Bitter Fruits of Mideast Wars

Bitter Fruits of Mideast Wars by Patrick J. Buchanan

"Impending today are two of the most critical decisions Barack Obama will ever make, which may determine the fate of his presidency, as well as the future of the United States in the Near and Middle East. "

"The first is whether to approve Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for thousands more U.S. troops he says he needs to prevent "mission failure" — i.e, to stave off a U.S. defeat in Afghanistan. "

"The second is whether Obama will start up the road of "crippling sanctions" to war with Iran, to prevent Tehran from moving closer to a capacity to produce nuclear weapons. "

Please read the article for Buchanan's clear analysis.

Neocon Artist by Jeff Huber

"That Kagan, and by extension the entire neocon cabal, still has such influence is not only alarming, it is dangerous. Even worse is the manner in which the neocons have aligned themselves with the Pentagon in its power struggle with the Obama administration."

Marijuana in America: More Mainstream Than Ever, More Arrests Than Ever By Tony Newman

"You might be surprised to learn that in the United States more than 750,000 people are arrested every year on marijuana possession. In New York, under "moderate" Bloomberg, there were 40,000 pot arrests last year, and the city now has the unfortunate distinction of being the marijuana-arrest capital of the world."

"... In 2008, 87 percent of those charged with pot possession in New York were black or Latino"


Bill

Another War in the Works

Another War in the Works By Paul Craig Roberts

"Does anyone remember all the lies that they were told by President Bush and the “mainstream media” about the grave threat to America from weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? These lies were repeated endlessly in the print and TV media despite the reports from the weapons inspectors, who had been sent to Iraq, that no such weapons existed. "

"The weapons inspectors did an honest job in Iraq and told the truth, but the mainstream media did not emphasize their findings. Instead, the media served as a Ministry of Propaganda, beating the war drums for the US government."

"Now the whole process is repeating itself. This time the target is Iran. "


Bill

September ‘Surprise’

September ‘Surprise’ Iranian nuke facility revelation: countdown to war begins… by Justin Raimondo

"In his UN oration, Obama declared “Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow," a manifestly untrue statement that nonetheless went largely unchallenged. Because "all nations" apparently doesn’t include the state of Israel, which has as many as 200 nuclear weapons and is no doubt developing more."

...

"This whole campaign against Iran for supposedly harboring a desire to nuke Israel is absurd from beginning to end. A nuclear attack on Israel would not only annihilate the Israelis, but also the Palestinians – which one has to assume the Iranians have no desire to do. It would also invite massive retaliation from the U.S. and universal condemnation. The myth that Israel is going to be the site of a second Holocaust if we don’t stop the Iranians first is one that is being energetically pushed by Israel and her American lobby – and it is a very crude and easily refutable lie. Which doesn’t mean they won’t try to pull it off. After all, the idea that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, although absurd on its face, was relentlessly repeated by the Bushies during the run-up to the Iraq war, and there’s no reason, at this point, to suspect that the new guys in charge are above such tactics."



Bill

Palestinian-Israeli Conflict Could Get Much Worse if Tolerated

Palestinian-Israeli Conflict Could Get Much Worse if Tolerated By William Pfaff

"In Jerusalem, Mitchell’s techniques of confidence-building, isolation of specific issues, rational compromise on the nonessentials while approaching the essential have been a waste of everyone’s time. This conflict concerns God’s specific instruction to the Jewish people to reoccupy Jerusalem and the Palestinian West Bank."

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not elected to negotiate a solution going against God’s express will, but to prevent a solution by blocking every avenue of negotiation."

Maybe it's time we took another look at the age of reason.


Bill

The Economy is a Lie, Too

The Economy is a Lie, Too By Paul Craig Roberts

"When the bubble burst, the extraordinary leverage threatened the financial system with collapse. The US Treasury and the Federal Reserve stepped forward with no one knows how many trillions of dollars to “save the financial system,” which, of course, meant to save the greed-driven financial institutions that had caused the economic crisis that dispossessed ordinary Americans of half of their life savings."

...

"The consumer has been chastened, but not the banks. Refreshed with the TARP $700 billion and the Federal Reserve’s expanded balance sheet, banks are again behaving like hedge funds. Leveraged speculation is producing another bubble with the current stock market rally, which is not a sign of economic recovery but is the final savaging of Americans’ wealth by a few investment banks and their Washington friends. Goldman Sachs, rolling in profits, announced six figure bonuses to employees."

The United States in Afghanistan By Gabriel Kolko

"At least three-quarters of the supplies essential for America’s and its allies’ war effort flow through Pakistan, and they are often attacked."

...

"The power of Afghanistan’s nominal president, Hamid Karzai, barely extends beyond Kabul, and his inefficiency and corruption shock many U.S. leaders"

...

"Obama’s approach to winning the war is far too convoluted to succeed and it is dependent on factors over which he has scant control - not the least being the advice of one of his key advisers, Bruce Riedel, that “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the central all-consuming issue for al Quaida.“ This issue must finally be settled; the chances of that happening are close to non-existent. Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, has warned Obama on several occasions that ”we are running the risk of replicating … the fate of the Soviets.” As the author of Moscow’s ‘Afghan trap’, he should know."

...

"Meanwhile, Obama thinks he will win the war by escalation - an illusion that also marked the futile war in Vietnam. He also believes he can “Afghanisize” the war - like Nixon thought he could “Vietnamize” that conflict - even though recruits for Karzai’s army have little motivation apart from collecting their salary, and are scarcely a match for the Taliban - a quite divided, complex organization which today dominates much of the country."


Bill

America has been here before

America has been here before By Eric Margolis

"The director of U.S. national intelligence just revealed Washington spent $75 billion US last year on intelligence, employing 200,000 people. Embarrassingly, the U.S. still can't find Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar after hunting them for eight years."

"America's attempts to build an Afghan sepoy army of 250,000 failed miserably. The 80,000 men raised to date are 95% illiterate and only on the job for money to feed their families. They have no loyalty to the corrupt western-installed government in Kabul. CIA's 74,000 "contractors" (read mercenaries) in Afghanistan are more reliable. "

The question of the day: does it take a genius to figure out that the invasion of the Middle East, for the purpose of establishing military authority in the region, is a complete and undeniable failure?

Oh, you're for the war and not ready to admit defeat? Maybe it's time to re-think what you thought the invasion was all about? Not moved? How about all the killing and destruction? Doesn't any of it bother you even a little? Still want to kill 'em all over there before they attack us here?

Classified McChrystal Report: 500,000 Troops Will Be Required Over Five Years in Afghanistan by Tom Andrews

"Embedded in General Stanley McChrystal's classified assessment of the war in Afghanistan is his conclusion that a successful counterinsurgency strategy will require 500,000 troops over five years."

"This bombshell was dropped by NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Wednesday: "

" "The numbers are really pretty horrifying. What they say, embedded in this report by McChrystal, is they would need 500,000 troops - boots on the ground - and five years to do the job. No one expects that the Afghan Army could step up to that. Are we gonna put even half that of U.S. troops there, and NATO forces? No way." [Morning Joe, September 23, 2000]
Mitchell got the figure from an independent source. It was not revealed in the redacted version of the once classified report released by the Pentagon earlier this week. McChrystal has warned the administration that without an infusion of more troops the eight-year war in Afghanistan "will likely result in failure". "


Bill

Why President Obama Can't Let Himself Be Blackmailed by His Generals

Why President Obama Can't Let Himself Be Blackmailed by His Generals By Guy T. Saperstein

"The Taliban never attacked America, and no one suggests they have the capacity or interest in attacking the American homeland; they are fighting Americans because Americans occupy their country."

"And if the argument is that we have to stay in Afghanistan so al-Qaida doesn't return, does that mean forever -- at more than $100 billion per year?"

"Does it mean we should invade and occupy all other nations where al-Qaida might pop up? Already, al-Qaida is operating in Somalia and Indonesia, and what should we do about all the many weak and failed nations that potentially could be launching pads for terrorism -- do we invade and occupy them all, as well?"


Barack Obama Must See Michael Moore's New Movie (and So Must You)! By Arianna Huffington

".. Michael goes directly to the beating heart of the economic crisis, showing a hard-working, middle class family being evicted from their home. The knot in your stomach starts to tighten -- and the outrage starts to build."

"... an internal Citibank report happily declaring America a "plutonomy," with 1 percent of the population controlling 95 percent of the wealth"

"In the film, Michael describes capitalism as evil. I disagree. I don't think capitalism is evil. I think what we have right now is not capitalism."

"In capitalism as envisioned by its leading lights, including Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall, you need a moral foundation in order for free markets to work. And when a company fails, it fails. It doesn't get bailed out using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. What we have right now is Corporatism. It's welfare for the rich. It's the government picking winners and losers. It's Wall Street having their taxpayer-funded cake and eating it too. It's socialized gains and privatized losses."


Bill