Tag: Afghanistan

What are we gonna do when  we don’t get true health care reform/out of Iraq and Afghanistan/torture investigations/financial reform/job creation/restored civil liberties/audit of the Fed/repeal of the Patriot Act?   I voted for Obama, admittedly getting a bit caught up in the whole spectacle.  But the reasons I disliked Bush and his cohorts, are the same reasons I am exasperated with Obama and his cohorts.   We aren’t getting any change.  Spare change maybe, but not change “you can believe in”.  As it’s going, Obama will go down in history as the most dishonest President we’ve ever had.  Much like Bush trying to make colonizing through occupation and torture legal, Obama has transformed the “chicken in every pot” political promising propaganda to a whole new level.  

I’ve thought since shortly after the election we wouldn’t get torture investigations.  We won’t “leave” Iraq by 2011.  We won’t get out of Afghanistan and in fact will escalate there and in Pakistan.  We won’t get single payer, which turned out to be a major understatement.  We won’t get financial reform as evidenced by the casinos open for business bonuses and financial gains made by the banks and Wall Street.   We won’t “recover” from this financial catastrophe because there is no plan for creating the millions of jobs that have been lost.  

Why have I been thinking that?  I’m like a jack of all trades, master of none.  I’m not an expert in geopolitics, realpolitik, or the machinations of the political system in the halls of Congress and the Senate.   But I’ve read stuff man.  Lots of stuff.  Stuff written by the experts.  Isn’t that how one learns?  Certainly contrarian views from the MSM and the Obamabots, but stuff that I believe speaks the truth.  Stuff from Antiwar.com, Counterpunch, Common Dreams, Real News Network, Truthdig, Salon, Asia Times, and on and on.  

Progressives complain about the MSM and the lack of true reporting.  Well, there is true reporting going on and it is coming from people who have spent the better parts of lives studying, analyzing and living the issues.  These are people that take honest looks at the serious issues regardless of what political party or administration is in charge.  They are consistent and look at the facts, not the promises from the speechmaker.    

PBS Frontline:

In Obama’s War, veteran correspondent Martin Smith travels across Afghanistan and Pakistan to see first-hand how the president’s new strategy is taking shape, delivering vivid, on-the-ground reporting from this eight-year-old war’s many fronts. Through interviews with top generals, diplomats and government officials, Smith also reports the internal debates over President Obama’s grand attempt to combat terrorism at its roots.

“What we found on the ground was a huge exercise in nation building,” says Smith. “The concept’s become a bit of a dirty word, but that’s what this is. We started with the goal of eliminating Al Qaeda, and now we’ve wound up with the immense task of re-engineering two nations.”

In Obama’s War, veteran correspondent Martin Smith travels across Afghanistan and Pakistan to see first-hand how the president’s new strategy is taking shape, delivering vivid, on-the-ground reporting from this eight-year-old war’s many fronts. Through interviews with top generals, diplomats and government officials, Smith also reports the internal debates over President Obama’s grand attempt to combat terrorism at its roots.

This is a 25 minute preview of the full program that was apparently scheduled to air October 13, and was scheduled to be available for online viewing here, but perhaps there has been a delay in that, as I do not see any video online there. CORRECTION: It is there but may only be viewable with IE, as I cannot see it there using FireFox 3.

I suppose we should not  begrudge Barack Obama his Nobel Peace Prize, though it represents a  radical break in tradition, since he’s only had slightly less than nine months to discharge his imperial duties, most concretely  through the agency of high explosives in the Hindu Kush whereas laureates like Henry Kissinger had been diligently slaughtering people across the world for years.

Woodrow Wilson, the liberal imperialist with whom Obama bears some marked affinities, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919, having brought America into the carnage of the First World War. The peace laureate president who preceded him was Teddy Roosevelt, who got the prize in 1906  as reward for sponsorship of the Spanish-American war and ardent bloodletting in the Philippines.  Senator George Hoar’s famous denunciation of Roosevelt on the floor of the US Senate in May of 1902 was probably what alerted the Nobel Committee to Roosevelt’s eligibility for the Peace Prize:  

“You have sacrificed nearly ten thousand American lives-the flower of our youth. You have devastated provinces. You have slain uncounted thousands of the people you desire to benefit. You have established reconcentration camps. Your generals are coming home from their harvest bringing sheaves with them, in the shape of other thousands of sick and wounded and insane to drag out miserable lives, wrecked in body and mind. You make the American flag in the eyes of a numerous people the emblem of sacrilege in Christian churches, and of the burning of human dwellings, and of the horror of the water torture.”

   

TR was given the peace prize not long after he’d displayed his boundless compassion for humanity by sponsoring an exhibition of  Filipino “monkey men” in the 1904 St Louis World Fair as “the missing link” in the evolution of Man from ape to Aryan, and thus in sore need of assimilation, forcible if necessary, to the American way. On receipt of the prize, Roosevelt promptly dispatched the Great White Fleet  (sixteen U.S. Navy ships of the Atlantic Fleet  including four battleships) on a worldwide tour to display Uncle Sam’s imperial credentials, anticipating by scarce more than a century, Obama’s award, as he prepares to impose Pax Americana on the Hindukush and portions of Pakistan.      

People marvel at the idiocy of these Nobel awards, but there’s method in the madness, since in the end they train people to accept without demur or protest absurdity as part and parcel of the human condition, which they should accept as representing the considered opinion of rational men, albeit Norwegian. It’s a twist on the Alger myth, inspiring to youth: you too can get to murder Filipinos, or Palestinians, or  Vietnamese or Afghans  and still  win a Peace Prize. That’s the audacity of hope at full stretch.  

The Video below, not a trailer, is the first video of this series that aired the night of 10.11.09 in an hour special, MSNBC broke it up online into six parts, the rest are linked below the video.

One of many of the articles recently written as the focus, after seven years, once again turns to the Afghan occupation as does the debate on being there, occupied now going into the ninth year. It was not secured after ridding the Taliban government and al Qaeda was put on the run when we invaded, destroyed and occupied the innocent people of Iraq where we still have tens of thousands of soldiers and private contractors, some being of our now mercenary army.

Crossposted at Daily Kos.  Look in the Comments Section of Daily Kos for more cartoons on the economy and sports.  Somehow, I couldn’t fit them in the main text of the diary.

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

:: ::

Glenn Beck’s Fear and Paranoia

Dave Granlund, Politicalcartoons.com

On Tuesday Oct. 6th, the U.S. Senate approved the largest military budget bill in the history of our nation: $626 billion. [1]

Next, the bill will be sent to a conference committee and then back to the House and Senate for final passage.

There remains a short window of opportunity to stop this wasteful military madness.

Tell your members of Congress to vote “NO” on the 2010 defense appropriations bill.

It's time to end the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It's time to roll back the out-of-control militarism that is bankrupting our nation, morally and financially.

The Pentagon budget bill contains $128 billion to extend the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — bringing total spending on these wars to over $1 trillion.

Enough is enough. 51% of Americans now believe that the Afghan war is not worth fighting. [2]

We should dedicate most of that $626 billlion to meet the needs of Americans hit hard by the economic crisis, facing foreclosures, lack of health insurance, hunger, and lamentable schools.

We need to take action, motivated by the words of Dr. Martin Luther King: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Yes! I'll tell Congress to vote “NO” on the bloated 2010 military budget.

Notes

(1) Andrew Taylor, “Senate Passes Pentagon Budget, War Funding.”  Associated Press, October 6, 2009.

(2) Jennifer Agiesta and Jon Cohen, “Public Opinion in U.S. Turns Against the War.”  Washington Post, August 20, 2009.

Afghanistan stopped being anything about 9/11 when the talk and the beating of the war drums started and got louder for invading an absolutely innocent people and country, a country led by our once good friend, and brutal dictator, that some wanted silenced.

Now we enter the ninth year of occupying a country that if we had really kept our promises, as we didn’t once before, and helped them might look and be a completely different country, for the innocent Afghans.

All about the Middle East and Iran.  Yes, I’ll be all of that tonight, again.  But, I’m going to do it at Daily Kos.  Yes, I’m not happy about it, but, I think it is time to toss some sanity into progressives yelling “bomb bomb”.

So… give me time to write it up… and… I’ll post the link shortly.

Yesterday, the fifth of October, I posted up a Parade Magazine article I found on Max Cleland and his new book {on my site and a few open threads etc.}. This morning I heard a short, but real good, interview on NPR’s Morning Edition {below with links}, that should be added to the Parade article. This, while short, was a pretty good interview as Max hit’s on a number of issues but unable to delve deeper. Here’s hoping as he has started to promote the book that we get to hear and see longer more in depth interviews, I for one hope so, not only because of the brotherhood of us ‘Nam Vets and the whole Veterans community, but because Max doesn’t hold back, never did, and speaks with feeling and conviction.

Crossposted from Daily Kos

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

:: ::

Hobson’s Choice

Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution