Obama the Republican

Obama: won't speed up Iraq pull out on AP

Obama the Republican ....

"I think the plan that we put forward in Iraq is the right one" because it calls for "a very gradual withdrawal through the national elections in Iraq,"

...

"I'm confident that we're moving in the right direction. But Iraq is not yet completed. We still have a lot of work to do," the president said of the war that's winding down after six hard-fought years.

And, for people in the National Guard who thought they might be able to spend some time at home. Well, not so fast. Obama has other 'wars' to fight.

_His administration was considering putting more National Guard troops on the U.S. border with Mexico to stem violence from the illicit drug trade.

And, gotta make sure that short-term 'anger' over million dollar bonuses to the very people who caused this crash doesn't get in the way of the long term policies of pumping trillions of our dollars into the Wall St firms.

_Anger over giant bonuses for bailout-recipient American International Group Inc. was justified, but he doesn't want his long-term focus threatened by what he calls the legitimate, but short-term frustrations over some of Wall Street's actions.

"My most important job is to get this economy moving again, to get credit flowing again so that businesses large and small can start rehiring, open their doors and we can start seeing economic growth again," Obama said.

Oh, and there's this other article announcing that Obama's relations with Iran will stay on the same saber-rattling, war-like course as Bush's. You didn't really think we were going to talk to Iran, like Obama promised in the primaries, did you?

Wow, the 'change' we are getting is just stunning isn't it? We can't 'change' the war in Iraq'. We are only 'changing' the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the worse. And, of course we can't 'change' the fact that Wall St. owns this government, and that they now have an apparently unlimited pipeline direct from the public treasury into their pockets.

People need to burn this into their memories as what the Democrats mean by 'change we can believe in.' If people want real change, voting Democrat is not the answer.

US says 12,000 US troops to leave Iraq by Sept.

US says 12,000 US troops to leave Iraq by Sept. from AP

So, Obama's promise to remove a combat brigade every month has transformed into a vague promise to remove a few troops from Iraq six months from now. Of course, we have to wait six months to see if this token withdraw really occurs, or if we are then told the situation is maybe 'too unstable' for us to leave. Given Obama's record of breaking campaign promises ....

Meanwhile, what does the presence of US troops in Iraq mean for Iraqis ...

U.S. forces kill citizen, relatives say was executed from Aswat al-Iraq.

“The dead man was in his thirties, and he was shot in the chest,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
“The U.S. side of the story is that he was a gunman who attacked a U.S. patrol in central Baiji suburb (35 km north of Tikrit), and the patrol responded and killed him instantaneously,” he said.
Ahmed Abdullah, one of the dead man’s relatives, said “U.S. forces conducted a raid operation on al-Taameem neighborhood and killed the 37-year-old man in front of his family after entering his room.”
“The victim was detained by U.S. forces and released three days ago,” Abdullah added.
No comment is available from the U.S. side.

What's beyond me is how the so-called 'anti-war' Democrats can be perfectly happy with these sorts of deaths? It may be all a game to them, with their personal accumulation of power as their goal. But its life-and-death for others.

Afghanistan

Two articles on Afghanistan ....
Grim Appraisal in Afghanistan on Antiwar.com

Blog entry that contains links to several articles on Afghanistan. The main 'story' is that Gen. Petreus is mounting a pre-emptive strike against ongoing 'strategy' reviews and declaring that Afghanistan is in a 'downward spiral', and that of course the answer is that we need to send more troops and kill more people.

Of course, the main question is .... what on earth are we fighting in Afghanistan for? How is this is the strategic interests of the American people?

A quick review. We supposedly went to Afghanistan because Bin Laden had camps there. Supposedly, the only reason we attacked the Taliban was because they were sheltering Al-Qaida. Well, couldn't we have just left afterwards? Let them know that if they dare to let Bin Laden back, then we'll come back and blow up more stuff? Why on earth are we still there some 8 years later? How is spending billions of dollars, getting young Americans killed, and killing many (700 is the estimate for last year) civilians who dare to do things like hold a wedding party in their home village, doing anything to improve life for Americans?

It makes much less sense for us to be in Afghanistan than it ever did to be in Iraq. And it makes zero sense for us to send MORE troops. The only reason I can see for it is that the Afghan war 'polled' well so Obama and the Democrats seized on it to try to pretend they they can be as viscious and unprinicipled killers as the Republicans even though the Democrats thought we should (slowly) get out of Iraq and (slowly) close Gitmo.


Anti-war lawmakers worry over plan for Afghanistan from the AP

"WASHINGTON – After campaigning on the promise to end one war, President Barack Obama is preparing to escalate another.

Obama's dual stance on the two wars is not lost on congressional Democrats, many of whom also ran on anti-war platforms. In coming weeks, they expect to have to consider tens of billions of dollars needed for combat, including a major buildup of troops in Afghanistan."

Of course, knowing the Democrats, this will amount to just a few speeches and a few symbolic 'No' votes. They'd never do anything real, like refuse to support the House leadership. I'm not sure of the size of the 'anti-war' caucus in this Congress, but I think if they left the Democratic Party then the Democrat's majority in the House would be in question. But, they'd never do anything like that. They'll just make a few statements, cast the symbolic 'no' votes, then let the money and the troops flow to Afghanistan ... and let the body bags start to come home in greater numbers.

AP Impact: Pentagon boosts spending on PR

AP Impact: Pentagon boosts spending on PR by the AP.

Hey, I think we just found $5 billion a year that can be diverted to helping economic recovery and preventing home foreclosures on hard working (or trying to work) Americans.

On an abandoned Air Force base in San Antonio, Texas, editors for the Joint Hometown News Service point proudly to a dozen clippings on a table as examples of success in getting stories into newspapers.

What readers are not told: Each of these glowing stories was written by Pentagon staff. Under the free service, stories go out with authors' names but not their titles, and do not mention Hometown News anywhere. In 2009, Hometown News plans to put out 5,400 press releases, 3,000 television releases and 1,600 radio interviews, among other work — 50 percent more than in 2007.

The service is just a tiny piece of the Pentagon's rapidly expanding media empire, which is now bigger in size, money and power than many media companies.

So, do you think sometimes you see articles in the local paper, or stories on local TV news that seem ridiculously tilted towards the US military. Well, that's your tax dollars hard at work.

First off, this is very, very close to being illegal. Even the AP, which is not exactly hostile to the US military, hints at that in this article.

And the reason that this was at one time made illegal is that this is very destructive to democracy and freedom. Do you ever notice how its become almost impossible to speak against the US military in this country? Its becoming very hard to have any sort of discussion that might lead to lower defense budgets, or less of our military going around the world killing people. And when you realize there's a $5 billion a year operation employing 27,000 people promoting the US military, then one starts to see why.

In a democracy, power is supposed to reside with the people. The government is supposed to reflect the will of the people. As such, its not the government's role to be telling the people what to think. That distorts the process. That puts power with the government, as opposed to power residing with the people.

Anyone want to make a small wager that this doesn't change under Obama? Maybe I'm wrong, maybe his radical pick of Gates as Sec of Defense means that policies like this under previous Sec of Defense Gates will be reversed.