Afghanistan: Our 177th Colony

Afghanistan: Our 177th Colony

Tuesday 01 December 2009

http://www.truthout.org/1201094

by: David Swanson, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

(Image: Troy Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: The U.S. Army, The U.S. National Archives)

During a televised football game on Sunday, an announcer welcomed the members of the U.S. military viewing the game in 177 nations around the world. When the news came on, the topic was the same one it's been for weeks, speculation as to whether and how much a single individual will escalate war by sending tens of thousands of additional troops to nation number 177, Afghanistan.

Somehow it remains eternally controversial to mention the imperial presidency. Yet the positions on Afghanistan in the United States are limited to "The president should escalate the war," "The president should not escalate the war" and "The president should do whatever he wants." Some people have other things to say on the topic, but almost nobody refuses to hold one of those three positions.

One of the few holdouts is a document rather than a person, a document known as the U.S. Constitution. The funny thing is that the people who wrote this document over two centuries ago very intentionally and explicitly created a legislature with the power and duty to decide when and where to fight wars, to raise the funding to pay for them, and to oversee the military. The executive was to execute the will of the Congress, including in his duty as commander in chief of the military.

The wisdom here was not just in giving the power to decide on wars, and the extent of those wars, to a different branch of government than the commander in chief, while nonetheless giving him (or her) civilian command of the military. The wisdom extended to giving the legislature the power to decide virtually everything else, what laws to make in any area and, in every area, what money to raise or spend.

Representatives were to represent relatively small numbers of people. Their constituents, it was expected, might be able to persuade them to act on behalf of majority opinion. The idea of the entire nation lobbying the executive is almost laughably more challenging, even without considering the problems with lobbying an executive to make decisions only Congress is constitutionally able to make, not to mention decisions on whether to engage in massive crimes forbidden by treaties to which our nation is a party.

But Congress is in such bad shape that many people have had many years to learn that their permanent-incumbent representative is virtually immune to public influence. Meanwhile, the president is new, and his vague advertising campaign has left him open to wishful misinterpretation. Plus, he's a member of the good team.

If President George W. Bush had called something serving 2 to 5 percent of Americans a "public option," MoveOn.org would have attacked him for deceiving the country. When Obama does that, all the activist groups celebrate his public service. When Bush continued and escalated wars, the more principled peace groups told the House of Representatives to deny him the money. After 11 months, we are just beginning to drag a few of the better peace groups partially away from their lobbying of the new emperor, in order to work on denying the money.

I recently read an excellent book called "The Vanishing of a Species?" which Peter Gretener wrote, for the most part, 30 years ago, but which his family just published posthumously. This book looks at the fate of our species in as wise a way as anyone has in the generation since it was written. It examines, among other things, the question of whether humans are aggressive due to nature or nurture, and whether this aggressiveness must expand with the greater density of humans caused by population growth. But Gretener never considers the possibility of a government misrepresenting its people, of people outgrowing aggressiveness but their government nonetheless attacking others.

Gretener believes that human wisdom has not kept pace with human technology, thus creating the possibility of economic and environmental collapse. I believe, on the contrary, that human wisdom has declined rather than holding steady. We've lost the ability to live sustainably or peacefully. And we've lost the understanding of how governments can be structured to check our inevitable abuses.

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Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

Be at the War Memorial Bldg in Baltimore at 5:30 PM on Dec. 2/In Afghan Debate, Few Antiwar Op-Eds

The Pledge of Resistance has been working with peace groups around the country to first send Obama a letter bringing to his attention that the escalation witl be met with increased nonviolent resistance and second to organize protests in response.  The Pledge and Baltimore United For Peace and Justice will host a demonstration.

 

WHEN:  Wednesday, December 2, 2009 starting at 5:30 PM

 

WHERE:  Outside the War Memorial Building on Gay Street

 

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/01-1

 

 Published on Tuesday, December 1, 2009 by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)

In Afghan Debate, Few Antiwar Op-Eds

Elite papers marginalize public opposition

by Steve Rendall

The Obama administration, having increased the number of troops in Afghanistan by 21,000 in March, is engaged in a contentious internal discussion about whether to send an additional 40,000 more. There is growing anger over Afghan civilian deaths, and July and August were the deadliest months for U.S. soldiers since the U.S. invaded in 2001 (AP, 8/28/09).

US film director Michael Moore speaks about his latest movie "Capitalism: A Love Story" at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Filmmaker Michael Moore has urged President Barack Obama not to expand the war in Afghanistan, as Washington prepares to announce a surge of US troops in the conflict-torn nation. (AFP/Yoshikazu Tsuno)

Meanwhile, polls throughout 2009 show a U.S. public divided on whether the war is even worth fighting, let alone in need of escalation. In three surveys since July, the AP/GfK poll has reported that at least 53 percent of respondents say they oppose the Afghanistan War (PollingReport.com [1]). In September, 51 percent told the Washington Post/ABC News poll (9/10-12/09) that the war was not "worth fighting"; only 46 percent said it was.

So where's the wide-ranging Afghanistan War debate in the media?

The need for broad public debate over Afghanistan was echoed in September by Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Adm. Mike Mullen. Citing popular opposition to the war, Mullen called for a broad debate to take a "hard look" at the policy. "I've seen the public opinion polls saying that a majority of Americans don't support the effort at all," Mullen told an American Legion convention in Louisville, Ky (Washington Post, 8/26/09). "I say, good. Let's have that debate, let's have that discussion."

But according to a new FAIR study of the op-ed pages of the two leading U.S. newspapers, rather than airing a full range of voices on the war, prominent media have downplayed proponents of withdrawal in favor of a debate that reflects the narrow range of elite, inside-Washington opinion.

FAIR's study looked at all opinion columns in the New York Times and the Washington Post during the first 10 months of 2009 that addressed what the U.S. should do in the Afghanistan War. Columns were counted as antiwar if they called for withdrawal or clearly called into question the need or rationale for the war. Columns that supported continuing the war were counted as pro-war; these were divided into those that endorsed the idea of escalating the war and those that advocated some sort of alternative strategy, including reducing the number of troops.

Both newspapers marginalized antiwar opinion to different degrees. Of the New York Times' 43 columns on the Afghanistan War, 36 supported the war and only seven opposed it-five times as many columns to war supporters as to opponents. Of the paper's pro-war columns, 14 favored some form of escalation, while 22 argued for pursuing the war differently.

In the Washington Post, pro-war columns outnumbered antiwar columns by more than 10 to 1: Of 67 Post columns on U.S. military policy in Afghanistan, 61 supported a continued war, while just six expressed antiwar views. Of the pro-war columns, 31 were for escalation and 30 for an alternative strategy.

At times the Post's editors seemed unaware that an antiwar position even existed. For instance, in an op-ed roundtable (9/27/09) appearing in its recurring "Topic A" feature, the section's editors, in their words, "asked foreign policy experts whether President Obama should maintain a focus on protecting the population and rebuilding the country, or on striking terrorists."

Excluding withdrawal from the discussion was a theme echoed by Post columnist Fareed Zakaria, who began a column (9/14/09): "It is time to get real about Afghanistan. Withdrawal is not a serious option."

Some columnists changed positions during the study period, which spanned two separate escalation discussions. Zakaria, for instance, supported the first escalation but opposed the one debated in the fall of 2009. The Post's David Ignatius mostly opposed escalation, calling instead for continuing the war while paying more attention to humanitarian concerns, but he wrote one column that supported sending additional troops (10/30/09).

Pro-war columns opposing escalation included a variety of views. The Post's Ignatius argued (10/4/09) that the U.S. should "[keep] our troop levels firm and reliable, until the Afghans acquire the tools and political consensus to secure their country"; Ignatius' Post colleague George Will (9/1/09) wanted to replace ground troops in Afghanistan with more long-distance aerial attacks-which are notoriously hazardous to civilian populations:

So, instead, forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.

Calls for a scale-back or drawdown but not an end to the war were counted as pro-war, including columns that expressed some antiwar sentiments but suggested that the war should continue at some level-such as Times columnist Bob Herbert's January 6 op-ed, which criticized the war but ultimately seemed to call merely for scaling down the troop commitment, arguing that "our interest in Afghanistan is to prevent it from becoming a haven for terrorists bent on attacking us," a mission that he said "does not require the scale of military operations that the incoming administration is contemplating" or "a wholesale occupation."

Herbert's five subsequent columns on Afghanistan policy, on the other hand, made him by far the loudest antiwar voice in the study period, and the author of the majority of the Times' seven antiwar columns. His October 26 column was a clear example, concluding: "Let's explore creative alternatives to endless warfare and start bringing the weary troops home."

Only one of the Times' antiwar columns was written by a guest columnist (Leslie Gelb, 3/13/09); by contrast, only one of the Post's antiwar columns was written by a regular columnist (Eugene Robinson, 10/27/09). And three of the Post's six antiwar columns were short "Topic A" responses rather than full-length columns.

The voices the papers featured on the Afghanistan debate were overwhelmingly male, with only 12 of 110 columns written or co-written by women. Though women oppose escalation more strongly than men-according to a Clarus poll (10/1-4/09), 45 percent of men but only 33 percent of women favored additional troops-women's columns were overall more pro-escalation than the male-penned op-eds. All nine columns appearing in the Post written or co-written by women were pro-war, with seven calling for an escalation; all three Times columns bearing female bylines supported the war, with two arguing for escalation. No antiwar column by a woman appeared in either paper.

Only two columns in the study period were written or co-written by Afghan nationals (New York Times, 4/20/09; Washington Post, 10/18/09); both generally supported the war, though neither called for escalation. Neither paper published a single column written by an antiwar activist or peace movement leader.

As hawkish advocates are ramping up their pro-war campaigns-including on the country's leading op-ed pages-opposition to the war is not diminishing. In fact, according to the latest poll from AP/GfK, the opposite is happening: Its November 5-9 survey [1] found 57 percent opposed to the war and just 39 percent in support.

So the American public's majority view is a decidedly minority view on the op-ed pages on the country's most prestigious newspapers. That's good and bad news for democracy: It's good news that the public is not entirely captive to the narrow, elite range of debate prescribed by newspapers.

It's bad news because, however diminished their roles as opinion leaders may be, the New York Times and the Washington Post continue to wield an unmatched influence in the nation's capital and in newsrooms across the country. One can only imagine what public opinion would be, and what policy might result, if these papers truly offered a wide-ranging debate on the Afghanistan War.

Research assistance by Valerie Doescher and Taylor Moore.

 © 2009 FAIR

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

As Obama Sends More Troops, Giant Shadow Army Of Contractors Set To Grow In Afghanistan/The Campaign Cash Behind the Afghanistan Escalation

Published on Tuesday, December 1, 2009 by Talking Points Memo

As Obama Sends More Troops, Giant Shadow Army Of Contractors Set To Grow In Afghanistan

by Justin Elliott

With President Obama addressing the nation tonight about a new escalation in Afghanistan, a perennially underexamined topic is once again receiving short shrift: the huge force of contractors, which as of June outnumbered the size of the U.S. troop presence itself, is likely to swell.

Contractors watch for threats on plane departing from Forward Operating Base Sharana in Eastern Afghanistan in May of 2009. (Newscom

The Administration seemingly hasn't addressed the issue, and the word "contractor" doesn't appear much in media coverage -- for example, in the Times [1] and Post [2] stories on the escalation today.

But David Berteau, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, tells TPM that as Obama increases troop levels to at least 100,000, "there will definitely be an increase in the number of contractors."

The contractors -- the majority of whom are Afghan nationals, according to a Congressional study [3] -- do the work that makes the war possible, like serving food, driving trucks, constructing buildings, transporting fuel, and more. Between 7% and 16% of the total are Blackwater-style private security contractors, according to various estimates.

While contractors allow the U.S. to fight wars with fewer American troops -- which may be good or bad, depending on who you ask -- they also present serious transparency and security concerns. That includes goodwill-draining episodes like the May shooting [4] of two Afghan civilians in Kabul by contractors working for Xe, formerly Blackwater. Experts are also concerned about an attack by enemies who might slip through security as a contractor at an American facility.

It's impossible to say how much taxpayer money is going to private contracts because various government entities either don't know, or don't agree on, just how many contractors are currently in Afghanistan.

That fact "permits and invites waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer money and undermines the achievement of US mission objectives," Michael Thibault, co-chair of the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting, complained [5] at a hearing last month. At that hearing, military witnesses couldn't come up [5] with a precise count of contractors, prompting former GOP congressman Chris Shays to remark [6], "I kind of want to scream."

After being bounced around to several DOD offices in the United States and Afghanistan that professed ignorance about the number of contractors, a U.S. Central Command spokesman told TPM today the issue would take some time to look into, and he would get back to us.

The best count we and the experts we spoke with could find is a September study [7] by the Congressional Research Service, with numbers through June provided by the military. It notes that last December, contractors made up 69% of the DOD workforce, "the highest recorded percentage ... in any conflict in the history of the United States."

The number of contractors in Afghanistan as of June was 73,968, compared with 55,107 troops. Of the total contractors, about 10,000 are Americans, 51,000 are locals, and roughly 12,000 are third-country nationals. Take a look at this graph from the study:

It's not just discussions of troop levels -- which typically ignore contractors -- that obfuscate the size of the American commitment in Afghanistan. According to a powerful piece [8] in the Los Angeles Times, almost 1,600 civilian workers have died in the Iraq and Afghan wars.

"Since the end of the Cold War the US government has become extremely comfortable with contracting out certain military functions to the private sector, and therefore doesn't consider these contractors to be part of the American commitment," says Peter Juul, a researcher at the Center for American Progress. "They're off the books and don't really count, even though you have to pay for them."

The White House said [9] today that each additional 10,000 troops will cost roughly $10 billion. But does that number include any increase in the contractor force? It's not clear.

A comprehensive study of the issue by the Commission on Wartime Contracting [10], created by Congress in 2008, is due in the summer of 2011.

Finally, it's worth noting that Hamid Karzai recently promised [11] to kick out all foreign private security firms and transfer their duties to Afghans within two years. But analysts told Mother Jones they don't think the promise is worth much.

© 2009 Talking Points Memo

Published on Tuesday, December 1, 2009 by Facing South

The Campaign Cash Behind the Afghanistan Escalation

by Sue Sturgis

President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver a speech to the nation tonight from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in which he's expected to announce he's sending up to 35,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

In this photograph taken on July 2, US Marines from the 2nd Battalion, wait for helicopter transport at Camp Dwyer in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Medics and air force pilots at the main US base in Afghanistan are gearing up for the grim reality of the new US war strategy -- a likely escalation in the number of casualties in an increasingly bloody battlefield. (AFP/File/Manpreet Romana)

Anti-war groups are already planning protests against the escalation. United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of more than 1,400 local and national groups, is holding numerous protest actions [1] around the country today and tomorrow, as is the anti-war group Code Pink [2].

Some are calling the president's plan to ratchet up the war a betrayal of the Democratic base, which overwhelmingly opposes sending more troops. For example, a recent Gallup poll [3] found that 60% of Democrats want the president to begin reducing troop levels in Afghanistan.

But while the president may be showing disloyalty to his political base, he's remaining faithful to the defense industry interests that so generously funded his campaign.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org database [4], the top recipient of defense industry money in the 2008 election cycle was Barack Obama, whose haul of $1,029,997 far surpassed Republican contender Sen. John McCain's $696,948.

During the 2008 cycle, the industry contributed a total of $23.7 million to federal candidates -- far more than the $17.4 million it invested during the 2006 cycle or the $18.1 million in the 2004 cycle.

The top five defense industry contributors during the 2008 elections [5] were Lockheed Martin at $2.5 million, Boeing at $2.1 million, Northrop Grumman at $1.8 million, and Raytheon and General Dynamics at $1.7 million each.

And it appears their investment may be paying off: The Associated Press reports [6] that analyst Howard A. Rubel of the global investment bank Jefferies & Co. sent out a client note today stating that the fiscal 2010 Defense Department Budget will likely boost demand for precision munitions, communications gear, helicopters, armor and surveillance systems.

Among the companies whose stock Rubel rated as "Buy"? General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman.

© 2009 Institute for Southern Studies

 

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

81-year-old activist begins fast to end mountaintop removal mining

http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/11/81-year-old-activist-begins-fast-to-end-mountaintop-removal-mining.html

FACING SOUTH - Online Magazine of the Institute for Southern Studies

81-year-old activist begins fast to end mountaintop removal mining

An 81-year-old activist will begin a fast today at the West Virginia State Capitol in an effort to end mountaintop removal coal mining.

A native of Virginia who now lives in upstate New York, U.S. Army veteran Roland Micklem spent a half-century working as a naturalist and science teacher before turning his attention to the destructive mining practices that are decimating the mountain peaks and streams of Appalachia.

In June, Micklem was arrested along with NASA scientist James Hansen and actress Darryl Hannah at a protest held at a West Virginia elementary school imperiled by nearby mountaintop removal operation. In September he participated in a blockade of the West Virginia regional headquarters of Massey Energy, a major mountaintop removal operator, and last month he organized and led over 30 people on the 25-mile Senior Citizen's March to End Mountaintop Removal.

In his open letter posted to the Climate Ground Zero website, Micklem describes the trauma and depression he experienced after observing the loss of so many species due to environmental degradation and how it inspired his environmental activism:

 

I have exchanged my academic interest in the world of nature for a commitment to see that some of it is left for succeeding generations to study and enjoy. My sorrow over the changes that self aggrandizing humanity has wrought have resulted in my decision to fast, and I will do so, as indicated in my statement, in a very public place before those with the power to bring about needed reform.

 

He says his fast will continue for an indeterminate period of time, as he has not set demands or preconditions for ending it.

"This is a prolonged act of mourning, not only for the mountains, but for all of God's Creation -- plants, animals, nature -- that has been callously exploited and abused to satisfy the selfish wants of a single species," says Micklem, a devout Christian.

His fast begins a week before a coalition of West Virginia residents and their allies plan to gather at the state Department of Environmental Protection to demand enforcement of the Clean Water Act and an end to Massey's blasting atop Coal River Mountain, where environmentalists have been pressing for a wind farm.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency is reportedly investigating whether Massey's operations on Coal River Mountain have the necessary permits.

(Image of Roland Micklem is a still from a video about the Senior Citizen's March to End Mountaintop Removal.)

 

By Sue Sturgis on November 30, 2009 10:58 AM
Vote

© Copyright 2009 by the Institute for Southern Studies . All Rights Reserved.

 

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

An Open Letter to President Obama from Michael Moore

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikes-letter/open-letter-president-obama-michael-moore

Mike's Letter

November 30th, 2009 3:44 AM

An Open Letter to President Obama from Michael Moore

Dear President Obama,

Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they've always heard is true -- that all politicians are alike. I simply can't believe you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn't so.

It is not your job to do what the generals tell you to do. We are a civilian-run government. WE tell the Joint Chiefs what to do, not the other way around. That's the way General Washington insisted it must be. That's what President Truman told General MacArthur when MacArthur wanted to invade China. "You're fired!," said Truman, and that was that. And you should have fired Gen. McChrystal when he went to the press to preempt you, telling the press what YOU had to do. Let me be blunt: We love our kids in the armed services, but we f*#&in' hate these generals, from Westmoreland in Vietnam to, yes, even Colin Powell for lying to the UN with his made-up drawings of WMD (he has since sought redemption).

So now you feel backed into a corner. 30 years ago this past Thursday (Thanksgiving) the Soviet generals had a cool idea -- "Let's invade Afghanistan!" Well, that turned out to be the final nail in the USSR coffin.

There's a reason they don't call Afghanistan the "Garden State" (though they probably should, seeing how the corrupt President Karzai, whom we back, has his brother in the heroin trade raising poppies). Afghanistan's nickname is the "Graveyard of Empires." If you don't believe it, give the British a call. I'd have you call Genghis Khan but I lost his number. I do have Gorbachev's number though. It's + 41 22 789 1662. I'm sure he could give you an earful about the historic blunder you're about to commit.

With our economic collapse still in full swing and our precious young men and women being sacrificed on the altar of arrogance and greed, the breakdown of this great civilization we call America will head, full throttle, into oblivion if you become the "war president." Empires never think the end is near, until the end is here. Empires think that more evil will force the heathens to toe the line -- and yet it never works. The heathens usually tear them to shreds.

Choose carefully, President Obama. You of all people know that it doesn't have to be this way. You still have a few hours to listen to your heart, and your own clear thinking. You know that nothing good can come from sending more troops halfway around the world to a place neither you nor they understand, to achieve an objective that neither you nor they understand, in a country that does not want us there. You can feel it in your bones.

I know you know that there are LESS than a hundred al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan! A hundred thousand troops trying to crush a hundred guys living in caves? Are you serious? Have you drunk Bush's Kool-Aid? I refuse to believe it.

Your potential decision to expand the war (while saying that you're doing it so you can "end the war") will do more to set your legacy in stone than any of the great things you've said and done in your first year. One more throwing a bone from you to the Republicans and the coalition of the hopeful and the hopeless may be gone -- and this nation will be back in the hands of the haters quicker than you can shout "tea bag!"

Choose carefully, Mr. President. Your corporate backers are going to abandon you as soon as it is clear you are a one-term president and that the nation will be safely back in the hands of the usual idiots who do their bidding. That could be Wednesday morning.

We the people still love you. We the people still have a sliver of hope. But we the people can't take it anymore. We can't take your caving in, over and over, when we elected you by a big, wide margin of millions to get in there and get the job done. What part of "landslide victory" don't you understand?

Don't be deceived into thinking that sending a few more troops into Afghanistan will make a difference, or earn you the respect of the haters. They will not stop until this country is torn asunder and every last dollar is extracted from the poor and soon-to-be poor. You could send a million troops over there and the crazy Right still wouldn't be happy. You would still be the victim of their incessant venom on hate radio and television because no matter what you do, you can't change the one thing about yourself that sends them over the edge.

The haters were not the ones who elected you, and they can't be won over by abandoning the rest of us.

President Obama, it's time to come home. Ask your neighbors in Chicago and the parents of the young men and women doing the fighting and dying if they want more billions and more troops sent to Afghanistan. Do you think they will say, "No, we don't need health care, we don't need jobs, we don't need homes. You go on ahead, Mr. President, and send our wealth and our sons and daughters overseas, 'cause we don't need them, either."

What would Martin Luther King, Jr. do? What would your grandmother do? Not send more poor people to kill other poor people who pose no threat to them, that's what they'd do. Not spend billions and trillions to wage war while American children are sleeping on the streets and standing in bread lines.

All of us that voted and prayed for you and cried the night of your victory have endured an Orwellian hell of eight years of crimes committed in our name: torture, rendition, suspension of the bill of rights, invading nations who had not attacked us, blowing up neighborhoods that Saddam "might" be in (but never was), slaughtering wedding parties in Afghanistan. We watched as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were slaughtered and tens of thousands of our brave young men and women were killed, maimed, or endured mental anguish -- the full terror of which we scarcely know.

When we elected you we didn't expect miracles. We didn't even expect much change. But we expected some. We thought you would stop the madness. Stop the killing. Stop the insane idea that men with guns can reorganize a nation that doesn't even function as a nation and never, ever has.

Stop, stop, stop! For the sake of the lives of young Americans and Afghan civilians, stop. For the sake of your presidency, hope, and the future of our nation, stop. For God's sake, stop.

Tonight we still have hope.

Tomorrow, we shall see. The ball is in your court. You DON'T have to do this. You can be a profile in courage. You can be your mother's son.

We're counting on you.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. There's still time to have your voice heard. Call the White House at 202-456-1111 or email the President.

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

Barack Obama: Manchurian Candidate Version 2.0

Published on Monday, November 30, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Barack Obama: Manchurian Candidate Version 2.0

by Dave Lindorff

I once wrote an article [1] about former President George W. Bush saying that he was a perfect Manchurian candidate. That is, if his missing year when he was supposed to have been flying fighter jets with the Texas Air National Guard was actually spent in the former Soviet Union being reprogrammed as a covert KGB agent whose job it was to go back to America, win election to the White House, and proceed to destroy the US, he couldn't have done a better job than he actually did.

Now I wonder whether President Obama might not be a perfect Manchurian Candidate of the Republican Party, or perhaps of some nefarious foreign entity-perhaps the China or the always-enigmatic Al Qaeda. How else to explain policies that have wreaked such destruction on the Democratic Party in Washington and on the nation at large.

Consider for a moment the history of this new president in whom so many invested so much hope and enthusiasm:

Almost immediately upon taking office President Obama announced that he was appointing Timothy Geithner, part of the Bush/Cheney financial team, to head up his Treasury Department. This is the same Timothy Geithner who, as head of the New York Federal Reserve, engineered the initial give-away of $85 billion to AIG, and the subsequent pass-through of tens of billions of dollars to a handful of the nation's largest banks and investment banks-surely the largest theft of public assets by private billionaires in the history of mankind. Obama went on to name a whole gang of Wall Street crooks to run his economic policy, assuring that the recession would be not an opportunity to restore long neglected and undermined New Deal programs, but rather to crush workers and the middle class while shifting staggering sums to the wealthy.

This was followed by a deliberate policy of dropping the ball on health reform, which a vast majority of Americans was clamoring for, and allowing it to be turned into a giant wet kiss for the insurance industry, whose stocks have leapt up with each advance of the massive and massively corrupt health "reform" legislation in Congress. (The ball drop took the form of Obama simply leaving the whole task of "reforming" health care up to the Congress, staying on the sidelines while Congress blew the job.)

Then there is the military. Here Obama kicked things off by insuring that there would be no real change from the Bush/Cheney imperialist scheme by reappointing to the post of secretary of defense the same guy, Robert Gates, who was secretary of defense under President Bush. He put the general formerly in charge of the Iraq War, David Petraeus, in charge of overall Middle East military operations, and took another Bush-era general, Stanley McCrystal, who had run special ops in Iraq, in charge of the Afghanistan War. And since then he has proceeded to ramp up the Afghanistan War from a small-scale operation to a full-fledged war, with no prospect of ending it, and every sign pointing to an ever wider and bigger war in that region, possibly sucking in Pakistan and Iran.

And as for the biggest crisis facing mankind, climate change, this new president, who because of the collapse of the US auto industry had a unique opportunity to compel one of the industries most responsible for the looming global ecological catastrophe to start to fix it by beginning a massive conversion to development and production of electric vehicles and mass transit, instead dropped the ball and just provided a taxpayer bailout with the goal of getting the domestic auto industry back into the business of cranking out gas guzzlers. The president has provided no leadership on climate change at all, effectively sabotaging the global effort to reach a new treaty to limit and cut back on greenhouse gas emissions this December.

Think about this. If the Republicans had created and inserted into the Democratic Party a secret candidate designed to trick Democrats into electing him, so that he could then enact Republican policies of robbing from the poor to enrich the rich, expanding the military budget to a level not seen since World War II, putting the nation deeper into a global war against Islam, sabotaging efforts to combat climate change, and further deregulating the financial sector, could they have come up with anything better than Barack Obama?

If Al Qaeda had wanted to insinuate someone into the White House to further undermine American empire, already on shaky legs during the Bush/Cheney years, by getting the US to further overextend its military, further bankrupt its already creaky economy, and further demoralize its citizens by boosting unemployment and undermining its Constitution, could Bin Laden & Co. have come up with a better Manchurian Candidate than Barack Obama?

If China had wanted a candidate to destroy the American currency, bankrupt the US and its remaining industrial base and leave it helpless and begging to be bought out by Chinese interests (there is now serious talk of China buying General Motors), could the country's Communist rulers have done better than Barack Obama?

Now don't get me wrong. I don't think for a second that Obama is a secret Republican or a secret Al Qaeda or Chinese operative, though I know that there are right-wing Tea Baggers out there who sincerely believe the latter two scenarios (often at the same time!). I think Obama is simply another slick politician with a giant ego and a shriveled sense of principle and ethics-a man that is, not unlike most of our political class, though with better diction and smile, whose interests include himself, his family, and those who bankroll him, but certainly not you, me and the country as a whole.

But it might help if we started to think of him in these terms, because objectively what we have right now in the White House is a president who is steering the nation towards disaster as surely as if it were his goal in life.

Because he is a Democrat, and because he talked a good line during the campaign last year, progressives are disoriented and don't know how to respond to his massive betrayal of all things progressive. At this rate, by next fall, we could have a raging full-scale war going on in Afghanistan, Pakistan in a state of chaos, Iran under attack by Israel or perhaps by Israel and the US, health reform a forgotten issue, real unemployment at over 20 percent, the dollar at half the value of the British pound, and negotiations for a global climate treaty in collapse. And progressives still will not be mounting any effective protest or political action.

I'm not sure what the answer is to this crisis. Many people on the left are arguing that it is essential to abandon the Democrats and move to a third party. I think that's a great idea. The Democratic Party has proved to be absolutely corrupt and beyond salvation--useful only as a sump pump whose purpose is to suck the life out of the progressive movement, such as it is. But I also can't help noticing that the vast majority of the middle class seems still content enough to struggle on with the jobs they still have -- the 80-85 percent of them who still have jobs -- ignoring the plight of those who do not and of the poor. It was an observation made by the late John Kenneth Galbraith that the problem with modern post-industrial democracies is that the vast majority of people do well enough that they no longer care about the suffering of the minority of the population.

As long as the ruling elites are able to keep the majority at least employed and in their homes, they can tighten the screws on the rest with impunity, and that is the situation we are in today. It is hard to see a new progressive party succeeding under such circumstances.

What is undeniable is that we are witnessing the systemic and probably terminal decline of the US as an economic power, and as a military power, and that is certainly a good thing, if not for Americans, then surely for the larger world. What is remarkable is watching President Obama, who was elected by Americans who were hoping he would turn things around, again and again act to hasten that decline.

Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. He is author of Marketplace Medicine: The Rise of the For-Profit Hospital Chains [2](BantamBooks, 1992), and his latest book "The Case for Impeachment [3]" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net [4]

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

Countdown to Copenhagen: The 'People's Summit'

Countdown to Copenhagen: The 'People's Summit'

 

Seven days to go: It's not just world leaders who will be gathering in Denmark next week. Environmental activists will be there too

 

By Ben Ferguson and Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor The Independent (UK) November 30, 2009

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/countdown-to-copenhagen-the-peoples-summit-1831098.html

 

Only seven days to go now, in the Countdown to Copenhagen - one week until 192 nations come together to try to negotiate a new international climate treaty that will allow the world to deal with the potentially catastrophic threat of global warming.

 

Most world leaders, from US President Barack Obama down, will attend the meeting in the Danish capital which begins on 7 December and lasts until 19 December; it will be one of the largest international gatherings ever seen, with about 15,000 delegates and diplomats working behind the prime ministers and presidents who will make the final decisions.

 

But there is another gathering taking place in Copenhagen, running in parallel with the main conference, and that is the coming together of environmental activists from all over the world, who are flocking to Denmark to cheer the conference on, as it were, and also to give it a few sharp prods - to remind the presidents and the prime ministers doing the deciding that the situation is serious and needs an adequate response.

 

There may be 10,000 of them. There may be 20,000. There may be even 30,000. Their official focus will be Klimaforum09, the alternative "people's summit" which will host speakers such as the anti-globalisation activist Naomi Klein, the author and climate campaigner George Monbiot and the radical Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva. "Klimaforum's aim is to provide an opportunity for the public to enter into discussion," said its spokesman Richard Steed. "We're going to be looking at radical solutions."

 

Plenty of people will be offering them. Naomi Klein, the Canadian author whose book No Logo became a key text for anti-globalisation campaigners, contrasted Copenhagen with the "Battle of Seattle", the angry confrontation with the authorities at the World Trade Organisation conference in 1999, which she took part in.

 

This time around, she believes, "it's really tricky for activists in terms of figuring out how you interact with a summit like this. There's a different dynamic [from Seattle], because the fact is that the people in the streets overwhelmingly support the mission of the meeting in Copenhagen. And, so, they're not saying 'no' to the idea of a climate summit. In fact, they're saying 'yes'."

 

Friends of the Earth International (FOE) have organised one of the major actions during the conference, known as The Flood. Part of the Global Day of Action on 12 December - the middle Saturday of the conference when the city centre will become a carnival of parades - this will consist of about 3,000 members of the public taking to the streets dressed in blue. They will march towards the Bella Centre, where the main climate conference is being held, after joining up with other groups. "System Change, Not Climate Change" is the slogan for the less formal actions being organised by Climate Justice Action (CJA), the umbrella group for an international network that includes Climate Camp, Focus on the Global South, and the Indian Social Action Forum.

 

The organisations marching that day plan to convene outside the Bella Centre to show the level of solidarity needed to cut carbon emissions at an appropriate rate. As well as attempting to persuade governments to commit to these targets, the demonstrators will also argue that market-based ideas such as the trading of carbon emissions are merely opportunities for companies to profit from pollution.

 

Most of the protesters reject the involvement of the World Bank in international climate finance.

 

Exhibitions by members of indigenous populations from Peru, the Philippines and the Arctic will discuss the policies of developed governments, such as the idea of carbon offsetting as a method to reduce carbon emissions. NGOs including The Third World Network, Focus on the Global South and Jubilee South will participate in the official conference and lobby against the dangers of these proposals to local communities.

 

Crowds are expected to gather in Copenhagen for the arrival of the high delegates on 16 December. At 7pm, during "Earth Hour" the lights of the city will be turned off, sending a message about the need for a commitment to a global climate deal. On the same day, demonstrators will attempt to enter the Bella Centre en masse, turning the debate into the People's Assembly for Climate Justice.

 

"We'll definitely be met with violence from the police," said UK-based protester Isabel Jama. "CJA has a guideline that we'll only use our bodies in the protest, and we're anticipating police tactics to be an obstacle to get around, not to confront. However, this will be different to UK protests where police don't use teargas, and we'll be working with legal and medical teams on the day. Danish kids are rowdy and the police use dispersal tactics there."

 

Danish officials have taken a firm stance against activism in recent years, and UK protestors are expecting to witness the type of resistance seen in the dismantling of the "Ungdomshuset", a youth community centre run by activists and musicians in the centre of Copenhagen. When police emptied the building in March 2007, more than 400 people were arrested and teargas was used against the crowds.

 

The Danish government announced recently that they have turned warehouses and gyms outside the city into temporary prisons, and a new law has been hurried through parliament ahead of the summit to allow police to arrest anyone who they suspect might breach the peace.

 

"Protests have begun to combat these infringements of civil liberties, and whilst there's an ideological perspective to their action their point is informed by the environmental agenda that requires a constructive outcome," said Danish student Seb Ross.

 

Who's who: The activists

 

Never Trust a Cop: anti-capitalist network which formed in April 2009 to mobilise against COP15 and link social struggles and climate activism.

 

Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination: art-activist group from Bristol which is teaming up with Climate Camp to unleash civil disobedience on Reclaim Power day.

 

n La Via Campesina: movement which coordinates peasant organisations of small and middle-scale producers to search for sustainable agriculture.

 

Food Not Bombs: grassroots movement which shares free vegan and vegetarian meals at demonstrations.

 

Climate Justice Action: global network committed to taking the urgent actions needed to combat climate change

 

Indian Social Action Forum: national forum of more than 500 social action groups, people's movements and progressive intellectuals that resists globalisation and defends democracy in India.

 

Copyright 2009 Independent News and Media Limited

 

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs