Obama is doing the bidding of Osama

Barack Obama is doing the bidding of Osama bin Laden. It's utterly clear that this is true. Obama is doing what bin Laden desires by buying into the Neocon approach to warmongering in the Middle East. Obama has fully bought into the world view of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Consider this excerpt from an article by Alan Grayson:

Today, the war in Afghanistan becomes America's longest war. Longer than the war in Vietnam. Longer than the Korean War.It took America two years to end World War I, and bring peace to the world. World War II was a little harder; that took us 3½ years to finish off. The war in Afghanistan is over eight years old. And we're sending in more troops. We're not getting out. We getting deeper in. Would you like to know why? It's not hard to find the answers. Just read the transcript of Osama Bin Laden's 2004 speech.
Bin Laden's plan was to bankrupt America, and he's well on his way. All he had to do was press America's SELF-DESTRUCT button with a dozen men with box-cutters, and we're helpless to turn off the fearful war-mongering. Here's Grayson's solution:
And at all times, Bin Laden's essential strategy has remained the same. Not, as so many think, to launch more attacks on American soil, but rather to make us destroy ourselves: "we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy . . . ." Listen to Bin Laden summing up his strategy: "the real loser is ... you. It is the American people and their economy . . . ." How strange. It turns out that America's chief military strategist for the past decade is Osama Bin Laden himself. We've been doing exactly what he has wanted us to do: spend staggering sums on the military, until the American economy is bled dry. But it doesn't have to be that we. We are a democracy. We can choose peace. I have voted against Bin Laden's strategy to destroy America, and I will continue to do so. But I've done more than that. I have introduced a bill called The War is Making You Poor Act, HR 5353.

Continue ReadingObama is doing the bidding of Osama

The state of the Afghanistan occupation

Frank Rich sums it up at the New York Times, provoked by Michael Hastings excellent journalism at Rolling Stone:

The war, supported by a steadily declining minority of Americans, has no chance of regaining public favor unless President Obama can explain why American blood and treasure should be at the mercy of this napping Afghan president. Karzai stole an election, can’t provide a government in or out of a box, and has in recent months threatened to defect to the Taliban and accused American forces of staging rocket attacks on his national peace conference. Until last week, Obama’s only real ally in making his case was public apathy. Next to unemployment and the oil spill, Karzai and Afghanistan were but ticks on our body politic, even as the casualty toll passed 1,000. As a senior McChrystal adviser presciently told Hastings, “If Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular.”
Why are we in Afghanistan? I haven't yet heard anything other than vague metaphors. According to the White House,
So make no mistake: We have a clear goal. We are going to break the Taliban’s momentum. We are going to build Afghan capacity. We are going to relentlessly apply pressure on al Qaeda and its leadership, strengthening the ability of both Afghanistan and Pakistan to do the same.
Apply pressure on al Qaeda? Give me a break. According to the CIA, there are fewer than 50 al Qaeda in Afghanistan. As far as "breaking the momentum" of the Taliban, consider this retort by Jon Stewart, beginning at minute 4:
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Endless Bummers
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party
In more recent news, say goodbye to $3 billion of our tax dollars, freely walking out of Afghanistan. Not that you'll ever prosecute corruption under Hamid Karzai:
Top officials in President Hamid Karzai's government have repeatedly derailed corruption investigations of politically connected Afghans, according to U.S. officials who have provided Afghanistan's authorities with wiretapping technology and other assistance in efforts to crack down on endemic graft.

Continue ReadingThe state of the Afghanistan occupation

Most media outlooks ignore the real story regarding Afghanistan

In light of Rolling Stone's incredibly revealing article on the muddled and chaotic U.S. policy regarding Afghanistan, most media outlooks are focusing the demotion of General Stanley McChrystal but ignoring the real issue regarding Afghanistan. Joshua Holland of Alternet explains:

[T]he story by Rolling Stone reporter Matt Hastings also reveals just how narrow the discourse about our Afghanistan adventure really is. Because while we’ll be treated to tens of thousands of column inches and hours of cable news blather about McChrystal’s “insubordination,” or whether Obama looks “tough enough” in handling the situation, the most important part of Hastings’ article is largely being ignored by the corporate media. Hastings told a tale of a project with no hope for success. His story shows us that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is all about tactics dressed up as a strategy. It’s a profile of a military establishment running on inertia -- unable to withdraw because withdrawing is an admission of defeat, but also unable to accomplish the wholly unrealistic tasks put before it.
Andrew Sullivan is another writer who is not getting distracted by false issues.
One suspects there is simply no stopping this war machine, just as there is no stopping the entitlement and spending machine. Perhaps McChrystal would have tried to wind things up by next year - but his frustration was clearly fueled by the growing recognition that he could not do so unless he surrendered much of the country to the Taliban again. So now we have the real kool-aid drinker, Petraeus, who will refuse to concede the impossibility of success in Afghanistan just as he still retains the absurd notion that the surge in Iraq somehow worked in reconciling the sectarian divides that still prevent Iraq from having a working government. I find this doubling down in Afghanistan as Iraq itself threatens to spiral out of control the kind of reasoning that only Washington can approve of.
In this earlier post, I wanted to know what we are getting for a billion dollars every 3 days. Where's the good news from our two long wars? We still haven't even heard any benchmark for success, either in Afghanistan or Iraq. These wars, which usually are all but invisible in the American media, are financially and morally bankruptcy our country.

Continue ReadingMost media outlooks ignore the real story regarding Afghanistan

Barack Obama: the secrecy president

At Democracy Now, Amy Goodman converses with Daniel Elsberg about the Obama Administration's crackdown on those who seek to distribute information (accurately) putting the military action in Afghanistan in a bad light.

Pentagon investigators are reportedly still searching for Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, who helped release a classified US military video showing a US helicopter gunship indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians. The US military recently arrested Army Specialist Bradley Manning, who may have passed on the video to Wikileaks. Manning’s arrest and the hunt for Assange have put the spotlight on the Obama administration’s campaign against whistleblowers and leakers of classified information.

Manning has made his motives clear. Sunshine is the best disinfectant:
Manning has claimed he sent Wikileaks the video along with 260,000 classified US government records. Manning, who was based in Iraq, reportedly had special access to cables prepared by diplomats and State Department officials throughout the Middle East. During an internet conversation prior to his arrest, Manning explained his actions by writing, quote, "I want people to see the truth, regardless of who they are. Because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public."
It's too bad that Barack Obama, Oslo's "Peace President" doesn't listen to his own campaign speeches and act on them. In this same Democracy Now video, Daniel Elsberg calls the leakers "patriots," and I concur. Someone needs to stand up and stop the indiscriminate series of Afghanistan murders that officially go by the name of "war." By the way, if the U.S. military is doing so damned much good over in Afghanistan at a cost of several billion U.S. dollars per week, where are the photos of all of those good things? It is more clear than ever that the U.S. is knowingly doing despicable acts in our names in Afghanistan and working feverishly to keep them secret. What kind of danger are the leakers facing? Daniel Elsberg comments:
[Bradley Manning is] in danger of more than arrest. Arrest is probably the major thing, even though it’s not clear what he would be arrested on. But he—I have to say that as of now, under this president, he’s under danger of kidnapping, rendition, enhanced interrogation, even death. The fact is that this president is the first in our history, in any Western country that I know of, who has claimed the right to send military forces not just to apprehend, but to kill suspected, even American citizens. Bradley Manning is probably more safe now being in custody than he would have been if he himself were eluding arrest. Assange, I would say, is in some danger. And even if it’s very small, it should be zero. It’s outrageous and humiliating to me as an American citizen to have to acknowledge that someone like that is in danger from our own government right now . . .

Continue ReadingBarack Obama: the secrecy president

Obama carrying out Osama’s plan to bankrupt the U.S.

Alan Grayson reminds us that Osama Bin Laden had an overall plan to ruin the United States. All he needed were a couple of presidents to help him carry out the plan. George W. Bush was more than willing. Then along came Barrack Obama, who surprised his followers and decided to do his part to bankrupt the United States. Grayson explains:

Today, the war in Afghanistan becomes America's longest war. Longer than the war in Vietnam. Longer than the Korean War. . . . Bin Laden's strategy was -- and is -- painfully simple: to repeat his victory in Afghanistan against Russia, by driving us into bankruptcy. As he put it, he wanted to use his "experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat." In other words, he just wants to go two-for-two. And, as Bin Laden noted, it is equally simple to get us into that trap.
If you are dismayed that President Obama (and Congress) are eagerly following Bin Laden's plan to bankrupt the United States, consider signing Grayson's petition to support "The War is Making You Poor Act."
This bill would eliminate the separate funding for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and eliminate federal income taxes for everyone's first $35,000 of income (or $70,000 for couples) each year. And it would help pay down our national debt.

Continue ReadingObama carrying out Osama’s plan to bankrupt the U.S.