1. “The End of the Affair
Obama and the antiwar movement
…
Yes, antiwar voters took a chance on Obama, reasoning that anything would be better than four more years of Bushian belligerence, yet now they discover to their chagrin that the dice are loaded.
The same old crowd that brought us the invasion of Iraq is back, if not in full force or purest form, then at least in worrying numbers and high positions. The cries of “betrayal” are already being heard.
The response from the Obama cult among the liberal landed gentry, in particular the ones who own choice pieces of editorial real estate in the nation’s top newspapers, was delivered by E. J. Dionne from his perch at the Washington Post:
“In electing Barack Obama, the country traded the foreign policy of the second President Bush for the foreign policy of the first President Bush. That is the meaning of Obama’s apparent decision to keep Robert Gates on as defense secretary and also to select Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.”
This delights Dionne, even as it depresses those anti-interventionist voters who thought they had an ally in the White House.
…
In short: screw you, buddy, and you better get used to it.
Amid all the talk about the reentry of the Republican “realists” into the circle of power in Washington and the hosannas to the rising influence of Brent Scowcroft, one has to remember that this is the same gang that brought us the first Gulf war and George H. W. Bush’s “New World Order.”
…
If you “progressives” are now feeling like someone who’s been kicked out of bed before dawn, on one pretext or another – “Boy, was I drunk last night! I don’t remember a thing!” – well, then, you can’t say you weren’t warned.”
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13838
2. “The collapse of Afghanistan is closer than the world believes. Kandahar is in Taliban hands – all but a square mile at the centre of the city – and the first Taliban checkpoints are scarcely 15 miles from Kabul. Hamid Karzai’s deeply corrupted government is almost as powerless as the Iraqi cabinet in Baghdad’s “Green Zone”; lorry drivers in the country now carry business permits issued by the Taliban which operate their own courts in remote areas of the country.
…
“Nobody I know wants to see the Taliban back in power,” a Kabul business executive says – anonymity is now as much demanded as it was before 2001 – “but people hate the government and the parliament which doesn’t care about their security. The government is useless. With so many internally displaced refugees pouring into Kabul from the countryside, there’s mass unemployment – but of course, there are no statistics.
“The ‘open market’ led many of us into financial disaster. Afghanistan is just a battlefield of ideology, opium and political corruption. Now you’ve got all these commercial outfits receiving contracts from people like USAID. First they skim off 30 to 50 per cent for their own profits – then they contract out and sub-contract to other companies and there’s only 10 per cent of the original amount left for the Afghans themselves.”
…
“We” are not winning in Afghanistan. Talk of crushing the Taliban seems as bleakly unrealistic as it has ever been. Indeed, when the President of Afghanistan tries to talk to Mullah Omar – one of America’s principal targets in this wretched war – you know the writing is on the wall. And even Mullah Omar didn’t want to talk to Mr Karzai.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-nobody-supports-the-taliban-but-people-hate-the-government-1036905.html
3. Couldn’t have said it better myself:
“Barack Obama will announce his national security team today to approval from the military establishment and Republicans, distant cries of dissent from liberals and head-scratching from others.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5263920.ece
4. Couldn’t have said it better myself:
“With Gates, Obama Opts for Empire
…
Let’s remember: Gates was head of the CIA during Bush I. As such, he was involved in the invasion of Panama, the funding of a genocidal regime in Guatemala, the support of Suharto’s brutal government in Indonesia, and the overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti.”
http://www.progressive.org/mag/wx112608.html
5. Why don’t we use the same techniques on human soldiers?
” Pentagon hires British scientist to help build robot soldiers that ‘won’t commit war crimes’. The American military is planning to build robot soldiers that will not be able to commit war crimes like their human comrades in arms.
…
Ronald Arkin, a computer scientist at Georgia Tech university, who is working on software for the US Army has written a report which concludes robots, while not “perfectly ethical in the battlefield” can “perform more ethically than human soldiers.”
He says that robots “do not need to protect themselves” and “they can be designed without emotions that cloud their judgment or result in anger and frustration with ongoing battlefield events”.
…
Their software would be embedded with rules of engagement conforming with the Geneva Conventions to tell the robot when to open fire.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3536943/Pentagon-hires-British-scientist-to-help-build-robot-soldiers-that-wont-commit-war-crimes.html
6. “The Great Land Giveaway: Neo-Colonialism by Invitation
Colonial style empire-building is making a huge comeback”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11231
7. “Following up on yesterday’s post regarding NBC News’ suppression of the “military analyst” scandal and its ongoing reliance on the deeply conflicted Barry McCaffrey
…
But remarkably, this “news organization” has still not uttered a peep to its viewers about these stories; has not reported on any of the indisputably newsworthy events surrounding the Pentagon’s “military analyst” program; and continues to present McCaffrey to its viewers as an objective source without disclosing any of the multiple connections and interests he has that would lead any reasonable person to question his objectivity.
…
Both NBC and McCaffrey are either incapable of understanding, or are deliberately ignoring, the central point: in those instances where McCaffrey criticized Rumsfeld for his war strategy, it was to criticize him for spending insufficient amounts of money on the war, or for refusing to pursue strategies that would have directly benefited the numerous companies with which McCaffrey is associated.
McCaffrey’s criticism of Bush’s war management doesn’t disprove accusations that he was deeply conflicted when appearing as an NBC “analyst”; to the contrary, the criticisms he voiced constitute some of the most compelling evidence proving that McCaffrey should never have been on NBC — and still should not be.
…
How dishonest do you have to be to deny that that constitutes a serious journalistic conflict? And that’s to say nothing of the endless support McCaffrey expressed on NBC for the War in Iraq and the greater ”War on Terror” while he had all sorts of extensive ties to defense contractors that profited greatly from increased spending on both, and while he participated in the Pentagon’s propaganda program.
…
Amazingly, the executive who submitted NBC’s formal reply to Barstow, Allison Gollust, actually wrote this:
Our relationship with General McCaffrey is based on trust, a basic tenant [sic] of journalism.
Actually, basic tenets of journalism include investigation, skepticism and disclosure of facts — all the things missing from NBC News’ conduct. But blindly trusting government officials and their military medals are not basic tenets of journalism, at least not in theory — and at least not outside of establishment news outlets such as NBC News. “
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
8. “ At the end of the second world war, US officials prosecuted Nazi lawyers and civilians who tortured no one themselves but came up with legal flimflam to turn war crimes into legal policy. Why not apply the same logic to Bush’s legal architects – the men who declared the president was bound by no law and no treaty in subjecting prisoners to torture up to the very edge of death?
The commission would need strong subpoena powers and the full backing of the president. Only once the commission has reported, the decision on whether to prosecute or not could be made, with much wider public awareness, and much deeper examination of the facts and documents now hidden. There is much, after all, we still do not know – and that information may make the war crimes seem less or more defensible.
There are some limits on transparency, of course, because of the sensitive intelligence matters that are involved. But when war crimes are at issue, it is more important for a democracy to seek transparency from its highest officials than to engage in anything but the most pressing concealment of the most vital secrets. In international law, there are no pardons for war crimes. And if America is going to regain moral authority in the world, it has to demonstrate it lives by the same standards it expects from everyone else.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21356.htm
9. “ Electing Barack Obama president was the first step in redeeming American democracy. The second step must be indicting ex-president George W. Bush, giving him a fair trial, finding him guilty of many criminal acts and putting him in prison. Forget revenge. Think rule of law and justice.
I want President Obama soon after taking office to go on television and announce the formation of a special group of outstanding jurists and attorneys to make a recommendation whether or not the US Justice Department should bring criminal charges against George W. Bush. Based on earlier analyses, including work by the American Bar Association, I have no doubt they will recommend indictment.
If moral honesty and courage have any meaning, then the nation must take seriously the concept that no president can ever be allowed to be above the law. How can President Obama not strongly support this? Surely no president must be allowed to disrespect and dishonor the US Constitution. George W. Bush broke his oath of office. His behavior was treasonous. Instead of defending the Constitution he disgraced it. Instead of protecting constitutional rights, including privacy, he sullied them. He asserted his right to ignore or not enforce laws so he could break them. Respect for the office of the presidency must never be allowed to trump truth and justice.
Millions and millions of Americans and people worldwide know that George W. Bush made 9/11 the trigger for initiating an illegal war in Iraq that has killed and maimed so many thousands of people. What Vincent Bugliosi, author of “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder” called “the most serious crime ever committed in American history.” I say convict Bush of myriad counts of criminally negligent homicide related to both Iraq and the Katrina disaster and put him in prison. A former president in prison would not disgrace the presidency. It would restore honor to the office and the Constitution.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21358.htm
10. “ But the ingredients are there, I’d say, for a generational schism in American politics, if somebody wants to come along to pick up that particular ball and run with it. Not only is there plenty of legitimate cause for anger, there is also a yawning ideological divide opening up. Much as young folks may not necessarily want to construe themselves in ideological terms, they seem nevertheless to be considerably to the left of their elders. A look at the demographic data following the election shows rather emphatically that age was one of the best predictors of the vote. The younger you were, the more likely you were to vote Obama. Moreover, Democratic Party registrations among the youngest voters in America absolutely overwhelm those for Republicans. They may not be thinking in left-right terms, per se, but it is clear that they are rejecting the Republican Party. And not just because they don’t like the sound of the name, either, or because McCain came off like the dinosaur he is. Especially on social issues – the red meat and absolute sine qua non of the GOP base – this generation is saying no thanks to prejudice, hatred, religious control and sexual regulation across the board. But if one were to eliminate those items from today’s Republican Party, there’d be almost nothing left remaining in the convention hall, apart from a few gun lobbyists and the occasional, stray, left-over neocon cheerleading for another war somewhere (“Freakin’ Burkina Faso, I tell you, they’re a huge threat to our national security!”).
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not predicting generational warfare in America. And, trust me when I say that I hope it doesn’t happen. Apart from the fact that this country needs another schism like it needs another Bush for president, I personally have everything to lose and nothing to gain if younger Americans start telling older Americans that it’s long past time the Me Generation started thinking in terms of being the We Generation, and learned to share a bit.
If that happens, I hope they are at least more gracious and sympathetic to us than we ever were to them. But I’ll certainly understand it if they’re not.
Because, I’ll tell you what. If I was a twenty-something right now, I’d be pissed.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21359.htm
11. “Offenders To Wear ‘Payback, Mothafucka’ Vest
Starting in January 2009, offenders completing community service orders will have to do so wearing a series of high-visibility vests that punk them like a bitch. The dayglo orange tabards will carry phrases such as “Pick That Shit Up, Fool”, “Don’t Make Me Remand Your Ass All Up In Custody” and “You Some Weak, Repeat-Offending Bitch”.
Jack Straw, Ultimate Harbinger Of Truth & Justice In Albion, defended the scheme, stating “The government feels that there should be a real sense of shame in criminal activity and the punishment should reflect that. I have been holding talks with my American colleague Sweeeet Nathan Brown who advised me that my momma didn’t raise no weak-ass minister and I should make any trifling menial criminal show a brother some respect.”
The ‘Vest Of Shame’ scheme is the first tier of funky restorative justice planned by Straw. Tougher measures proposed include assaulting recidivists using cumbersome, badly performed kung fu and laying some beat down on them with a belt until they recognise who their respective daddies are.
Shami Chakrabarti, the inappropriately cute midget gem and director of human rights group Liberty, has issued a note of caution regarding Straw’s plans, stating “Big pimp restorative justice schemes have been tried in other countries with limited success. Last year, Germany abandoned its “Ich Bein HERR Tibbs” scheme after it was shown that chasing down offenders in 1970 Chevys was both costly and time-consuming.”
http://pushjelly.blogspot.com/2008/12/offenders-to-wear-payback-mothafucka.html
