Helen Thomas, and more

There are very, very few journalists I have any respect for. One is Helen Thomas.

In What are U.S. goals in Afghanistan? she says:

"He would leave 50,000 Americans in Iraq to cope with the resistance there. Such was the folly of President George W. Bush, who invaded Iraq after his hawkish neoconservative advisers told him we would triumph in a few weeks."

"To this day none of Bush's reasons for attacking Iraq have held up to examination. There were no weapons of mass destruction, no Iraqi ties to al-Qaida and no threat to the United States."

"There have been no apologies from Bush or his cohorts."

She then very reasonably argues that we didn't learn from Vietnam, that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, and that "Sooner or later American presidents should learn that people will always fight for their country against a foreign invader. And peace should be the only goal."

Somebody better listen, but here's the plan for Afghanistan.

But then, reading Obama and the Neocon Middle East War Agenda
by Stephen J. Sniegoski who says:

"All of this can reasonably lead to the question: Will Obama's Middle East policy differ significantly from that of the neoconservatives who were the driving force for the war on Iraq and have fashioned a broader Israelocentric Middle East war agenda? (The neoconservatives are the subject of my recent book: The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel). Obama himself does not appear to be completely aligned with the neocon position as was John McCain. However, the President's close advisors, such as David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, Dennis Ross, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton, tend to be ardently pro-Israel and hawkish, reflecting a neocon orientation, even though none of these individuals are actually neocons."

..

"And Obama would undoubtedly be pushed in this belligerent direction by the neoconservatives outside his administration and the hawks within, as well as by Congress under the sway of the Israel Lobby. Given Obama's record so far, it seems highly unlikely that he would resist. American hardline policies such as a naval blockade or the bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities would inevitably spiral into a full-scale war."

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Glen Greenwald, who I have a growing like for, writes about The virtues of public anger and the need for more He seems to have trouble getting his mind around the fact that very few sensible people get through the handful of barons that have editorial control over our national information supply. Maybe he knows this, but has yet to talk about it?

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On what happened in Gaza ... and another story here and another here. Remember Rachael Corry?

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Bill