1. “Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Member of Subcommitte on Defense: “I’m not even sure Bin Laden is still alive”
As is typical of the U.S. media, at least where the U.S. government is concerned–and particularly with respect to U.S. involvement in that particular part of the world–Kathleen Wells just seems to play dumb with the whole pattern-recognition thing. You don’t need to find a smoking gun or a confession that something was done intentionally in order to know that, when you have a continuous pattern of behavior, intentionality is a superior explanation to negligence or ‘recklessness’ (‘reckless’ indeed–the Bush administration got just what it wanted).
Hinchey, to his credit, does seem to understand this. And he also shows a good understanding of the whole background to the Iraq invasion, going back to the Reagan years. And in expressing doubts whether bin Laden is still alive, he is clearly bucking the fear-mongering from Washington, which has picked up lately. So it appears he’s not afraid to think for himself. Now, if only he would question the notion of bin Laden’s responsibility for 9/11.
…
Can Kathleen Wells be that stupid? That uninformed? Of course not. She’s playing stupid, because if she admitted that she knew in 2002 what Congressman Hinchey knew in 2002, then she would have to explain why she and her brethren didn’t report in 2002 that bin Laden was allowed to escape.”
http://www.911blogger.com/node/22187
2. “A Lesson on Nonviolence for Obama
“I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people,” he continued. “For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.”
Unfortunately, this key part of Obama’s speech, which the media widely quoted in its coverage of the award ceremony, contains several logical inconsistencies and historical inaccuracies that tragically reveal Obama’s profound ignorance of nonviolent alternatives to the use of military force.
…
The courageous, everyday citizens who spoke out and took to the streets to stop the murderous reigns of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, and Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, to name only a few examples from recent decades, were anything but passive in the face of evil.
Moreover, these incredible victories for nonviolence were not flukes. After analyzing 323 resistance campaigns over the last century, one important study published last year in the journal International Security, found that “major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns.
…
Through interviews with 17 radical Islamic ex-jihadis over the course of a year, Hari discovered that they all told strikingly similar stories about what drew them to extremism, and what eventually got them out. They all felt alienated growing up in Britain, and connected their personal experiences to the persecution of Muslims around the world. In most cases, however, coming into contact with Westerners who took the values of democracy and human rights seriously, opposed the wars against Muslim countries, and engaged in ordinary acts of kindness first made them question whether they were on the right path.”
http://original.antiwar.com/eric-stoner/2009/12/18/a-lesson-on-nonviolence-for-obama/
3. Not only completely unnecessary, given how many hundreds of billions we’ve already given Israel, but an act of evil on our part, because it makes us an accessory to mass murder of Arabs:
“Obama Approves $30 Billion in Military Aid to Israel Over Next Decade“
4. Nice hypocrisy by the Dems, since they always claimed to be against privatization and subcontracting of public jobs:
“
A hearing in Sen. Claire McCaskill’s Contract Oversight subcommittee on contracting in Afghanistan has highlighted some important statistics that provide a window into the extent to which the Obama administration has picked up the Bush-era war privatization baton and sprinted with it. Overall, contractors now comprise a whopping 69% of the Department of Defense’s total workforce, “the highest ratio of contractors to military personnel in US history.” That’s not in one war zone — that’s the Pentagon in its entirety.
In Afghanistan, the Obama administration blows the Bush administration out of the privatized water. According to a memo [PDF] released by McCaskill’s staff, “From June 2009 to September 2009, there was a 40% increase in Defense Department contractors in Afghanistan. During the same period, the number of armed private security contractors working for the Defense Department in Afghanistan doubled, increasing from approximately 5,000 to more than 10,000.”
5. Unbelievable:
“Iron Curtain of the 21st century
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16611
