morons who fell for Obama and elected him feel great. Hope you people can sleep at night when the stories of murder killing rape and horror continue to fill the digital airwaves and you voted for the guy who is making it all happen.
oh yeah, i forgot, he is better than McCain ;-0
how hypocritical. Obama is doing exactly what he said he was going to be doing during the campaign.
and my question to all you democrats who did vote for him and are pissed 'cuz he's let you down now, are you going to be demonstrating in your town this weekend?
didn't think so. but hope so. real hope. change.
cheers
Hey, getoffyour...Can you never stop gloating? As someone who voted for Obama, I felt I had a ten percent chance of seeing real change. I was wrong, but I do not apologize for voting for the man. It was a better choice than voting for someone who had exactly zero chance of influencing anything that happens. You folks that vote Nader and Green Party, you have achieved nothing for all your virtue, nothing, so get off your high horses and stop proclaiming your intelligence and wisdom.
cheers
good day drosera.
so don't apologize for voting for him. no one asked you too.
10 PERCENT! No thats down right inspiring. even with all the things Obama said during his campaign you still are surprised that he has gone and done this? Do you know who the banks and wall street were calling and consulting during the end of Bush's presidency. Not McCain, but Obama. because drosera they, unlike you, knew that there was 100% chance that Obama was not going to change things but keep things the way they were. Was AIPAC courting McCain or Obama during their campaigns? Who gave Obama the majority of his campaign finances. you the people. are you kidding? it came from the same insurance companies and wallstreet firms that are all being bailed out now by the pathetic inhumane mockery of a health care plan that the democrats have pushed through. don't acted fooled. Obama and the democrats are doing what they said they would do. it was a democratic majority led congress that signed the petition condemning the Goldstone report condemning Israel for their onslaught of innocent civilians in Gaza.
Democrats, republicans. on the majority there all the same, just different uniforms.
but from reading your response you would yet again in 2012, 2016, 2020 continue to vote for the lesser of two evils being the democrat right? even after this experience of the great Democratic Party letting you down so much. and tell me exactly how differently a republican led u.s of a would be different? there all one and the same. Dennis Kucinich is one of the few democrats that has a backbone. if he was to run as a third party candidate, would you vote for him???
and yes your right anyone who did vote for someone other than a republican or democrat in that election can damn right proclaim there intelligence and wisdom. the rest of you voted for Obama should be ripping off your goddamn bumper stickers. unless you of course like seeing killing and mayhem and suffering in the world. Afghanistan was recently declared the worst place in the world for the most innocent of all people, children, and know your president that you voted for is going to help that situation by sending another 30,000 trained killers who will be so freaked out about dying themselves that they'll shoot anything that moves.
otherwise how are you different from the people who drove around with big W's and bush/cheney bumper stickers during the murdering that took place in iraq? hated those assholes. and you can guess how i feel about people who drive around with Obama stickers....
so next time, pay attention.
cheers
Instant run-off elections would eliminate the need to vote for the lesser of the two evils. Ralph Nader advocated this system a decade ago, but of course, the corporate-owned media and the two wings of the War Party ignored him.