Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Israel Rules


Israel Rules By Paul Craig Roberts

"In the second decade of the 21st century, America’s Zionist wars against Islam will expand. America’s wars in behalf of Israel’s territorial expansion will complete the bankruptcy of America. The Treasury’s bonds to finance the US government’s enormous deficits will lack for buyers. Therefore, the bonds will be monetized by the Federal Reserve. The result will be rising rates of inflation. The inflation will destroy the dollar as world reserve currency, and the US will no longer be able to pay for its imports. Shortages will appear, including food and gasoline, and “Superpower America” will find itself pressed to the wall as a third world country unable to pay its debts.

America has been brought low, both morally and economically, by its obeisance to the Israel Lobby. Even Jimmy Carter, a former President of the United States and Governor of Georgia recently had to apologize to the Israel Lobby for his honest criticisms of Israel’s inhumane treatment of the occupied Palestinians in order for his grandson to be able to run for a seat in the Georgia state senate.

This should tell the macho super-power American tough guys who really runs “their” country."



Bill

Monday, December 28, 2009

Jesus Hated War -- Why Do Christians Love It So Much?


Jesus Hated War -- Why Do Christians Love It So Much? By Gary G. Kohls

"I cringed knowing that, according to the biblical Jesus, God is never on the side of the victors. The God of love that Jesus revealed was on the side of the victims, the oppressed, the starving, the sick, the naked, the meek who were victimized by unjust power.

Jesus’s God would not be on the side of the war-makers, but on the side of the peacemakers, the compassionate and long-suffering ones who work to prevent killing and to relieve the suffering of the victims of war.

...

Virtually all Christian evangelical, conservative and many mainstream church leaders and their congregations were active supporters of the Bush wars."


Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

The more I think about it the more I think that Thomas Paine had it right in the Age of Reason where he says he believes in God, but not organized religion. I've never seen a better argument about religion, and observing current events only adds weight to his arguments.


Bill

Monday, December 14, 2009

How we were lied into Iraq, Part XXXIV


How we were lied into Iraq, Part XXXIV by Justin Raimondo

Justin Raimondo talks about the British inquiry into the Iraq invasion.

"Footnotes were the only way honest analysts inside the British government could record their dissent, and this method was also employed by their American counterparts, who vainly tried to derail our march to war and were outmaneuvered – and effectively silenced – by the neocons. In the US, as Bob Woodward pointed out in his book Plan of Attack, the neocons – who controlled the policymaking apparatus – in effect set up a "separate government," and did an end run around the US intelligence community, establishing what Mother Jones magazine rightly called a "lie factory" to churn out "talking points" based on raw intelligence – such as the ruminations of an anonymous Iraqi taxi driver, whose unverifiable claims were utilized to justify a war that wound up killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis."


The Af-Pak Train Wreck by Conn Hallinan

"One is retired Gen. Igor Rodionov, commander of the Soviet’s 120,000-man 40th Army that fought for 10 years to defeat the Afghan insurgents. In a recent interview with Charles Clover of the Financial Times, he made an observation that exactly sums up the president’s deeply flawed strategy: “Everything has already been tried.”

...

The military aspect of the surge simply makes no sense. According to U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones, al-Qaeda has fewer than 100 operatives in Afghanistan, so “defeating” it means trying to find a few needles in a 250,000 square-mile haystack.

...

As for the Taliban, Gen. Rodionov has a good deal of experience with how fighting them is likely to turn out: “The war, all 10 years of it, went in circles. We would come and they [the insurgents] would leave. Then we would leave, and they would return.”


Nobody expects to win in Afghanistan! It was never about winning, it's about diversion, about taking the looking glass off the criminal invasion of Iraq, which it very effectively did. And you don't even have to think a lot about it - it's right there in our face, every day, as we trip, stumble and spiral towards a future far worse then any of us imagined a few short years ago.

Dupe me once, dupe me twice ...

It really pains me to see America being destroyed by this gang - this "conspiracy so vast". But the most startling part is that a lot of people must know something is rotten at the core in Washington, but nobody is doing anything about it. Isn't this what happened in Germany in the 30's, where people gave in to "groupthink" and followed warmongering lunatics?


Bill

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Medical Marijuana Apartheid


Medical Marijuana Apartheid: Different Rules Apply for Rich and Poor Pot Smokers By Joshua Holland

As more and better information becomes available for people interested in history and world events, it doesn't much effort to figure out that the fabric of our society has been and continues to be distorted by Big Lies. If you're not aware of the history of this Big Lie, click here.

What's happened with pot is just one more in a litany of Big Lies that have caused so much agony for so many people. Today, there's something like a half million people in jail for pot. Their lives are effectively ruined, or at the least will now fall short of what they could have been.

I'm not advocating for or against pot. It's the Big Lies and hypocrisy that really get me going.


Bill Moyers: We Have a Nobel Peace President Who Won't Ban Land Mines By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship,

This is yet another excellent analysis from Bill Moyers.

No comment on the article. It speaks for itself, but this mention comes to mind:

I was just talking about Big Lies, and here's another: the so-called brand new IED threat. It's been jammed into our unconscious minds that the IED is a new type of weapon that caught us off guard in Iraq. The truth is that this type of weapon had a name all along: the mine. But using an old word doesn't feed the imagery the war propagandists wanted to convey, so they invented a new, much more threatening, word for the same old thing that is mine. If you want to know what's really bad about war, it's war itself, not something that blows up, regardless of what it's called.

Think about it: how much extra mileage did the war machine get out of using the shiny, brand new word "IED" instead of the old "mine" word?


Bill

Friday, December 11, 2009

Obama's Big Sellout


Obama's Big Sellout by Matt Taibbi

" ... Then he got elected.

What's taken place in the year since Obama won the presidency has turned out to be one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history. Elected in the midst of a crushing economic crisis brought on by a decade of orgiastic deregulation and unchecked greed, Obama had a clear mandate to rein in Wall Street and remake the entire structure of the American economy. What he did instead was ship even his most marginally progressive campaign advisers off to various bureaucratic Siberias, while packing the key economic positions in his White House with the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. This new team of bubble-fattened ex-bankers and laissez-faire intellectuals then proceeded to sell us all out, instituting a massive, trickle-up bailout and systematically gutting regulatory reform from the inside."


Like many Americans who voted him into office, I've wanted to give Obama time to adjust to the job, and the benefit of the doubt.

On the surface, of course, he's black. I, and it seems the majority of Americans, don't think badly of black people. We associate the word "soul" with blacks, and my take on things, especially nowadays, is that soul means "down deep" good people. After watching America devolve under the thumb of an opposite nature, we wanted to put someone into office who would take a stand against the "powerful special interests" that run Washington. We expected him to stop the war they launched, and to stand up for the "Spirit of America". We wanted to see him put those responsible for the criminal invasion of the Middle East on trial, and more thoughtful people wanted to see someone stand up to Zionist power in America.

I believed, because I wanted to, that despite some early major capitulations to the greedy, arrogant, belligerent gang that ran Washington while the scumbag Bush was in office, that Obama had tricks up his sleeve that he would pull out at just the right times to brilliantly put them in their place (and, for the leaders, that would be on trial).

Now, as time has passed and he's pulled no tricks out of his sleeve - because there were none there - we're seeing our worst nightmare come true, that he's nothing more then a wolf behind black-soul clothing. It may be an open question as to whether he's been this way all along or was compromised along the way, but, be that as it may, whatever hope we had for a transformation of Washington is all but gone by now.

With the escalation of war in Afghanistan, the dogs of war on their way to Pakistan and Iran, the fundamental instability in Iraq, the staggering debt we already face for many years to come - which will only grow as war expands, the blood on our hands already, the massive taxpayer money giveaways to banks. Even health care reform - a no-brainer - is being turned into yet another money tree for those at the top.

It is clear now that we've been scammed again. Once again history reminds us that there is no appeasing the appetite of the aggressor. The new lessons for America are that the aggressor can attack from within, and that editorial control of our information supply, the so-called "news", makes guns unnecessary.

I'm outraged. And if I were black I'd be double outraged.

Kucinich Plans to Force Vote on US Withdrawal from Afghanistan by Daniel Tencer

You want a leader? Here you go: Dennis Kucinich.


Bill

















Bill

Thursday, December 10, 2009

The war selling machine


War, more war or morer war by Ted Rall

"The nation's two leading newspapers set the tone for the lack of debate in Washington.

"In the Washington Post," found a FAIR study of op-ed pages during the first ten months of 2009, "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 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." "


Dear Barack, Spare Me Your E-Mails By Robert Scheer

"With his escalation of the war in Afghanistan, he has given the military-industrial complex an excuse for the United States to carry on in spending more on defense than the rest of the world combined, without a credible military adversary in sight. His response to the banking meltdown was to continue George W. Bush’s massive giveaway of taxpayer dollars to Wall Street, and his health care reform has all the earmarks of a boondoggle for the medical industry profiteers."



Bill

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

This Sure Seems Like Vietnam


This Sure Seems Like Vietnam by Helen Thomas

"By choosing to deliver his historic address at West Point, Obama also evoked past memories of the times when both Johnson and Nixon could only travel to military bases and aircraft carriers without encountering loud crowds of protesters.

...

Obama omitted the single biggest difference between Vietnam and Afghanistan when he failed to mention that the military draft was roaring through every American town, suburb and city during the Vietnam War.

...

Obama won a mandate in 2008 to pull up Bush's war stakes. He should listen to the people, not the generals, not the neocons and certainly not former Vice President Dick Cheney."



The AfPak Train Wreck by Conn Hallinan

"As for the Taliban, General Rodionov has a good deal of experience with how fighting them is likely to turn out: "The war, all 10 years of it, went in circles. We would come and they [the insurgents] would leave. Then we would leave, and they would return." "



"Going in circles" ... funny, these are the same words that came to my mind after wasting a whole lot of time "debating" Neocon supporters. It's just one of the tactics in their huge bag of tricks.

"Instead of controlling "terrorism," the escalation will be the recruiting sergeant for such organizations, particularly in the Middle East, where the administration's show of "resolve" on Afghanistan is contrasted with its abandonment of any "resolve" to resist Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories. "



Bill

Monday, December 7, 2009

The Afghan accomplishment


The forgotten war?

"The Korean War used to be known as "the forgotten war." More recently, during the hey-day of the Bush administration's adventure here in Iraq, Afghanistan was the forgotten war. No more, of course.

Now, it seems, Iraq is the forgotten war. I've been here nearly 5 weeks now, and I'm amazed at how far this conflict has fallen in the American consciousness, if I am judging it correctly from thousands of miles away. Iraq is off the front pages, off the television screens and, for the most part, off the main page of major news Web sites."


The author goes on to say this might not be a bad thing because news follows conflict and bloodshed, and he has a point, but he doesn't seem to be aware of something much bigger: that Iraq was buried by Afghanistan and other "sensational" stories (Tiger Woods), and how convenient that is for the criminals who should be on trial for the invasion of Iraq. If nobody is talking about Iraq, then it gets to be "old news".

So when you think about the Afghanistan pump-up, and you wonder why anyone would do something so pointless and outright stupid, here you have it.


Bill

Justice


Justice with Michael Sandel

I don't have to introduce this website. If you'll give it just a few minutes, it speaks very well for itself.

If the notion of justice matters to you, you'll find these videos interesting at the least, and compelling at the most.

Liberals Are Useless By Chris Hedges

“You have a tug of war with one side pulling,” Ralph Nader told me when we met Saturday afternoon. “The corporate interests pull on the Democratic Party the way they pull on the Republican Party. If you are a ‘least-worst’ voter you don’t want to disturb John Kerry on the war, so you call off the anti-war demonstrations in 2004. You don’t want to disturb Obama because McCain is worse. And every four years both parties get worse. There is no pull. That is the dilemma of The Nation and The Progressive and other similar publications. There is no breaking point. What is the breaking point? The criminal war of aggression in Iraq? The escalation of the war in Afghanistan? Forty-five thousand people dying a year because they can’t afford health insurance? The hollowing out of communities and sending the jobs to fascist and communist regimes overseas that know how to put the workers in their place? There is no breaking point. And when there is no breaking point you do not have a moral compass.”

...

Anyone who says he or she cares about the working class in this country should have walked out on the Democratic Party in 1994 with the passage of NAFTA. And it has only been downhill since. If welfare reform, the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act, which gutted the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act—designed to prevent the kind of banking crisis we are now undergoing—and the craven decision by the Democratic Congress to continue to fund and expand our imperial wars were not enough to make you revolt, how about the refusal to restore habeas corpus, end torture in our offshore penal colonies, abolish George W. Bush’s secrecy laws or halt the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of American citizens? The imperial projects and the corporate state have not altered under Obama. The state kills as ruthlessly and indiscriminately in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as it did under Bush. It steals from the U.S. treasury as rapaciously to enrich the corporate elite. It, too, bows before the conservative Israel lobby, refuses to enact serious environmental or health care reform, regulate Wall Street, end our relationship with private mercenary contractors or stop handing obscene sums of money, some $1 trillion a year, to the military and arms industry. At what point do we stop being a doormat? At what point do we fight back? We may lose if we step outside the mainstream, but at least we will salvage our self-esteem and integrity. "



Bill

Sunday, December 6, 2009

War Cries From a Defeated Man


War Cries From a Defeated Man By Alexander Cockburn


"Obama didn’t make the case and he pleased few. The liberals seethed as they heard him say that it is “in our vital national interest” to send 30,000 more troops to a mission they regard as doomed from the getgo. The cheers of the right at the news of the deployment died in their throats as they heard his next line, “After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.”

No mature American, seasoned in the ineradicable graft flourishing down the decades in every major American city, believes a pledge that corruption will be banished from Afghanistan in a year and a half, or that Karzai has any credibility as the wielder of the cleansing broom.

Each proposition of Obama’s rationale collapses at the first prod ..."


Here We Go Again By Robert Scheer

"It is already a 30-year war begun by one Democratic president, and thanks to the political opportunism of the current commander in chief the Afghanistan war is still without end or logical purpose."


How about that it provided a diversion from the criminal invasion of Iraq and the murder of many thousands of innocent people?


The rise and fall of MySpace By Matthew Garrahan

Murdoch is Neocon goon. If these events are signaling his downfall, good riddance.

America's 'Surge' May Only Expand, Intensify and Prolong the Afghan Conflict by Eric Margolis

This article is so loaded with well articulated insight that I've quoted most of it here:

"Obama faced the choice between guns (Afghanistan) or butter (his national health plan). The Nobel Peace Prize winner chose guns.

The president insisted his objective remains destroying al-Qaida. But al-Qaida barely exists in Afghanistan. Only a handful remain in Pakistan. His real target may be Pakistan.

Anyone who understands Afghanistan's deep complexities knows that Obama's surge won't win the eight-year war. Afghanistan's Pashtun tribal majority will continue to resist western occupation.

At best, it will be an exercise in managing failure.

Americans are turning against the war. Congress is fretting over its mounting costs: $300 billion US for 2009 in a $1.4-trillion deficit year. This war is being waged on borrowed money.

It costs $1 million US to keep each American soldier in Afghanistan. Renting Pakistan's assistance will cost $3 billion per year. Thousands of U.S. troops will remain stuck in Iraq. Obama vowed to fight al-Qaida in Africa and Asia. No wonder many angry Democrats are calling him "George Bush's third term."

But things are not going well in Pakistan, without whose co-operation, bases and supply routes the U.S. cannot wage war in Afghanistan.

Most Pakistanis support the Taliban, see the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan as driven by lust for oil and increasingly fear the U.S. intends to tear their unstable nation apart in order to seize its nuclear arsenal.

Obama's advisers have convinced him an early U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will provoke chaos in Pakistan. They don't understand that it is the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan that is destabilizing Pakistan and creating ever more anti-western extremism.

What Obama should really have been concerned about was Osama bin Laden's vow to break America's domination of the Muslim world by luring it into a final battle in Pakistan, a nation of 175 million

The longer U.S. forces wage war in Afghanistan, the more the conflict will spread into Pakistan, where 15% of its people and 25% of its military are Pashtuns who sympathize with their beleaguered fellow Taliban Pashtuns in Afghanistan.

A grimmer view is that Obama has become a captive of the military-industrial complex, Wall Street and Washington's rabid neocons who seek permanent war against the Muslim world. Obama's "surge" may only expand, intensify and prolong the Afghan conflict.

In the end, there will be a negotiated peace that includes Taliban. But how many Americans, allies and Afghans must die before it comes?"


Thank the President for Waking the Sleeping Giant by Jodie Evans


"... Really, we are going to send 100,000 troops, over 100,000 contractors and 100 billion dollars to deal with 100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan? It reminds me of an Afghan woman's tirade to me when I was there, "You want me to believe that the most powerful nation in the world is being held hostage by those skinny, lice covered, illiterate, dirty men in those craggy hills of this broken country?" "




Bill

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Another valuable writer: Nicolas J S Davies


Obama with Blood on His Hands By Nicolas J S Davies

"Editor’s Note: For many Americans, the promise of the new Obama administration was that finally the United States would reject the neocon concept that America can ignore international law and use indiscriminate violence around the world to assert its interests.

That hope was largely snuffed out Tuesday when President Obama gave his hawkish generals and the neocon pundits most of what they wanted by expanding the eight-year-old Afghan War and guaranteeing more violations of the laws of war, as Nicolas J S Davies writes:"




Bill

The Secret US War in Pakistan


The Secret US War in Pakistan By Jeremy Scahill

Jeremy Scahill describes some of the workings of Blackwater's activities inside Pakistan.

As applies to this and the whole military adventure in the Middle East, try imagining that there are soldiers from another country in your town.

Really - stop for a minute and think about that. What would you do?


Bill

Friday, December 4, 2009

The Twin Frauds of Obama


The Twin Frauds of Obama By Paul Craig Roberts

"There was a time when Democratic presidents represented the little man, and Republicans represented business. Today both parties represent the moneyed interests."

The Democrats have become brownshirt Republicans.

The American people, except for the one percent of super-rich, have been abandoned.


This article is loaded with thoughts and words I would offer if I were a better writer. I marvel at some of our writers, and Mr. Roberts is certainly one great example. People like Mr. Kucinich and Mr. Roberts are our heroes, the people we SHOULD be listening to (which is precisely why I'm using this blog: to cull the good stuff from the garbage heap of propaganda flooding our information supply)


Bill

"Iraqi good enough"


Did you catch the propaganda machine's new catch phrase: "Iraqi good enough" yet?

From The Last Day of the Iraq War

"It's too late to fix Iraq before the pullout date. All U.S. troops can do now is keep trying to slow the killing and get out. They call it 'Iraqi good enough.'"

"The situation is summed up in a phrase you hear among American combat troops and trainers: "Iraqi good enough." The term expresses their resignation—realism, they'd call it—about the limits of what America can accomplish in Iraq."

"America's expectations have plunged. Officials on the ground now envision an Iraq roughly like other nondemocratic states in the Middle East. The government will no doubt be repressive—not as bad as when Saddam Hussein was in charge, but even now Iraq's jails hold thousands of prisoners who have been held for months without hearing the charges against them. Corruption is rampant, in part because the state isn't strong enough to haul the biggest wrongdoers into court without touching off a rebellion. Residents of Mahmudiyah sarcastically call their mayor's neighborhood Owja, after Saddam's hometown—the lights stay on there even when the power is out everywhere else. And Tehran already has far more influence in the new Iraq than it did under Saddam."




Bill

Kucinich: Prolonging Afghan war a ‘threat to our national security’


Kucinich: Prolonging Afghan war a ‘threat to our national security’ By Daniel Tencer

"Far from being a necessary part of the US's national security strategy, the Afghanistan war is actually a threat to it, says Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich."

“America is in the fight of its life and that fight is not in Afghanistan -- it's here," Kucinich declared. "We are deeply in debt. Our GDP is down. Our manufacturing is down. Our savings are down. The value of the dollar is down. Our trade deficit is up. Business failures are up. Bankruptcies are up.

“The war is a threat to our national security. We’ll spend over $100 billion next year to bomb a nation of poor people while we reenergize the Taliban, destabilize Pakistan, deplete our army and put more of our soldiers’ lives on the line. Meanwhile, back here in the USA, 15 million people are out of work. People are losing their jobs, their health care, their savings, their investments, and their retirement security. $13 trillion in bailouts for Wall Street, trillions for war; when are we going to start taking care of things here at home?”

“The people of Afghanistan don’t want to be saved by us," Kucinich said on the House floor Wednesday. "They want to be saved from us. Our presence and our Predator drones kill countless innocents, creating more US enemies and destabilizing Pakistan."



Dennis Kucinich is one of a very few people in Washington who isn't corrupt and has the guts to speak the truth. The fact that he isn't more popular is clear and convincing testimony to the power of the propaganda machine that has been playing America for the fool for a long time now.

"Dogs and philosophers do the greatest good and get the fewest rewards" -Diogenes


Bill

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Obama’s War Speech


Obama’s War Speech:An Unconvincing Flop by Justin Raimondo

As usual, Justin Raimondo articulates feelings most Americans, certainly I, have on this subject.

A few points I'd add to Justin's:


1. Did you notice what Obaba didn't do? He didn't turn to the West Point audience and say "some of you are going to die or become crippled for life as a direct result of my decision to escalate rather then withdraw. Other Americans are going to suffer too, and because this decision for more war will likely not end with Afghanistan, even more of you will suffer then any of us realizes today. But you have absolutely nothing to worry about, because my speech-writers will craft just the right words to make you forget all that pain"

2. Doesn't anyone realize that the entire notion of geography, as in seizing and retaining land anywhere, has nothing whatsoever to do with America's problem with Muslim terrorism being directed our way? Our next attackers could as easily come from the Philippines, South America, Asia, etc., and a clever strategist would pick one from each country. We do understand that there are over one billion Muslims spread across the globe, in addition to untold others who have built up a hatred for America's foreign policies? Can they recruit some Vietnamese, Koreans, Japanese?

3. Clearly the neocon gang still runs Washington and is behind these speeches and talking points. This is why Obama spoke like Bush: it's the same handlers, think tanks, financiers and speech-writers.

4. This whole Afghanistan thing is essentially a giant diversion from the monumental debacle of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Nobody thinks Afghanistan can be won in any sense of the word, but it's custom form fit as the right size to replace headlines about Iraq. It's not a coincidence.

5. When is someone going to point out that, as we sink deeper and deeper into the morass of war that this planet is brimming with horrible weapons we must be ridding ourselves of - rather then playing with fire and edging closer and closer to seeing them used?


Please see:

The Long-War Trifecta by Jeff Huber

Kucinich on Obama’s Escalation: Great Speech, Bad Policy

Here We Go Again By Robert Scheer

Obama Has Spoken; Now, Let's Have a Debate by John Nichols

Obama's War by Jim Hightower


Bill

Monday, November 30, 2009

Obama’s Big Speech


Obama’s Big Speech by Jeff Huber

"I’d like to see him go on TV Tuesday night and say, "My fellow Americans, I was wrong. Our war in Afghanistan has nothing to do with national security anymore and we can’t afford it, and I’m not sending one more kid into harm’s way to fight there. As of tonight, I’m ordering a complete withdrawal." But the odds of that happening are slimmer than a licorice rope. Obama couldn’t take the heat."



Addicted to Nonsense By Chris Hedges

"We stand on the cusp of one of the most seismic and disturbing dislocations in human history, one that is radically reconfiguring our economy as it is the environment, and our obsessions revolve around the trivial and the absurd."

"The American oligarchy—1 percent of whom control more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined—are the characters we most envy and watch on television."

"The working class, comprising tens of millions of struggling Americans, are locked out of television’s gated community. They are mocked, even as they are tantalized, by the lives of excess they watch on the screen in their living rooms."

"We consume these countless lies daily. We believe the false promises that if we spend more money, if we buy this brand or that product, if we vote for this candidate, we will be respected, envied, powerful, loved and protected."



Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh: The Face of Rotted Washington by Glenn Greenwald

"It's impossible to find a more perfectly representative face for the rotted Washington establishment than Evan Bayh. He is the pure expression of virtually every attribute that makes the Beltway so dysfunctional, deceitful and corrupt."




Bill

Friday, November 27, 2009

Going the way of Dubai?


See Dubai's Fantasy Island Gamble in the Persian Gulf Comes to an Ugly End by Numerian

This article about Dubai's falling apart ends with:

"Sound familiar? When do you think global investors will start connecting these dots and ask: exactly what is backing the debt of the United States that has flooded the markets in the past nine years under Bush and Obama? At least Dubai had a presumed rich uncle in Abu Dhabi that would come to the rescue, even though now everyone realizes that was a very costly mistaken assumption. In the case of the US, the United States was the rich uncle everybody else looked to in order to solve global problems. Now that rich uncle has gone crazy in its own orgy of gambling, whoring, and over-indebtedness."


"Except there is no one – absolutely no one – who can come to the United States’ rescue. And if you want to believe that the US would never, ever ask for a little extra time to pay back its debt, or ask for it to be restructured in some way, or debase its currency with inflation in order to throw its debt burden on to those who have financed it, that is your affair. Just remember there are millions of individuals, funds, corporations, and governments around the world who have bought US Treasuries. It only takes a few to wonder long and hard enough about just how safe and secure these Treasuries are to cause a stampede out of them, at which point the US is exposed like Dubai as a naked supplicant in the global market, begging for alms and a little forgiveness for past sins."


Bill

Obama: Profile in Courage, or Cave-In?


Obama: Profile in Courage, or Cave-In? by Ray McGovern

"But as he studied the options, cost, and likely outcomes, Kennedy came to see U.S. intervention in Vietnam as a fool's errand. Few Americans are aware that, just before he was assassinated, Kennedy had decided to pull all troops out of Vietnam by 1965."

"Kennedy concluded that there was no responsible course other than to press ahead for a phased withdrawal regardless of the opposition from his senior national security advisers. He decided to pull 1,000 troops out of Vietnam by the end of 1963 and the rest by 1965."

"So the question is whether Barack Obama is "no Jack Kennedy," or whether he will summon the courage to stand up to the misguided military brass of today. We are talking, after all, about thousands more being killed-and for what?

I would suggest to the President that he give another close read to Goldstein's "Lessons in Disaster" and then ponder the lessons that leap out of Barbara Tuchman's The March to Folly: From Troy to Vietnam.

Obama may also wish to ponder the words of W.E.B. Dubois:

"Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow...."



---------------------------

I'll add my 2 cents here: usually I agree with Ray McGovern, but I think he's missing something here - that Afghanistan is serving a purpose outside of the scope of what appears to be the proposition, specifically that it serves as a diversion of sufficient magnitude (can be "puffed" enough) to move attention from the Iraq (what was to be the 1st of a list of countries that were to fall as our military transformed the Middle East to Israel's liking) debacle to somewhere else, and it had to be something big. Afghanistan fit the bill.


Bill

Thursday, November 26, 2009

nothing less than astonishing


The Blair-Bush Conspiracy on Iraq By Dave Lindorff

"Most Americans are blissfully in the dark about it, but across the Atlantic in the UK, a commission reluctantly established by Prime Minister Gordon Brown under pressure from anti-war activists in Britain is beginning hearings into the actions and statements of British leaders that led to the country’s joining the US invasion of Iraq in 2003."


...

"It is nothing less than astonishing that so little news of the British investigation into the origins of the illegal Iraq War is being conveyed to Americans by this country’s corporate media—yet another example demonstrating that American journalism is dead or dying. It is even more astonishing that neither the Congress nor the president here in America is making any similar effort to put America’s leaders in the dock to tell the truth about their machinations in engineering a war that has cost the US over $1 trillion (perhaps $3 trillion eventually when debt payments and the cost of veterans care is added in), and over 4000 lives, not to mention as many as one million innocent Iraqi lives."


15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams By David DeGraw

"So let’s break down these numbers.

You have a population of 50 million people who are in desperate need of money, they most likely have no health insurance and can’t afford to get health care or help of any kind. Part of this population probably also has loved ones who can’t get life sustaining medical treatments, or loved ones who have already died due to lack of costly medical treatment. The clock is ticking loud for these people and they are running out of options fast, and time delayed is time closer to death.

While the richest 1 percent have never had it so good, a significant percentage of the U.S. population now has firsthand experience in this. Millions upon millions of Americans are poor, broke, struggling, starving, desperate… and armed.

We are sitting on a powder keg!

We are now witnessing the critical unraveling of U.S. society."


Bill

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Why They Hate Us (I): on military occupation


Why They Hate Us (I): on military occupation by Stephen M. Walt

"One of the many barriers to developing a saner U.S. foreign policy is our collective failure to appreciate why military occupations generate so much hatred, resentment, and resistance, and why we should therefore go to enormous lengths to avoid getting mired in them. Costly occupations are an activity you hope your adversaries undertake, especially in areas of little intrinsic strategic value. We blundered into Somalia in the early 1990s without realizing that we weren't welcome; we invaded Iraq thinking we would be greeted as liberators, and we still don't fully understand why many Afghans resent our presence and why some are driven to take up arms against us."


A Trial That Will Convict Us All By Paul Craig Roberts

"The Republican and right-wing rant that a trial is too good for these people proves what I have written for a number of years: Republicans and many Americans who think of themselves as conservatives have no regard for the US Constitution or for civil liberties."



Bill

Friday, November 20, 2009

Internet Under Siege


Internet Under Siege by Philip Giraldi

"The danger is real. Most Americans who are critical of the actions of their own government rely on the internet for information that is uncensored and often provocative, including sites like Antiwar.com. As the United States generally follows Israeli initiatives for security it is likely only a matter of time before Obama’s internet warfare teams surface either at the Defense Department or at State. Deliberately overloading and attacking the internet to damage its credibility is all too possible; witness the numerous sites that have been "hacked" and have had to shut down or restrict their activities. American citizens who are concerned about maintaining their few remaining liberties should sound the alarm and tell the politicians that we don’t need more government advice on what we should think and do. Hands off the internet."




Bill

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Throw the Money Changers Out of the Temple


Please see Throw the Money Changers Out of the Temple

"Wall Street profits are an obscene affront to Scripture, as Robert Scheer details in an interview with Amy Goodman on “Democracy Now!”"


Bill

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

A conspiracy so vast


This video, called "911 missing links" (click here to view) is long (2 hours), but after the first 10-20 minutes, you wouldn't be able to turn it off - assuming you really do care about what's happened - and is happening - to America.

Why should you care? If I were asked to summarize in just 3 words, the words would be: "it's not over".

What can you do? Spread the word. Pass this link around. Show it to your family and friends.

Where should we be headed? To the removal of money, the corruption factor, from our political system. We need to elect people to office who care about America, and throw the Israel-firsters out.


Bill

Monday, November 16, 2009

Prosecuting Bush for murder


Be sure to see this this short video on prosecuting Bush for murder.

I firmly believe that, in addition to withdrawing all armed forces from the Middle East, we must try to make amends for all the killing and destruction caused by Bush and his Neocon handlers. Putting Bush on trial for murder will begin this sequence, because he wouldn't go down alone.

Mr Bugliosi is releasing a film based on his book in 2010.


Bill

Shining a Light on the Roots of Terrorism


Shining a Light on the Roots of Terrorism by Ray McGovern

Unfortunately, we have a long history of being misled and duped by our information supply, but no single issue stands above this one when it comes to providing examples.

Be sure to read this - and think about it.


Bill

Sunday, November 15, 2009

The USS Liberty


There's a slight chance you've heard the story of the USS Liberty, but if you haven't, here's the story from a survivor:

WHY SHOULD MY FAMILY STILL LOVE ME?
Phillip F. Tourney, survivor USS LIBERTY - tonktime5 @ yahoo.com
September 2, 2008

I write this testimony not just about me but about my shipmates as well, what they have told me about themselves. I look in the mirror and I am them. How did we get here together with our lives so intertwined when we all went our different ways, not to see each other for as much as 20 years or more and yet we are the same? I have walked in your shoes, brothers. I was a 20-year old sailor, loving life, enjoying seeing the world. I had great shipmates, family and friends. I was just an all around red-blooded American young man.

At 2:00 on June 8, 1967 my life changed forever. My ship, the USS LIBERTY, was deliberately and savagely attacked by our so called ally, Israel, in an attack that lasted about as long as the attack on Pearl Harbor. In this sneak attack our attackers knew exactly who they were attacking. They have admitted as much on film for all to see. The Israelis attacked their American friends anyway, murdering 34 brave, young sailors and marines and wounding 174 others.

In this vicious attack they used rockets, canons, napalm, 50 caliber armor piercing bullets, and torpedoes against our helpless ship. Our ship was in international waters doing what our government had ordered us to do. We were no threat to anyone, especially Israel.

Our government recalled the lifesaving rescue aircraft sent to our aid from the USS SARATOGA on orders from the chain of command from Admiral John McCain to Robert McNamara to LBJ himself. We were left out there on our own to have the Israelis do to us as they wished and they did. They shot at our life rafts to insure no survivors would be allowed, no one was to be left alive, which is in itself a war crime.

In this 2 hour attack the Government of Israel used jet aircraft, torpedo boats, and troop bearing helicopters against our ship. The helicopters left the scene just as they were getting ready to board our ship and finish us off. They left because of an incorrect message that help was on the way.

What Israel left behind was a ship in distress with over 800 rocket and canon holes in her, thousands of armor piercing bullets in her skin, fire burning us up from the napalm and a 40 by 40 foot torpedo hole in her starboard side. We did not see any help from our government for about 18 hours after the attack, when help was only 15 to 20 minutes away.

A disgraceful testament to the United States Government in their complicity with Israel to let them murder us all and blame it on Egypt. We put a monkey wrench into their plans. We didn’t sink as planned and we could identify our murderers.

Several days after the attack Admiral Isaac Kidd came aboard our ship to get testimony from the surviving crew. He got his testimony and we told him how barbaric our Israeli friends were to us. His stern and repulsive answer to us was to shut up and never repeat a word of this act of treason or the cover up of such by our government and the murdering Israelis.

Admiral Kidd’s order came from none other than Admiral John McCain, Jr., Senator McCain’s father. The orders were if any of us spoke a word about this attack to anyone, including our families, we would go to prison for the rest of our lives or worse and, of course, we all knew worse meant - death! We were treated this way by our own government when we had served our country with dignity, honor, and courage.

The LIBERTY crew is one of the most highly decorated crews in naval history. Our ship is second to none in battle damage. The crew was disposed and we all went our own ways. When I got discharged off the LIBERTY on Dec 12, 1967, my tour of duty was up. I wasn’t that same 20 year old young man with the rest of his life ahead of him anymore. I felt like I was 50 years old and with no future ahead of me. I was married at the time and had a baby on the way, living day by day with the LIBERTY monster on my back.

I didn’t feel sorry for myself, but I didn’t feel good about myself, either. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I went to the VA and told them my problems the best way I could. I was turned away as a ‘malcontent’. They didn’t believe what I told them concerning what had happened to me. They said I was making this story up. They had never heard about the USS LIBERTY and said Israel would never do such a thing. Once again, my government let me down.

I went deeper and deeper into the bottle. I was drunk most of the time. I was mean to my family, not just my wife, but my whole family–parents, brothers, sisters, everyone. Everything I could do destructive to myself, I did. Always chasing other women, fighting with who ever wanted a piece of me. I thought I was bullet proof. No one wanted to be around me, especially my now ex-wife, after 13 years of hell.

The destructive life style stayed with me for about 20 years after the attack, still not knowing how to get out of the hell hole I had dug myself into. Then, I read an article by Master Chief Stan White, a shipmate aboard the LIBERTY, that was in the Rocky Mountain News. I almost fell over! I thought no one would dare speak about the LIBERTY. I knew I hadn’t because of the fear of God the government had put in my soul. I then found out that a few survivors got together and were talking about the injustice that had befallen us.

I was relieved to be reunited with my mates and found out through another shipmate, Ron Kukal, that his life was also just like mine and he said to go back to the VA. They will help you, now. I was very reluctant to do so but I did and found a new door had opened for me. I found out I was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

How could our government betray their service men and allow Israel to get by with murder then, as they are doing to this day, by protecting them? The only explanation that makes sense is that one is just as guilty as the other. It’s disgusting and un-American.

I have been re-married now for 25 years. My wife never knew anything about the LIBERTY when I married her, but, she knows now, BOY, does she know about the LIBERTY. It has been extremely hard for her to live with me, just as it has been for all LIBERTY wives and families. We bring our nightmares upon them on a daily basis. The LIBERTY cover-up has destroyed so many good, loving, caring people.
It’s heart breaking.

Why do our families still love us? I don’t know but they do and they now understand how important that this piece of history be set straight in the history books, where we are nowhere to be found, not in the lies Israel and our government would have you believe. We are very lucky to be alive and loved by our families.

Phillip F. Tourney, survivor USS LIBERTY
Three time president of LIBERTY Vets. Assoc.
Co-host of the LIBERTY HOUR
republicbroadcasting.org
tonktime5 @ yahoo.com



Bill

Saturday, November 14, 2009

A million dollars per soldier per year


High Costs Weigh on Troop Debate for Afghan War By CHRISTOPHER DREW

Just in case you've wondered how to gauge the cost, on top of lives lost and suffering by everyone involved, of the Afghanistan debacle ...

"Even if fewer troops are sent, or their mission is modified, the rough formula used by the White House, of about $1 million per soldier a year, appears almost constant."

...

"Military analysts said the increase reflects a surge in costs for mine-resistant troop carriers and surveillance equipment that would apply to troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But some costs are unique to Afghanistan, where it can cost as much as $400 a gallon to deliver fuel to the troops through mountainous terrain."

...

"Mr. Murtha said he opposed sending more troops, though he would support any decision Mr. Obama made. He said he was concerned that even without a supplemental bill, total spending on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would surge past $1 trillion next year, which could hamper the economy for years to come."


Bill

Friday, November 13, 2009

Welcome Home, War!


Welcome Home, War! Alfred W. McCoy and Tom Engelhardt

These two articles talk about the largest and most important issue of our time. This matter has been terribly on my mind for too many years now. But lacking the means to do this level of research - and then so well articulate - this problem, I decided I had to wait for someone else to describe it. Alfred W. McCoy and Tom Engelhardt have done this, admirably.

These may well be the most important articles you've read in quite some time. Please read them and thoughtfully consider the implications for you and your family.

There is a (conceptually) simple solution to this problem: remove money from politics. This will allow us to elect people who really care about America and the world at large, i.e. our best people, and not the special interests with the most money. We've been badly duped for a long time, our future is on the line, and we've got to stop them. This is my solution.

I'm surprised and disappointed that my favorite great American institution, M.I.T, hasn't come up with an Internet based kick-ass voting system - it's so easy to imagine. C'mon, you guys!


From this article:

"In a future America, enhanced retinal recognition could be married to omnipresent security cameras as a part of the increasingly routine monitoring of public space. Military surveillance equipment, tempered to a technological cutting edge in counterinsurgency wars, might also one day be married to the swelling domestic databases of the NSA and FBI, sweeping the fiber-optic cables beneath our cities for any sign of subversion. And in the skies above, loitering aircraft and cruising drones could be checking our borders and peering down on American life."


Bill

Obama’s Betrayals


Obama’s Betrayals by Sheldon Richman

"Obama has been doing a lot of “growing” in office. That’s the term the establishment uses when a candidate who apparently holds maverick views gets into office and abandons those views in favor of views more congenial to the permanent ruling elite."


...

"It is instructive that the neoconservatives who gave us the Bush war program are now delighted with Obama’s policies, including his escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As Charles Krauthammer wrote in the Washington Post in late May, "If hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue, then the flip-flops on previously denounced anti-terror measures are the homage that Barack Obama pays to George Bush. Within 125 days, Obama has adopted with only minor modifications huge swaths of the entire, allegedly lawless Bush program." "


Bill

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Who's next?


West Bank rabbi: Jews can kill Gentiles who threaten Israel By Haaretz Service

"Just weeks after the arrest of alleged Jewish terrorist, Yaakov Teitel, a West Bank rabbi on Monday released a book giving Jews permission to kill Gentiles who threaten Israel.

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapiro, who heads the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in the Yitzhar settlement, wrote in his book "The King's Torah" that even babies and children can be killed if they pose a threat to the nation."



Bill

Saturday, November 7, 2009

The Evil Empire


The Evil Empire by Paul Craig Roberts
"Obama’s credibility is shot. And so is Congress’s, assuming it ever had any. The US House of Representatives has just voted to show the entire world that the US House of Representatives is nothing but the servile, venal, puppet of the Israel Lobby. The House of Representatives of the American "superpower" did the bidding of its master, AIPAC, and voted 344 to 36 to condemn the Goldstone Report.

In case you don’t know, the Goldstone Report is the Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. The "Gaza Conflict" is the Israeli military attack on the Gaza ghetto, where 1.5 million dispossessed Palestinians, whose lands, villages, and homes were stolen by Israel, are housed. The attack was on civilians and civilian infrastructure. It was without any doubt a war crime under the Nuremberg standard that the US established in order to execute Nazis."


Bill

Friday, November 6, 2009

Nidal Hasan


Killing people can NEVER be justified. No person has the right to take the life of another.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/05/fort-hood-shootings-7-dea_n_347366.html&cp

Am I talking about Bush and the Neocon gang, who conspired and duped America into launching an invasion to seize authority in the Middle East, killing everyone, hundreds of thousands of innocent people, who were in the way?

No, I'm talking of course about Nidal Hasan.

But you'd be forgiven for thinking the former. After all, the cause and effects are strikingly similar: religious passion and consequential mass murder.

What I find particular fascinating about this story is that Nidal Nasan was a psychiatrist whose patients were soldiers returning from the killing fields with mental disorders. While Bush and the gang used applied psychology to manipulate America into that invasion, Nidel Hasan stood at the receiving end of the psychological consequences.

Nidal Hasan's actions will be condemned, as well they must. And the gang, who didn't blink at giving orders to kill hundreds of thousands of innocents, will surely kill him as fast as they can.

But will they - can they - kill the thoughts that drove him mad - and imagery our enemies will derive from this event?

No. Not by a long stretch. As it happens, Nidal Hasan's beliefs are shared by millions of people around the world. He acted out in a way they can relate to, whether they wanted him to or not. From our enemies point of view, he lived in the belly of the beast and he struck out against that beast. Imagine this new poster child on their wall, jumping out of the belly and all. In the past we've seen copy-cats follow many evil-doers, and the "news" loves it because it sells newspapers. Now think about how many other highly sympathetic people live among our 300,000,000, not to mention the propaganda value of this incident overseas. I can't recall a single incident with the imagery this possesses for motivating our enemies in the Middle East to rally behind ousting the occupier and standing up to Israel.

Nidal Hasan is of Palestinian descent. The "news machine" hides it well, but the fact is that the Palestinians live in deplorable, miserable conditions under the thumb of American armed Israel. Might not be common knowledge on American streets, but other countries have "news" machines of their own, and if you can realize how effective this machine is here, you'll see it's not only here.

Being a psychiatrist, he is aware he was born with a collective unconscious shared with all Palestinians, and the Palestinians know this too, if only instinctively. Thus his story can and will be taken to symbolize the plight of the Palestinians, this time played out on American soil.

How true, how significant this is to you or I doesn't matter. What matters is the imagery our enemies in the Arab/Muslim world will project to their followers. Would they spin and distort it beyond face value? Sure! That's what our gang did, why wouldn't they do as well? Let's not get into calling them stupid. They are not.

Our own propaganda machine, the "TV news", the folks behind the duping of America to get the invasion launched, will play this story their way, as usual, but our concern shouldn't be for our own predictable "news" propaganda, but that which will play and flow through the streets on which 1.3 billion Arab/Muslims live.

In you can imagine our enemies on steroids, you'd be well served to start thinking about a better course for America. Obama promised this and that, but delivered nothing. He's not in charge. He can't change anything. He's just a face.

If we want real change, we're going to have to do something.

Here's what I suggest: we have a hero we can turn to and follow: Vincent Bugliosi. We can demand that, alongside the trail of Nidal Hasan should occur the trial of George Bush for murder which will necessarily expose and include the Gang.

And then we can hope, pray and do everything we can to make amends for what has been done in the Middle East under the American name, Iraq and Palestine at center stage.

What's really matters here is something that everyone demands: justice.


Bill

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Why and To What End in Afghanistan


Why and To What End in Afghanistan by Ralph Nader

In this article, Mr Nader talks about the case of Matthew P. Hoh, a name and a story that every American should be very aware of.

In a larger sense, Ralph Nader is a great American hero. A true patriot whose understandings and vision can do so much good for this country - except he's been the target of the "news machine" for so long that a mention his name results in a reflexive negative reaction.

He is another perfect example of how a sustained propaganda campaign can destroy anyone the "news machine" decides to target. Jimmy Carter is another example. Ron Paul another. The list isn't miles long, but people like these do exist and we must come to terms with the fact that they've been marginalized (at best) by propaganda, but these are the very people with the most to offer.

Former UK ambassador: CIA sent people to be ‘raped with broken bottles’ By Daniel Tencer

Be sure to watch the videos at the bottom


Bill

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Social Decay in America


The "I Didn't Do It" Culture - Social Decay in America By John Stanton

John starts with a quote from Jimmy Carter that's worth repeating:

“The gap between our citizens and our Government has never been so wide. The people are looking for honest answers, not easy answers; clear leadership, not false claims and evasiveness and politics as usual..What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support and without friends…Our people are losing…the ability as citizens to serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy.”

--Jimmy Carter, July 15, 1979


What follows includes nothing less then an indictment of politics in America since the Jimmy Carter years. It's a litany that Mr. Stanton doesn't seem to miss too many punches recounting.

One of his points:

What kind of country spends $1.5 trillion on national security every year—and growing-- but has to debate whether to spend $900 billion to make basic healthcare available to all citizens.



Bill

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Afghanistan and the big picture


The Delegitimization of Karzai By Patrick Cockburn


"From Mr Karzai’s point of view he won through at the end and showed that nobody is strong enough to get rid of him. For President Obama the election has no silver lining. It has left him poised to send tens of thousands US troops to fight a war in defense of one of world’s most crooked and discredited governments. “It is not that the Taliban is so strong, but the government is so weak,” was a common saying among Afghans before the election, and one which will be even truer in future. "


I follow Patrick Cockburn because he's one of the better thinkers on the net today. In this case, I think he's not taking into account how the American information supply shifted emphasis completely away from Iraq to Afghanistan, and why. Herein can be found the answer to the riddle of why we're bothering at all with the losing proposition in Afghanistan.

Why would they - anyone - do such a stupid thing?

Answer: To shift attention away from the main losing proposition that is Iraq and the other countries in the Middle East that were scheduled to fall afterward.

That plan unraveled, so what to do? Shift attention away from the losing theatre in Iraq to another losing theater, one that will bog us down long enough to put the original proposition far enough into the past so the subject falls under the "that's old news" trick that kills just about anything that can be said to them.

The original PNAC/Neocon agenda, to use the American military to beat into submission the countries in Middle East that have defied Israel's authority, starting with Iraq, and "real men go to Tehran" Iran, among others.

The gambit wasn't supposed to fail. It was to be a "slam dunk". But it did fail, so what to do? Shift attention to another area of the world that isn't directly connected, so when it fails - as it surely will - all finger pointing will involve the new failure (Afghanistan) and not the original failure (Iraq). This what "clever" looks like, in case you're wondering.

Let's get some points straight: (1) NOBODY cares about Afghanistan, (2) it is ABSOLUTELY a losing proposition, (3) being there makes so sense whatsoever

Until seen through this lens. Then, all of a sudden it makes sense, and it's playing out in real life, right now.

But what about the casualties? What will the Jones family think when they are informed their son, who they loved so much and was such a part of their lives, is gone forever. They'll be told of his heroics, of how he defended some pile of dirt in Afghanistan to the bitter end, and the all the medals these proud parents can hang on their wall and look at every time they miss him.

It seems very much that people just aren't aware of what really happened with the military invasion of the Middle East (let's call it what it was, for starters). The question is whether history will be so kind.

I think not. Reason: the Internet. If it were left to the history books, that would depend upon who writes them (no small point). But the truth, given a path, will find it's way to the surface. This is the power of the Internet.

When this truth does emerge, and the Jones family looks at the photo of their son, at least they will then know what he really died for.

What happened to America is a very sad story, but there is light at the end of the tunnel after all, if you believe in the truth and you believe it will emerge.

One extremely hopeful and positive movement underway as we speak is Vincent Bugliosi's documentary on his book "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder"

This case is EXACTLY what America needs, because starting with Bush goes right to the core of what happened, and from that vantage point the entire plot will unravel. As you may be aware, there are a collection of real heroes who have documented large pieces of this plot, but until now lacked the place to bring them together. The trail of Bush would finally get all of this material onto the table for us and the world to see.

The bottom line is that our beloved country, the one that the Jones and so many other families gave the ultimate sacrifice for, has been duped. All that killing and destruction had nothing whatsoever to do with any great and noble purpose, it was all a duping of the masses by the few who frame the context of what's "news" and their cohorts in Washington and Wall Street. Many are Zionists, others are just greedy capitalists with hooks in the MIC, oil and other money interests, who go among for any money ride. But for the Zionists it's a religious crusade, and they supplied the fervor and energy of religious zeal.

These people, the ones who pulled the strings and made that invasion happen, aren't American heroes, they are scourges. And whether it's Mr Bugliosi's movement or another, at some point this truth will out.

And what we will do with this truth? I think the solution is to put the whole gang on trial for war crimes. Only then can America begin to recover the damage they have wrought.

But let's start with Bush. My hat is off to Mr Bugliosi - a real American hero.

And for Israel supporters, the "command central" behind this operation, our message needs to be: "Americans are tired of your manipulations and you're on your own now. We suggest you push the restart button, integrate with your neighbors, and try to earn their acceptance"


Bill

Why the Crisis Isn't Going Away


Why the Crisis Isn't Going Away By Mike Whitney

This is the kind of common sense solution we need to hear more of:

" "Stephen Mihm again: The government - or what Minsky liked to call 'Big Government' - should become the 'employer of last resort,' he said, offering a job to anyone who wanted one at a set minimum wage. It would be paid to workers who would supply child care, clean streets, and provide services that would give taxpayers a visible return on their dollars. In being available to everyone, it would be even more ambitious than the New Deal, sharply reducing the welfare rolls by guaranteeing a job for anyone who was able to work. Such a program would not only help the poor and unskilled, he believed, but would put a floor beneath everyone else's wages too, preventing salaries of more skilled workers from falling too precipitously, and sending benefits up the socioeconomic ladder. ("Why Capitalism Fails, by Stephen Mihm, Boston Globe)"

Here's a map that shows the hardest hit areas:



Bill

Afghanistan: Too Big to Fail?


Afghanistan: Too Big to
Fail? Why All of Obama's Afghan Options Are Bad Ones
By Tom Engelhardt

"In this context, despite all the media drama--Is Obama "dithering" or not? Will he or won't he follow the advice of his generals?--we already know one thing about the president's upcoming Afghan War decision with a painful degree of certainty: it will involve more, not less. It will up the ante, not cut our losses."

There's all kinds of reasons for this, not a one of them good.

From Washington and Jerusalem: more bad news by Stephen Walt

"Back in 2007, we wrote that AIPAC has an "almost unchallenged hold on Congress." Little has happened since then to alter that conclusion, and we will probably get another demonstration of Congressional spinelessness this week."


Bill

Friday, October 30, 2009

Kipling Haunts Obama’s Afghan War


Kipling Haunts Obama’s Afghan War by Ray McGovern

" Without batting an eyelash, Brzezinski noted that within three months the war in Afghanistan will be the "longest war in U.S. history," and warned that the United States could be "bogged down there for another decade or so." At the same time, he argued, the world impact of an early U.S. departure "would be utterly devastating." "

Now try to imagine a soldier on the battlefield in Afghanistan today, hearing that his leaders in Washington will not consider a departure because it would be utterly devastating.

That is: if he gets killed or crippled tomorrow, it will be "no problem" because he died or will live the rest of his life as a cripple so our departure wouldn't be utterly devasting.

Excuse me - but would our departure have been utterly devasting if we never arrived in the first place? Of course it couldn't be devasting - because there would be nothing to undo. So what he's saying is that undoing what we've done would be devastating. Doesn't that make anyone think that we should revisit what we did in the first place?

Referring to Jeff Huber's article "Our mission in Afghanistan has no bearing on our national security or vital national interests. If we really wanted to root out the source of the 9/11 attacks, we’d invade and occupy Germany, home of the Hamburg cell where the attacks actually originated. But wait; we’re already occupying Germany. We have been since the end of World War II. That didn’t prevent 9/11 from happening, did it? Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the supposed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was in the Philippines when he proposed the plan to Osama bin Laden. We occupied the Philippines for a long time, but they kicked us out. Most of the 9/11 thugs came from Saudi Arabia, who don’t want us in their country, and kissing the Saudis’ keister is our virtual national pastime."


Bill

Summing up Afghanistan


Please read Bob Gates’ Bad Bet by Jeff Huber

The one part Jeff Huber misses, I think, is that nobody ever thought we were going to win anything in Afghanistan, but it makes excellent cover for getting Iraq off the "news". After a few years of dicking with Afghanistan, we'll surely pull out, and by then the neocons figure we'll have forgotten about Iraq, so they'll escape their well deserved punishment.


Bill

Thursday, October 29, 2009

The Liberty, and the lessons


Every now and then someone reminds us of the Liberty story, and today Counterpunch ran a link to this website, as it's 'Website of the day':

The Liberty Affair and the Problem with the Truth of History

Over the years, I've read a few narratives about this event, but this one is the most complete, well written and compelling of all.

Alan Hart has written a book about Zionism that I'd like to read when I get a chance.


Bill

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Get a load of this ...


From Is the End Near for the Right-Wing's Vice Grip on U.S. Israeli Policy? By Joshua Holland


"... Rosenberg, who has firsthand knowledge of Ben-David's political tactics, called him "a feckless character, if there ever was one": "

"I knew him during his AIPAC days (he worked there for 25 years before being handed his gold watch and shown the door). At AIPAC, Lenny was in charge of the AIPAC version of oppo research. Lenny compiled files on everyone who criticized Israeli policies in any way and used the material he gathered to destroy careers. Lenny loved his files. He loved sending college kids out to gather negative information about journalists, politicians, rabbis, whatever. … Lenny now lives in Israel in the Efrat settlement. He's been on the payroll of the governments of Turkey, Georgia, oil companies, whoever will pay. He also was a Netanyahu aide. He remains close to AIPAC and to Netanyahu… "

That fucking war


Neocons and Pentagon Rage Against the Dying of the Fight by Jeff Huber

"Despite the public relations campaign that has so many folks convinced the surge was a success, Iraq is still a zoo."

...

"The more we give in to the agenda of a very bad group of people who should have been discredited years ago, the more difficult it will become to turn back from the path they have set us on. "

Is the End Near for the Right-Wing's Vice Grip on U.S. Israeli Policy? By Joshua Holland

"A more open discourse would reveal how the policies advocated by the traditional lobbying groups have damaged U.S. Interests and unintentionally harmed Israel as well," Harvard's Steven Walt, co-author of The Israel Lobby, said in an email-exchange. "And that is not something that AIPAC and the other hard-line groups want to have exposed."

So - the 2% of the population who contributed at least 50% of the duping of America into a military invasion of the Middle East, is now split into two, I guess 1% size pieces, and they are fighting over our future.

Please, please read The Age of Reason.

The Danger of Towing the Line Behind Israel By BOUTHAINA SHAABAN

"Israel was the main stoker of doubts in recent years about Iran’s nuclear projects. It was also behind drumming up war against Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza, and promoting a military strike against Iran following the same strategy it followed before the war on Iraq. It was the main power behind the decision of the United States and some Western states to launch this war which failed to convince any one of its real objectives since claims of the existence of mass destruction weapons proved to be false. "

"Towing the line behind Zionism is no longer a danger to Arabs alone, it has become a danger to international justice and the sanctity of human rights and dignity. "


Bill

Monday, October 26, 2009

Ten trillion and counting


Please see this PBS video:
Ten trillion and counting

This is very disturbing stuff, but we need to know it.

Let this presentation also remind us that there are really smart people who genuinely care about the world around us, and are capable of describing it. My hat is off, once again, to Public Broadcasting and Frontline.

If you watch this video, and others, very hopefully you will feel moved to do something about it. Even if it's only talking with your family and friends, it's better then doing nothing.

If you want a plan, here's one:

- put the people who duped America into the invasion of Iraq on trail for war crimes

- remove money from the election process (public funding + Internet = elections that will help us find and put the right people into public office)

- end the military invasion of the Middle East and it's mission to achieve military superiority in the region. It's a sinkhole that has accomplished nothing and continues to suck our blood, treasure and the very soul of this country.

- cease the "special relationship" with Israel. Denouce Zionism.

- seek balanced relationships with all countries

- support the United Nations and World Court

- assign responsibility for int'l terrorism to the UN. Assume there will be more terrorist acts here and abroad. Commit equally with all countries to support UN actions to deal with this problem.

- acknowledge that we cannot kill and destroy our way into people heart's, and that by trying we only create the terrorists we so fear. There are more people in the world that hate us today then ever before. In a world brimming with wmd's, it's only a matter of time before someone who hates us gets his hands on one of those terrible weapons. The best we can do to stop it is to show the world we mean business by putting the people responsible for the hatred of America in jail, where they belong.

- Universal health care is a basic human right, not a for-profit enterprise. For profits can leech all they want, but not for the basics. Use the military sick-bay concept as a minimal approach.

- negotiate with health care providers under threat of nationalizing the industry if a fair and equitable agreement cannot be reached between they and our representatives (who, due to reforms, actually represent us).

- bust up every company that is too big to fail. This was what anti-trust was supposed to be about. Put it back and make it work.

- use tariffs to bring jobs back to America. Achieving equilibrium and harmony with the world is vital, but it must happen at the right rate, not overnight as has happened. We need to back off and do it slowly.

- promote the Internet for "Made in America" products

- establish a world class legal reference and support library on the Internet. That is, get rid of most of the blood-sucking lawyers. If the gov't makes a law, the gov't must provide a sufficient explanation and whatever support is required to understand and work with - or challenge - that law. Forcing us pay lawyers to understand the law is unacceptable. Besides, all of this can be done right on the Internet, with existing technologies and for relatively small cost. Considering it's payback value to society, this is one of the best investments in history.

- Reduce military spending by 50%. Our greatest enemy is fear. Fear has driven the military budget to staggering, colossal heights. We cannot live in fear, and we cannot let fear do this to us. As we adjust from fear-based to "confidence based on doing the right thing", we will have fewer enemies to fear. And as we rid the world of terrible weapons, we'll have fewer people with fewer weapons.

- transform the military into rotations that provide our fair share of support to UN forces, otherwise training while performing public service and humanitarian missions.

- assist small businesses willing to provide training

- achieve 100% nuclear and wmd disarmament, worldwide

- achieve clean energy

- legalize and tax marijuana. Gov't never had the right to make it illegal in the first place. Re-educate the boozers, if you must, but if half the things on this list are done, there will be far fewer people turning to booze in the first place.


Bill






Bill

Friday, October 23, 2009

Will Israel Ensure That History Repeats Itself?


Will Israel Ensure That History Repeats Itself? by Jeff Gates


Jeff Gates argues the same case I've been writing about for years - but he does it much better then I ever could.

Please take the few minutes it takes to read this article.



Bill

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Brooksley Born, a rare American hero


If you care at all about the economy and what's happened (and happening!), please see the PBS FrontLine show on TV or at "The Warning"


Bill

Zooming In on the Year’s Biggest Hoax


Zooming In on the Year’s Biggest Hoax By Robert Scheer

"The rationale for saving Goldman and the other too-big-to-fail usurers was that the rescue would increase lending to businesses and consumers and thus revive the economy. But Goldman made money last quarter by shunning such loans and instead putting the government-guaranteed low-interest money it now can borrow toward acquisitions and bond and stock trading. As The New York Times reported: “Titans like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are making fortunes in hot areas like trading stocks and bonds, rather than the ho-hum business of lending people money.” "



Bill

The Dark Side of the ‘Special Relationship’


The Dark Side of the ‘Special Relationship’ by Justin Raimondo

"The nature and extent of Israeli spying in the U.S. is not a subject you’ll see the "mainstream" media very often touch with so much as a 10-foot pole, but when it does the results can be ominously disturbing. I, for one, haven’t forgotten Carl Cameron’s four-part series on Israeli spying in the U.S., broadcast by Fox News in December 2001. According to Cameron, his sources in law enforcement told him the Israelis had been following the 9/11 hijackers and had foreknowledge of their plans but somehow neglected to tell us. And then there were those dancing Israelis, leaping for joy at the sight of the Twin Towers burning…"

"This is the dark side of the "special relationship," so dark that hardly anyone wants to acknowledge it, let alone consider its implications."

Bill

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Traditional Americans are losing their nation


Traditional Americans are losing their nation by Patrick Buchanan

"They see a government in Washington that cannot balance its books, win our wars or protect our borders. The government shovels out trillions to Fortune 500 corporations and banks to rescue the country from a crisis created by the government and Fortune 500 corporations and banks."

"America was once their country. They sense they are losing it. And they are right."



Bill

Bill Moyers: How Can the U.S. Be an Empire and a Democracy at the Same Time?


Bill Moyers: How Can the U.S. Be an Empire and a Democracy at the Same Time? By Bill Moyers


Bill

Afghanistan elections


Afghanistan: anatomy of an election disaster by Jon Boone

"Polling day was fast approaching – with an electoral register grossly inflated by millions of fake votes, thousands of polling stations set to open in insecure areas, a partisan Afghan election commission running the show and an international community anxious not to upset the president."


Bill

Sunday, October 11, 2009

What Lies Beneath the War in Afghanistan


What Lies Beneath the War in Afghanistan by Eric Margolis

"Truth is war's first casualty. The Afghan war's biggest untruth is, "we've got to fight terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them at home." "

"Many North Americans still buy this lie because they believe the 9/11 attacks came directly from the Afghanistan-based al-Qaida and Taliban movements."

"False. The 9/11 attacks were planned in Germany and Spain, and conducted mainly by U.S.-based Saudis to punish America for supporting Israel."



Bill

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Photos of Gaza


If you haven't seen photos of the slaughter in Gaza (I haven't until today), click here

And if you want to try and get your mind around the scourage of our times, the American Free Press is something you should check out. Be sure to see their article on The Zionist Elephant In The Room

If you're interested, and you should be, this publication's archives are online.


Bill

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Greenwald Film on Afghanistan


Greenwald Film on Afghanistan Destroys the Logic of the War, Leading the New York Times to Whine by Jeremy Scahill,

"Perhaps more than any other major corporate news outlet, The New York Times played a central role in promoting the Bush administration's fraudulent case for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The "reporting" of Judith Miller and Michael Gordon basically served as a front-page fiction laundering factory for Dick Cheney’s fantasy of a “mushroom cloud” threat from Saddam Hussein looming on the immediate horizon, topped off with a celebratory slice of yellowcake. More recently, the paper’s propagandists, William Broad and David Sanger, have aimed their sights on reporting dubious claims about Iran’s nuclear program."

Please be sure to see Glenn Greenwald's excellent films at rethinkafghanistan.com


Bill

Monday, October 5, 2009

Celebrating Slaughter: War and Collective Amnesia


Celebrating Slaughter: War and Collective Amnesia By Chris Hedges

"War memorials and museums are temples to the god of war. The hushed voices, the well-tended grass, the flapping of the flags allow us to ignore how and why our young died. They hide the futility and waste of war. They sanitize the savage instruments of death that turn young soldiers and Marines into killers, and small villages in Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq into hellish bonfires. There are no images in these memorials of men or women with their guts hanging out of their bellies, screaming pathetically for their mothers. We do not see mangled corpses being shoved in body bags. There are no sights of children burned beyond recognition or moaning in horrible pain. There are no blind and deformed wrecks of human beings limping through life. War, by the time it is collectively remembered, is glorified and heavily censored. "


Bill

Obama’s Afghanistan Dilemma


Obama’s Afghanistan Dilemma By Stanley Kutler

"During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly called for expanding the war in Afghanistan. Be careful what you wish for."

Be that as it may, my studies tell me that:

1. Winning in Afghanistan is a not even a remote possibility. No matter what else is said about it, it will serve as a magnet for the countless enemies we've made in the Middle East. In the best of cases it will be a long, drawn out drain of our blood and treasure. The worst of cases begins with people actually feeling the pain of war.

Why, then?

2. Afghanistan is being used as giant smoke screen to mask withdrawal from the debacle of the military invasion of Iraq (which was to serve as launching point for other conquests in the region in the larger mission to establish military authority in the Middle East - for the benefit of Big Money and Power in the MI Complex, and Israel's supporters in Washington and the "news", which I think of as a "machine").

So, no matter what happens with Afghanistan, it will take time and loads of attention, thereby achieve the goal of moving attention away from the failure of Iraq. When every semblence of victory in Iraq is crumbled, it will be featured on page 32 because everyone's attention has been diverted. Thus win or lose isn't the way to understand the Afghanistan strategy in the first place.

As it's happening today, a big moment in world history is at hand in the form of Obama's pending decision on escalating our military presence in Afghanistan. The decision is expected, and probably will be made very soon.

There is no middle of the road for him to take: it's either escalate the military approach or leave. The middle of the road is being packed with IED's.

If he obeys the machine and escalates, his worthlessness as a President and a human being will be apparent to all. If he takes a stand on behalf of the American people, the "news" machine will begin the process of eating him alive, probably using the thousand little cuts (negative "news" stories) approach, or maybe they'll try some other way.

I believe that if Obama does take a stand against this machine on behalf of the American people (the American spirit), we must disspell the power and influnce of the "news" machine (which psyched the people to launch the Iraq invasion and is now pumping up escalation in Afghanistan) by turning our heads away from it and to information sources being groomed on the net today, start with commondreams. And when we do turn our heads, we will see that the wind in their sails disappears, causing their mighty weapon to sink into the abyss with other scourages that mankind has had to overcome through history to stay the course as builders.

In the big picture of mankind's existance, the trend of civilization has consistantly favored the builders over the destroyers, i.e. an upward trend of progress. Evidentally we cannot exist without "the opposites" (Yin and Yang, with one playing the role of builder, the other destroyer, it doesn't matter which one) in our nature, but when these entities grown strong and one of the opposites becomes arrogant, belligerent and destructive, a mighty clash occurs with the other. Such a clash is brewing again today in the form of the the crusade for military authority in the Middle East. There was no "exit strategy" because there was no plan to exit.

Ask yourself: are you a builder, or a destroyer? Once again in the grand scheme of mankind's development, as has happened before, we're called again to stand up and choose.

Given the power accumulated by the forces at work, we are in a historical moment, of equal or greater significance then any in history. We must choose now, and we must choose correctly. Looking at mankind's history, I think that we will stand as builders is a no-brainer, but we still have to make it happen - it wouldn't happen by itself. It's really a question of how much pain we'll suffer before acknowledging it's time.

We've allowed ourselves to accept that frame of reference is "right" versus "left", which set us arguing in circles. We need a different and more accurate frame of reference, and that is "builder" versus "destroyer". If you're intrigued by this notion, I invite you to read C. J. Jung's excellent analysis on the subject. Most unfortunately his works are not published on the net, but can be found in your library.


Bill

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Debunking the War Party


Debunking the War Party Greenwald Slaps Down Huffington by Justin Raimondo

"Odds are that, at this time in 2010, we’ll still be talking about Iran’s completely nonexistent nuclear weapons program, with rival versions of what Tehran is really up to battling it out within the administration and in the arena of public opinion. The opening shots of that war have been fired, and,while the War Party, spearheaded by the powerful Israel lobby, is bound and determined to strike at Iran, the news out of Geneva is not good for the "bomb bomb bomb Iran" crowd. "

...

"Unlike our last emperor, this one is no dummy: he knows perfectly well that Israel’s possession of weapons of mass destruction is the real issue that hangs over the entire region, a nuclear sword of Damocles in the hands of whatever rabid rightist holds the reins of power in Tel Aviv. Also unlike Bush, Obama is not beholden to the Israel lobby in the same way the Republicans were and are: not that Democrats are immune to the Lobby’s power. Far from it: on the eve of this apparent breakthrough in the US-Iranian stand-off, the Democratic majority in congress voted to impose sanctions on foreign companies that import gasoline into Iran. "

...

"It was great watching Glenn Greenwald take Arianna apart with his hardheaded appeal to both realism and common sense – and his mention of the Unmentionable Israeli nuclear arsenal. Greenwald demolished her talking points, methodically and unmercifully, and he did it by simply sticking to the facts: look, he said, at what Iran and the US have actually done. It is the US that has occupied nations on Iran’s borders, in Iraq and Afghanistan, while you have to go back a thousand years to pin down the last time the Iranians (then the Persians) crossed their borders and invaded another country. It was the US that backed Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran, in a war in which hundreds of thousands were slaughtered. So who is the real aggressor here? "



Bill

Friday, October 2, 2009

Who Decides About War? What About the People?


In this article: Who Decides About War? What About the People? by John Nichols

Manski and his colleagues ask core questions that deserve thoughtful consideration.


Bill