Author's posts
Dec 06 2009
“We Are Not Talking Exit Strategy”
The dissembling has already begun. HuffPo reports this morning on Clinton and Gates talking with David Gregory on Meet The Press this morning:
Clinton, Gates Walk Back On Obama’s “Locked In” Afghan Withdrawal
Don’t be confused by President Obama’s speech on Afghanistan. Despite the president’s word on Tuesday that a surge of US and international troops in Afghanistan would “allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011,” that date is not a “drop dead deadline”–at least according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates recorded an interview this week with NBC’s David Gregory on Meet The Press. Set to air Sunday morning, both Obama advisers will walk back on Obama’s withdrawal language. While the president did say during his speech that conditions on the ground would be considered before a transition, Clinton and Gates seem to go a step further:
HILLARY CLINTON: We’re not talking about an exit strategy or a drop dead deadline. What we’re talking about is an assessment that in January 2011, we can begin a transition. A transition to hand off — responsibility to the Afghan forces.
ROBERT GATES: We’re not talking about an abrupt withdrawal. We’re talking about something that will take place over a period of time. Our commanders think that these additional forces, and one of the reasons for the President’s decision to try and accelerate their deployment is– is the view that this extended surge has the opportunity to make significant gains in terms of reversing the momentum of the Taliban, denying them control of Afghan territory, and degrading their capabilities.
WATCH:
Dec 06 2009
Howard Zinn On Creating A Movement To Pressure Obama
On October 27, 2007 Barack Obama made a public campaign promise:
“I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank.“
Now if challenged on that he would probably say he was referring to Iraq, but I think that most people hearing his campaign pledges understood Iraq and Afghanistan to be an indivisible projection of military power, and took Obama at his word, expecting that he was an honest man making an honest pledge.
He has since tripled the number of US Troops that will be deployed to Afghanistan.
I originally posted the following video interview with Howard Zinn back on April 10, 2009 following the then recent revelations of President Obama’s DOJ under Eric Holder betraying Obama’s campaign promises to instead embrace the Bush administrations claims for immunity and “states secrets” in the case of clear FISA violations and illegal wiretapping.
So much more has gone down since then, and Obama has turned his back on so many of his campaign pledges to make his administrations policy decisions so far essentially a direct extension of the policies of the past eight years, with most of the bigger points outlined in Paul Street’s recent article The Dawning Age of Obama as a Potentially Teach-able Moment for The Left, and more recently Obama asking Congress for an amendment to the Freedom of Information Act in order to give Defense Secretary Gates the authority to refuse an ACLU FOIA request for public release of the torture photos, that I wonder if it is worth revisiting what Zinn had to say in this interview one more time.
In part three of what was a series of interviews, historian, political scientist, social critic, activist, author and playwright Professor Howard Zinn talks here with Real News CEO Paul Jay about why so many people seem to be convinced that Obama is anything more than what he appears to be given his actions and policies implemented since inauguration, and about how to create a mass popular movement to pressure Obama for progressive results in a supportive way, and concludes that social turmoil is not only not bad but necessary if it leads to something good in the sense of creating real change.
Real News – April 10, 2009
Send a message to Obama
Howard Zinn: Social turmoil is not bad if it leads to something good
Dec 05 2009
Part 2, Pure Politics Of Obama’s Afghanistan Escalation
In Part 2 of his interview with Paul Jay of The Real News, former chief of staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell Lawrence Wilkerson continues his analysis of Obama’s Afghanistan escalation and of the geopolitical context of the situation, concluding that there is no solely military solution to the situation and that the occupation is simply a money making escapade as well as an attempt at controlling world energy reserves under the banner of a propaganda created fictitous “war on terror”, and that continued US attempts at imperial hegemony in the region will bankrupt America.
“This is not a future that we can sustain. We cannot be the new Rome, it is an impossibility in today’s world. We will squander our power, we will squander our resources, we will be a third world nation, we will be bankrupt in a generation if we try.”
Real News Network – December 5, 2009
America cannot be the hegemon of Western Asia
Wilkerson Pt2: Diplomacy must lead a regional solution to Afghan war; there is no military solution
Part 1 of this interview is here.
Wilkerson is a retired United States Army soldier and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. Wilkerson is an adjunct professor at the College of William & Mary where he teaches courses on US national security. He also instructs a senior seminar in the Honors Department at the George Washington University entitled “National Security Decision Making.”
Dec 04 2009
Pure Politics Of Obama’s Afghanistan Escalation
Real News Network CEO Paul Jay talks with Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, about the politics behind Barack Obama’s Afghanistan “surge”, who explains the devastation of the US Military by the occupation, and how a combination of Obama’s own presidential campaign rhetoric and manipulations by his generals had “locked him in” to escalating the occupation of Afghanistan.
Wilkerson then gives us his take from the perspective of being a teacher on the subject of presidential national security decision making about what the geopolitical consequences of this escalation will likely be.
Real News Network – December 4, 2009
“Obama’s choice” pure politics
Lawrence Wilkerson: Obama’s campaign rhetoric and his generals put him in a corner on Afghanistan
Also see: Part 2, Pure Politics Of Obama’s Afghanistan Escalation
Dec 03 2009
Blue Blue
Mike Gravel here at DD, Nov. 09:
Law requires a deliberative process where you have hearings, markups, proper communications, and the like. And in that way, the people can make laws and properly deliberate the policy issues that affect their lives. And that’s what the National Initiative will be – it’s a meta-tool which we put in the hands of the people, so they will be able to then have an affect on how they are governed. It will be the first time that people will have a government “by the people,” because the people will become lawmakers.
The definition of freedom is the participation in power. Power in representative government is lawmaking. If you don’t make the laws, all you can do is obey the law or go to jail. And so if you really want to have freedom, what we have to do is to make ourselves lawmakers. And the only tool available to do that is the National Initiative. And this is a tool that will not be enacted by representative government, because it dilutes their power and they’re not about to empower the people.
And that’s the reason why we have been struggling with an organization called The National Initiative for Democracy, sponsored by The Democracy Foundation.
Dec 03 2009
Obama’s Vietnam-Lite, and The Revenge Of The Generals
Obama’s widely expected surge in Afghanistan is the “gift” US taxpayers received right in the middle of the worst unemployment crisis since the Great Depression.
The Pentagon for its part got (more or less) what it wanted – for now. As much as Obama stretched himself to stress this was not a new Vietnam, he trapped himself by conflating al-Qaeda with the Taliban and rehashing the same “war on terror” rationale – all clad in the glorious robes of a “noble struggle for freedom”.
Pepe Escobar argues the most significant point about Obama’s West Point address is what he omitted. He simply ignored the current, high-stakes New Great Game in Eurasia, on which the Pentagon is focused like a laser, and of which Afghanistan is just a peon.
Real News Network – December 2, 2009
Obama’s Vietnam-lite
Pepe Escobar: It’s not Vietnam, said Obama, but neither it is what he said it is
Dec 02 2009
Obama’s “Empire”
Real News Network CEO Paul Jay talks with freelance journalist and author Reese Erlich following Obama’s announcement about dispatching 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
Erlich’s books include the 2003 best-seller, Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You, 2007’s The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of US Policy and the Middle-East Crisis, and his newest release Dateline Havana: The Real Story of US Policy and the Future of Cuba. He has produced many radio documentaries, including a series hosted by Walter Cronkite.
Real News Network – December 2, 2009
Obama’s “empire”
Obama says US is not an empire as he sends 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
Dec 02 2009
Obamistan, and The War President
For anyone who didn’t want to watch it, the full text of Obama’s Tuesday night speech is available here, from AFP via RawStory.
On Monday (Dec 01) Gallup reported that Barack Obama’s approval rating on Afghanistan had dropped dramatically by nearly 20 points since July, and before his speech Tuesday night was sitting at 35%, trailing his already very low approval rating on virtually all other issues:
“Americans are far less approving of President Obama’s handling of the situation in Afghanistan than they have been in recent months, with 35% currently approving, down from 49% in September and 56% in July.”
Gallup’s poll results are rather striking in visual form:
Even when broken down by political party his approval slide has been consistent across the board.
Dec 01 2009
Obama & Holder Off The Hook & Worthy Of Your Support Now
Just in case you had any cancerous unpatriotic anti democratic poisonous lingering doubts about Holder and Obama’s honesty and integrity and willingness to buck the tide of public opinion and be rule of LAW kind of guys instead of your standard disingenuous political calculators, here’s just what you need to get your head straightened out and get yourself back into GoBama mode again.
The Supreme Court has thrown out an appeals court ruling ordering the disclosure of photographs of detainees being abused by their U.S. captors.
In doing so Monday, the high court cited a recent change in federal law that allows the pictures to be withheld.
The justices issued a brief, and expected, order Monday directing the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York to take another look at a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union to obtain the photos of detainee abuse. President Barack Obama at first didn’t oppose the release, but he changed his mind, saying they could whip up anti-American sentiment overseas and endanger U.S. troops.
The administration appealed the matter to the Supreme Court, but also worked with Congress to give Defense Secretary Robert Gates the power to keep from the public all pictures of foreign detainees being abused.
Gates invoked his new authority in mid-November, saying widespread distribution of the pictures would endanger American soldiers.
The ACLU has said it will continue fighting for the photos’ release.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who served on the 2nd Circuit until August, did not take part in the court’s consideration of the case, Department of Defense v. ACLU, 09-160.
That would be the SC top heavy with Bush appointees, btw. Like Sonia (it wasn’t me) Sotomayor (I didn’t do it and you shouldn’t think about it). Rah. Rah.
Besides that, this follows on the heels of, back in October, the Obama White House “ordering” Congress to amend the FOIA to give SecDef Gates the authority to withhold “protected documents”, so we can clearly see from all of these actions that we have all badly misjudged Obama and that he really is intent, nay, determined at all costs, to uphold and follow the rule of law, even if he has to do Congress’s job and make the law he intends to follow.
And that’s the way it is.
Even if you feel a little tortured about it.
Nov 30 2009
A New Way Forward: The President’s Address to the American People on Afghan Strategy
Reposted and updated from Nov 25, 2009 — Edger
Barack Obama is scheduled to lay out his latest plans for the war in Afghanistan Tuesday evening, and by all reports will probably announce an escalation – a “surge” – of somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,000 troops, which will bring the total number of US Troops in Afghanistan to about 100,000 and will severely strain an already stretched military and leave the US with effectively no reserve forces.
For a taste of how mainstream US media will paint Obama’s moves, here is NPR’s take this morning (Nov 30):
As NPR’s Cokie Roberts told Morning Edition‘s Steve Inskeep, Obama will be addressing several audiences — including the American public, which wants to hear details about the goals and timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces; and Pakistan, which he will seek to assure that the U.S. won’t completely leave the region “for a good time to come”
Tom Engelhardt of The Nation Institute and TomDispatch.com has written an alternative speech for Obama that I would much prefer to hear from Obama’s own lips, that he calls “The Afghan Speech Obama Should Give (But Won’t)”:
The White House
Office of the Press SecretaryA New Way Forward:
The President’s Address to the American People on Afghan StrategyOval Office
For Immediate Release
December 2ndMy fellow Americans,
On March 28th, I outlined what I called a “comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.” It was ambitious. It was also an attempt to fulfill a campaign promise that was heartfelt. I believed — and still believe — that, in invading Iraq, a war this administration is now ending, we took our eye off Afghanistan. Our well-being and safety, as well as that of the Afghan people, suffered for it.
I suggested then that the situation in Afghanistan was already “perilous.” I announced that we would be sending 17,000 more American soldiers into that war zone, as well as 4,000 trainers and advisors whose job would be to increase the size of the Afghan security forces so that they could someday take the lead in securing their own country. There could be no more serious decision for an American president.
Eight months have passed since that day. This evening, after a comprehensive policy review of our options in that region that has involved commanders in the field, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Security Advisor James Jones, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, top intelligence and State Department officials and key ambassadors, special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, and experts from inside and outside this administration, I have a very different kind of announcement to make.
I plan to speak to you tonight with the frankness Americans deserve from their president. I’ve recently noted a number of pundits who suggest that my task here should be to reassure you about Afghanistan. I don’t agree. What you need is the unvarnished truth just as it’s been given to me. We all need to face a tough situation, as Americans have done so many times in the past, with our eyes wide open. It doesn’t pay for a president or a people to fake it or, for that matter, to kick the can of a difficult decision down the road, especially when the lives of American troops are at stake.During the presidential campaign I called Afghanistan “the right war.” Let me say this: with the full information resources of the American presidency at my fingertips, I no longer believe that to be the case. I know a president isn’t supposed to say such things, but he, too, should have the flexibility to change his mind. In fact, more than most people, it’s important that he do so based on the best information available. No false pride or political calculation should keep him from that.
Read the whole thing here:
Tomgram: “This Administration Ended, Rather Than Extended, Two Wars”
by Tom Engelhardt