A Little News from what Obama calls “The Right War”

by Scott Creighton

Ex-ISI Chief talks about Afghanistan (by way of Kenny’s Sideshow) -  Before the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, the country produced about 4,500 tons of opium per year.  By the end of the Taliban reign in 2001 that number was down to 50 tons. The Taliban had reduced the production of opium by 99% in about 5 years.   Last year over 6,000 tons of opium was produced and exported by Afghanistan and the U.S. military is targeting the “insurgent” linked drug lords… not the 98% of them that aren’t “insurgent” linked.  In fact, President Hamid Karzai’s brother is one of the biggest drug lords in Afghanistan. There are also credible allegations of U.S. military aircraft being used to transport opium out of the country.

Obama’s “Kill or capture drug lords in Afghanistan” order – I wonder if this order includes President Karzai’s brother?  Kind of like that scene in American Gangster when Denzel Washington just walked right up to the rival drug dealer and blew his head off in broad daylight, huh?

American Gangster

(Bit of irony: the story of the film American Gangster is the story of Frank Lucas, a major league drug dealer who rose to power by having a connection send him heroin directly from the source… using military transport planes returning from the Vietnam war. According to the film, the U.S. military had “no idea” that was taking place…. yeah right.)

The Spice must Flow – The demand for cheap heroin is on the rise from the south of China to the border states of Mexico and everywhere in between. In Mexico especially, the “War on Drugs” serves it’s horrible dual purpose; generating massive untraceable wealth (which must be laundered through the banks while THEY take their cut) and the justification for the militaristic crack-down on the civilian population.  In 2006, 12,000 Mexican civilians died compared to 72 soldiers in their “War on Drugs”.  Most people wouldn’t call that much of a war. Mexicans call it oppression.

Rampant corruption and the pending rigged election in Afghanistan – Occupiers NEVER bring democracy; they install dictators.  We should have learned this lesson from the Romans and the British empires before us.  There is no question among U.S. intelligence forces and even the White House advisers to the country, that the election about to take place in Afghanistan is a fraud. And yet nothing will be done to change it.  In this case, democracy just doesn’t serve our purpose of  “keeping the barbarians from coming together“.

Understanding “The Right War” and all it’s Globalist implications – An adviser to President Obama, Zbigniew Brzezinski, once wrote “For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia… Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia – and America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.“

Obama touts economic “recovery”

(now that we are done with the FAKE DISSENT, let’s get back to the real threat)

by Tom Eley and Barry Grey, WSWS

The Obama administration and the media have seized on second quarter gross domestic product (GDP) data to promote the notion that the recession is ending and “recovery” is underway. This effort is summed up by the cover of the current edition of Newsweek, which carries the banner headline, “The Recession is Over!”

The claim that the recession is ending is being used to reject any serious relief for workers who are being devastated by layoffs, wage reductions, home foreclosures and cuts in basic social services, and to set the stage for unprecedented attacks on social programs such as Medicare and Social Security to pay for the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of the banks.

The Foxification of Op Ed News and other “Progressive” Betrayals

by Scott Creighton

Snake oil salesman and charlatan extraordinaire, Rob Kall, has weighed in on the “von Brunn/domestic terrorist/extremist” topic.

Do you think this “progressive” leader of a “liberal” website would have come down on the side of free-speech, the constitution, and pointing out the government’s using this situation as a catalyst for the passage of the very Homegrown Terrorism bill that Rob himself opposed a year ago?

You think he would stand up for the right of freedom of expression just so long as that expression doesn’t call for violence? Do you think he would call for the need of a “well informed population” for the preservation of a free and open democracy?

You think Rob Kall, biofeedback snake oil peddler and motivational speaker, would take a stand against the targeting of some of the very people that helped him build his website empire? These same people that he just happened to kick out of the site they helped him make just days before all this “extremist violence” started happening?

Hell no.  Kall is selling us out faster than Geithner with a new Bailout Plan at a banker country club Meet-and-Greet.  And in the process, Kall is calling us “mentally ill”, dangerous, and in need of being “cleaned up” and taken completely off the internet.

That’s right, “Pay-Go” loving Rob Kall is taking the Fox News game plan of turning this horrible event into justification to attack liberal dissenters on the web, and spinning the exact same message just from the DLC/Obamalove side of the coin. He is effective telling Team DLC Obama™ Brand to “come on in” and sweep up the “lefty extremists” in their “preventive detention” drag nets.

Colbert’s Iraq War Propaganda

by Scott Creighton

It's a Wonderful Occupation!

It’s a “happy,happy, joy,joy” war for Stephen Colbert now that Obama’s in charge.

This week he is staging his show in Iraq; entertaining the troops and generally making them feel better about a bad situation. Gotta give him credit for that. But unfortunately, that isn’t why he’s doing it.

Team DLC Obama™ Brand has taken a lot of flak from the (“extremist”) left for his continuation of the illegal occupation of Iraq.

So in order to “normalize” the extended occupation in the minds of the “progressives”, off goes Stephen Colbert (one of their most respected critics of the previous administration and a current cheerleader for the new one) to “yuck it up” with the troops and various generals “in the field”. This way, they can promote the opinions of the “generals on the ground” the way that Bush used to do, directly to the staunchest critics of the war.

“We’re not quite ready to declare victory,” he said. “Things are moving forward but again, it’s about bringing long-term stability.”  Gen. Ray Odierno

Hold Your Applause

by Chris Hedges, Truthdig

Did they play Barack Obama’s speech to the Muslim world in the prison corridors of Abu Ghraib, Bagram air base, Guantanamo or the dozens of secret sites where we hold thousands of Muslims around the world? Did it echo off the walls of the crowded morgues filled with the mutilated bodies of the Muslim dead in Baghdad or Kabul? Was it broadcast from the tops of minarets in the villages and towns decimated by U.S. iron fragmentation bombs? Was it heard in the squalid refugee camps of Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinians live in the world’s largest ghetto?

Clinton Threatens to Attack Iran ‘The Way That We Did’ Iraq

by Jason Ditz, AntiWar

Citing the disastrous 2003 US invasion of Iraq as an example, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today warned that by continuing to refuse to abandon its civilian nuclear program, Iran was risking the possibility of an invasion by the US or “some other enemy that would do that to them.”

The comments came during an interview on ABC’s “This Week” program, and when asked by interviewer and former Clinton-era official George Stephanopoulus, Secretary Clinton reiterated “that’s right, as a first strike.”

I Want to Play a Game…

by Scott Creighton

Wanna play a game?

I want to play a game. A simple game. You spend your life living as red or as blue, as part of a team on one side of the ball or the other. Defense, offense, special teams.. you know your role and they feed you the lines, one news clip at a time.

This game is different. And it’s very simple; all I want are two simple examples, one from category “A” and one from category “B”.

In category “A” I want a public example of something, anything, a policy or a legal interpretation… something… said by Vice President Dick Cheney during his tenure in office that wasn’t a lie.  Not him saying what day it was or telling someone his name, nothing cute, but I mean literally, something he officially  said in public, on the record, that wasn’t a lie.

In category “B” I want a public statement made by President Obama during the campaign that he has actually lived up to, just like he said he was going to do, since he became president. Not something he “compromised” on which ended up meaning he sold out his populous base to corporate interests,  not some drapes he picked out, but a solid policy stance taken on a liberal issue that helped get him in office, that he actually has lived up to since taking office…

Find something positive and from a notable official record or publication, undeniably accurate and true, one from your guy and one from theirs.

The clock is ticking, the game has begun.

Red or Blue?  A or B?  Different or just the same?  Live or die.  The choice is yours.

US treasury secretary rejects limits on executive pay

by Andre Damon, WSWS

Timothy Geithner, US treasury secretary, said on Monday he opposes caps on executive pay in companies receiving bailouts from the federal government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

Obama restarts military commission trials

by Tom Eley, WSWS

In a terse three paragraph statement released Friday, President Barack Obama announced his decision to resume military commission trials for 13 Guantánamo Bay inmates. The trials will start after Congress authorizes minor changes to the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which gave legal sanction to the tribunal system that former president George W. Bush had first put in place by executive fiat at the end of 2001. The move is part of a broader effort by the Obama administration to carry on, under slightly altered parameters, the major anti-democratic initiatives of the Bush administration in “the war on terror.”

Team DLC Obama™ Brand

Team DLC Obama™ Brand

The Specter Diversion

by Chris Floyd, CounterPunch

So the Democrats have yet another supporter of aggressive war, oligarchy, authoritarianism and torture in their Senate ranks. Wow, that will certainly shake up the political landscape in Washington! It looks like the promised New Jerusalem of hope and change has well and truly arrived at last.

The chattering classes are all, well, a-chatter with the cosmic significance of the switcheroo by the aptly named Arlen Specter from the Republican faction of the imperial court to the Democratic faction. The late-life conversion of this greasy, cadaverous bagman apparently heralds not only a filibuster-proof majority for the Democrats (once they are joined by that guy who used to be on Saturday Night Live), but also the potential death of the entire Republican Party! Who knew that little old Arlen — who has been obediently toting Establishment water since he devised the “single bullet theory” for the Warren Commission (one of the first great instances of “magical realism” in modern fiction) — was such a linchpin of the American political system?

Church Document Encourages Congregation To Obey Government

by Paul Joseph Watson, from Prison Planet

ObamaGod

A shocking document has come to light from a church in Ohio which educates its congregation that Barack Obama’s presidency is appointed by God and that Obama himself is “God’s minister,” in another perversion of Romans 13, the bible verse cited as an excuse for Christians not to oppose tyranny.

Ohio District Superintendent Rev. John Wooton was responsible for distributing the pamphlet, which was handed out at the Assembly of God church in Ohio, according to a reader who forwarded the document to us. Click here for the PDF file.

“This was handed out at the Assembly of God church that my fiance and I used to attend. We immediately stopped attending after getting this flier about ’submitting to Obama and the government,’ states the reader.

“The pastor even brought children to the front of the church, encouraging them to submit to teachers, firemen, and the police. It was insane.”

Sermon From The Corporate Church

(“Human nature itself has become the enemy of the master class.” … reconcilables/irreconcilables  or moderates/extremists… the language of oppression is unmistakable: submit or perish. This is the nature of your “change”… and ANYONE who tries to tell you differently, has chosen the side of the “moderates”. Now, you can shift to the center to garner your place at the feeding trough if you wish, but some of us, well, we choose a different path.)

by Peter Chamberlain, ICH

Hurricane winds pound at the gates of Fortress America and our leaders send out the order for more straw and sand to pound into the widening cracks. The harder the winds of change blow the more apparent it becomes that our “leaders” cannot lead, when they themselves await orders from above. As our house of cards flies apart at the seams, the master planners send their minions scrambling to salvage their disintegrating investments, worrying only about their “property,” caring less about the human life that is huddled in fear within.

You Don’t Have a Clue What You Really Voted For, Do You?

***UPDATE***

Obama DOJ is adapting Bush’s “above the law” unitary executive theory in the San Francisco wiretapping case.

…. the Obama DOJ is now refusing to comply with the Judge’s order, actually arguing to the court that only the President can decide whether classified information can be used in a court proceeding… Greenwald

Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel – 2006

The Big Plan: Big Ideas for America by Rahm Emanuel

“It’s time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us… We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service.”

Obama’s transition website, the following appeared:

“Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.”

“He is a dual citizen of Israel, which his office  refused to deny when AFP inquired. Israel is the only nation where Americans can apply for and obtain citizenship without automatically renouncing U.S. citizenship.

What will America’s next target be under an Obama presidency? Sources close to Emanuel say that he has a “Zionist obsession with Iran.” AFP

Senator  John McCain – 1989

Senate Bill 781 National Service Act of 1989 – written and introduced by Senator John McCain

“… to develop a comprehensive, mandatory national service program … . This legislation will establish a program leading to a comprehensive, fair and mandatory system of COMMUNITY or military service to the nation. … This program will allow us to combine the responsibilities of citizenship with a concerted effort that addresses vital community and national defense needs that, otherwise, will be unmet in the years ahead.” (1)
“… that both men and women between 16 and 26 would be required to serve either in the community or in the military. They would serve 24 hours a month and two weeks during the year for two to four years.” (2)
(1) From McCain press-release April 13, 1989
(2) Arizona Daily Star April, 14 1989 page A-6

Bush White House Lying Again About Reasons For War. Oh, wait a minute… sorry, little flashback there… they sound so similar you know

(from Feb. 22 2009) from AntiWar

Much hay was made late last week over the allegation that the Iranian government had underreported the amount of urnaium it had enriched through November. The White House accused Iran of reneging on its international obligations, and called the nation an “urgent problem that has to be addressed.”

Not so, says the International Atomic Enegy Agency (IAEA), which said the discrepancy between the reported and actual figures were “inherent in the early commissioning phases of such a facility when it is not known in advance how it will perform in practice.”