Obama's War Surge

[Guest EDGEY]

What's everyone's thoughts on this? Right move? Wrong move?

 

1. New boss, same as the old boss.

2. FUCKING told ya so!

3. I don't give a fuck anymore.

4. ???

5. Profit

 

Also: nvm.

[awepittance]

article on how if you listened to Obama's campiagn speeches before he got elected, none of this should be a surprise

 

All the crying from the left about how Obama "the peace candidate" has now become "a war president" ... Whatever are they talking about? Here's what I wrote in this report in August 2008, during the election campaign:

 

"We find Obama threatening, several times, to attack Iran if they don't do what the United States wants them to do nuclear-wise; threatening more than once to attack Pakistan if their anti-terrorist policies are not tough enough or if there would be a regime change in the nuclear-armed country not to his liking; calling for a large increase in US troops and tougher policies for Afghanistan; wholly and unequivocally embracing Israel as if it were the 51st state."

 

Why should anyone be surprised at Obama's foreign policy in the White House? He has not even banned torture, contrary to what his supporters would fervently have us believe. If further evidence were needed, we have the November 28 report in the Washington Post: "Two Afghan teenagers held in U.S. detention north of Kabul this year said they were beaten by American guards, photographed naked, deprived of sleep and held in solitary confinement in concrete cells for at least two weeks while undergoing daily interrogation about their alleged links to the Taliban." This is but the latest example of the continuance of torture under the new administration.

 

But the shortcomings of Barack Obama and the naiveté of his fans is not the important issue. The important issue is the continuation and escalation of the American war in Afghanistan, based on the myth that the individuals we label "Taliban" are indistinguishable from those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, whom we usually label "al Qaeda". "I am convinced," the president said in his speech at the United States Military Academy (West Point) on December 1, "that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak."

 

Obama used one form or another of the word "extremist" eleven times in his half-hour talk. Young, impressionable minds must be carefully taught; a future generation of military leaders who will command America's never-ending wars must have no doubts that the bad guys are "extremists", that "extremists" are by definition bad guys, that "extremists" are beyond the pale and do not act from human, rational motivation like we do, that we — quintessential non-extremists, peace-loving moderates — are the good guys, forced into one war after another against our will. Sending robotic death machines flying over Afghanistan and Pakistan to drop powerful bombs on the top of wedding parties, funerals, and homes is of course not extremist behavior for human beings.

 

And the bad guys attacked the US "from here", Afghanistan. That's why the United States is "there", Afghanistan. But in fact the 9-11 attack was planned in Germany, Spain and the United States as much as in Afghanistan. It could have been planned in a single small room in Panama City, Taiwan, or Bucharest. What is needed to plot to buy airline tickets and take flying lessons in the United States? And the attack was carried out entirely in the United States. But Barack Obama has to maintain the fiction that Afghanistan was, and is, vital and indispensable to any attack on the United States, past or future.

edited it for length by you can find it here - http://www.counterpunch.org/blum12102009.html

[awepittance]

i particularly love this article because it his the nail on the head. it goes back to a point i made earlier in this thread about the idea that if Obama continues bush policies under this idea of being 'pragmatic' then Bush policies from this moment forward are not radical anymore, but the norm. That is a seriously dangerous outcome of an Obama presidency. Indefinite detention, endless wars, torture, rendition and stripping away of civil liberties at home to fight al qaeda, now that Obama has embraced these almost the entire country has come to accept them.

 

 

The strange consensus on Obama's Nobel address

 

Reactions to Obama's Nobel speech yesterday were remarkably consistent across the political spectrum, and there were two points on which virtually everyone seemed to agree: (1) it was the most explicitly pro-war speech ever delivered by anyone while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize; and (2) it was the most comprehensive expression of Obama's foreign policy principles since he became President. I don't think he can be blamed for the first fact; when the Nobel Committee chose him despite his waging two wars and escalating one, it essentially forced on him the bizarre circumstance of using his acceptance speech to defend the wars he's fighting. What else could he do? Ignore the wars? Repent?

 

I'm more interested in the fact that the set of principles Obama articulated yesterday was such a clear and comprehensive expression of his foreign policy that it's now being referred to as the "Obama Doctrine." About that matter, there are two arguably confounding facts to note: (1) the vast majority of leading conservatives -- from Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich to Peggy Noonan, Sarah Palin, various Kagans and other assorted neocons -- have heaped enthusiastic praise on what Obama said yesterday, i.e., on the Obama Doctrine; and (2) numerous liberals have done exactly the same. That convergence gives rise to a couple of questions:

 

Why are the Bush-following conservatives who ran the country for the last eight years and whose foreign policy ideas are supposedly so discredited -- including some of the nation's hardest-core neocons -- finding so much to cheer in the so-called Obama Doctrine?

 

How could liberals and conservatives -- who have long claimed to possess such vehemently divergent and irreconcilable worldviews on foreign policy -- both simultaneously adore the same comprehensive expression of foreign policy?

 

Let's dispense first with several legitimate caveats. Like all good politicians, Obama is adept at paying homage to multiple, inconsistent views at once, enabling everyone to hear whatever they want in what he says while blissfully ignoring the rest. Additionally, conservatives have an interest in claiming that Obama has embraced Bush/Cheney policies even when he hasn't, because it allows them to claim vindication ("see, now that Obama gets secret briefings, he realizes we were right all along"). Moreover, there are foreign policies Obama has pursued that are genuinely disliked by neocons -- from negotiating with Iran to applying some mild pressure on Israel to the use of more conciliatory and humble rhetoric. And one of the most radical and controversial aspects of the Bush presidency -- the attack on Iraq -- was not defended by Obama, nor was the underlying principle that produced it ("preventive" war).

 

But all that said, it's easy to understand why even intellectually honest conservatives -- including neocons -- found so much to like in "the Obama Doctrine," at least as it found expression yesterday. With the one caveat that Obama omitted a defense of the Iraq War, the generally Obama-supportive Kevin Drum put it this way:

 

"I really don't think neocons have much to complain about even if Obama didn't use the opportunity to announce construction of a new generation of nuclear missiles or something. Given that he was, after all, accepting a peace prize, it was a surprisingly robust defense of war and America's military role in the world. Surprisingly Bushian, really . . ."

 

Indeed, Obama insisted upon what he called the "right" to wage wars "unilaterally"; articulated a wide array of circumstances in which war is supposedly "just" far beyond being attacked or facing imminent attack by another country; explicitly rejected the non-violence espoused by King and Gandhi as too narrow and insufficiently pragmatic for a Commander-in-Chief like Obama to embrace; endowed us with the mission to use war as a means of combating "evil"; and hailed the U.S. for underwriting global security for the last six decades (without mentioning how our heroic efforts affected, say, the people of Vietnam, or Iraq, or Central America, or Gaza, and so many other places where "security" is not exactly what our wars "underwrote"). So it's not difficult to see why Rovian conservatives are embracing his speech; so much of it was devoted to an affirmation of their core beliefs.

 

The more difficult question to answer is why -- given what Drum described -- so many liberals found the speech so inspiring and agreeable? Is that what liberals were hoping for when they elected Obama: someone who would march right into Oslo and proudly announce to the world that we have a unilateral right to wage war when we want and to sing the virtues of war as a key instrument for peace? As Tom Friedman put it on CNN yesterday: "He got into their faces . . . I'm for getting into the Europeans' face." Is that what we needed more of?

 

Yesterday's speech and the odd, extremely bipartisan reaction to it underscored one of the real dangers of the Obama presidency: taking what had been ideas previously discredited as Republican or right-wing dogma and transforming them into bipartisan consensus. It's not just Republicans but Democrats that are now vested in -- and eager to justify -- the virtues of war, claims of Grave Danger posed by Islamic radicals and the need to use massive military force to combat them, indefinite detention, military commissions, extreme secrecy, full-scale immunity for government lawbreaking, and so many other doctrines once purportedly despised by Democrats but now defended by them because the

 

continued here

[karmakramer]

[awepittance]

that video kind of makes me sick to my stomach. have you given up on responding to my last long response to you? its been over a week since you said you were going to continue debating.

[chassis]

What's everyone's thoughts on this? Right move? Wrong move?

1. New boss, same as the old boss.2. FUCKING told ya so!3. I don't give a fuck anymore.4. ???5. ProfitAlso: nvm.

 

Obama stole my fucking underpants.

[awepittance]

expanding the war on terror to Yemen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFzmGQTJfJY

 

Obama links detroit bomb plot to Al Queda in george w bush like fashion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLWGE61N-As

 

edit: what's with that weird welt on Obama's eye

[Guest Spittal]

Obama is nothing more than a con-man.

 

How so?

 

Do you think it's really possible to keep 300,000,000 people happy all at the same time?

 

I don't think it's possible, no.

 

BUT, I do believe that he's broken a few too many promises to still consider him gods gift to earth.

[chenGOD]

 

 

edit: what's with that weird welt on Obama's eye

 

That's just the lizard person trying to come through.

Seriously though, expanding the war on terra to Yemen? Uh oh Americans, here comes the draft. We've got really good weed and decent weather in Vancouver. For those of you on the east coast, bypass Toronto and go to Montreal, good strippers and booze. Don't bother learning french, it won't help you there. Just put "le" in front of most nouns and you'll be ok with a little body language. Oh and learn the word "tabernac".

[delet...]

intresting how the pants bumber had contacts in yemen that set him up with this whole thing.

 

jus saying

[joshuatxuk]

intresting how the pants bumber had contacts in yemen that set him up with this whole thing.

 

jus saying

 

He spoke with the same Yemeni cleric the Ft. Hood shooter corresponded with, but that guy didn't have links with Al-Qaeda.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki

 

This is nit-picking, but I was annoyed that Obama said, "This is not the first time this group has targeted us," in reference to Al-Qaeda and the airliner attack attempt. Yea, pretty sure most Americans remember 9/11.

[SR4]

there's no way a draft will happen, at least successfully.

 

they learned their lesson from vietnam....something rough is going to happen.

 

 

as much as I wish i wasn't, i'm almost firmly convinced that the situation will continue to worsen until we as self-satisfied americans are forced into a situation where we realize how long we've been duped....and a draft would definitely start that off.

[Redruth]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hEr3ydGyoM