By David Swanson

Last June we were handed an opportunity to block the funding of our illegal, murderous, counterproductive, catastrophic, and hated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The president insisted on an off-the-books "emergency supplemental" bill, and the Senate added an IMF bailout to the bill, leading all the Republicans in the House to commit what for years they'd called treason: they all voted No on war money.

So, we only needed 39 Democrats to vote No, and we could have stopped the thing, at least temporarily. We had a week-long knock-down drag-out fight, with the White House telling freshmen Democrats they would be "dead to us" if they didn't vote Yes. And we still persuaded 32 Democrats to vote No.

At what point do progressives stop being Democrats' whipped dogs and start acting like a movement capable of putting the Dems in their proper place as the party of the people? David Sirota wrote today about Obama's latest call to increase war spending beyond its already ludicrous proportions.

How many of the extreme right-wing and criminal policies of Bush-Cheney has Obama adopted? How many of those extreme right-wing policies has he exceeded? Last month, knowledge that Obama has gone a step further than Bush, authorizing the executive branch to murder American citizens on the flimsiest of rationales. This sh__ has GOT to end.

In this half hour address to the Black is Back Conference in St. Petersburg last weekend, Glen Ford sticks a pin in the notion that our First Black President "inherited" the multiple wars America is engaged in, from Colombia to the Phillipines to Somalia and Yemen to Pakistan.
Barack Obama didn't just campaign for the job five or six years, he embraced all the rotten things empire is, and does to become its CEO, to get his corporate campaign contributors to purchase the job for him. It's half an hour.
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Jon Walker over at Fire Dog Lake makes a very effective argument about why learning the wrong lesson from the defeat of Martha Coakley in Tuesday's Massachusetts Senate race will lead to disaster.

An Open Letter to Very Important Democrats and their Associates:

Hey, y'all. I had some thoughts I wanted to share about that Afghanistan situation. Hope it's not too long, but I thought you may not have heard some of these ideas before, based on what I know you consider US "options" there. Hope you enjoy the jocular and whimsical tone, I know serious and long-winded writing can get boring so I funned it up a bit.

One argument in favor of a complete or near-complete withdrawal of US Military and military-associated aid organizations in Afghanistan sounds 'radical' among our political elites, but should be CW. That is: the political leadership of this country has already and recently demonstrated that it is completely incapable of successful foreign policy involving the use military force, In other words, the US has a +20 year record of EPIC FAIL at war. It's time to admit we need to 1) stop being involved in war and occupation and 2) try something Completely Different. Subliminal: see, I didn't even spit on the troops there, our Military remains Heroic.

Note: Lambert reasonably asked for documentation of U.S. ex-military asking that the antiwar movement present the moral argument against participation in the U.S. imperial crusades to U.S. troops and, in particular to those thinking about joining the military. I did that back on December 10 in the diary that follows.

Eva Golinger: Did people in your class [at Evergreen University] know you were in the military? What did they say to you?

Josh Simpson: Yes, but people knew I was opposed to the war.

Lately, I've been hearing a lot of noise from lefty and women's rights organizations about the next Big Thing: The rights of Afghan women and girls. Eleanor Smeal's group, Feminist.org (yes, she's one of the ones who helped with the infamous Obama Ms. Magazine cover), has a campaign for them. NOW and The Nation have also jumped on the bandwagon.

This post is too long for Corrente, but I thought you'd all enjoy some snark about Obama's totally unoriginal "surge" in Afghanistan.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Barack Obama is completely, utterly predictable. Just pick the thing you, as a liberal, are wishing with every corpuscle in your body he won’t do, and the DINO bastard will do it (and his enablers in the “progressive” blogosphere will pretend they think it’s mahhhhhvelous and the most lefty thing EVAH).

But something I haven’t talked about too much is how totally unoriginal he is. Hillary was right. I don’t think he’s ever thought of a single thing on his own.

More at the link.

There's no excusing what happened at Fort Hood. None. The United States Army has filed charges against the survivor who opened fire in the Soldier Readiness Center, killing 12 fellow soldiers and a civilian, and wounding 30 more persons.

Major Hasan, 39, an Army psychiatrist, is accused of opening fire with two handguns in a Soldier Medical Readiness Center, where troops receive medical attention before being deployed or after returning from overseas.

Of the 13 people who were killed last Thursday, 4 were officers, 8 were enlisted soldiers and one was a civilian. Major Hasan was eventually subdued by civilian police.

The 13 charges against Major Hasan are “initial charges,” said the Army spokesman, Chris Grey, “and additional charges may be preferred in the future, subject to the ongoing criminal investigation.”
“It is important to remember that the preferral of charges is the first step in the court-martial process,” Mr. Grey said, “and that a charge is merely an accusation. The accused is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.”

Col. John P. Galligan, a retired Army officer who is representing Major Hasan, has questioned whether the suspect will be able to get a fair trial at Fort Hood.

For now, Mr. Grey added, “Major Hasan is currently under pretrial restriction while receiving medical care.”

Major Hasan is reported to be in stable condition in an Army Hospital in San Antonio, where he is recovering from four gunshot wounds.

Now comes the Times with a follow-on to the initial stories suggesting that the hero civilian first credited with stopping this madman was merely another shooting victim. I don't know whether that is true or not; ballistics and evidence will tell the story. Either way, I think her partner, whose shooting was credited on the day of the incident with finally bringing down Hasan, deserves positive feedback and respect.

It's looking like Napolean Nicolas Sarkozy Bonaparte wants to get his nation back in on the empire game:

PARIS — President Nicolas Sarkozy opened France’s first military facilities in the Gulf on Tuesday, deepening the government’s alliance with the United Arab Emirates and highlighting its shifting foreign policy priorities.

Mr. Sarkozy attended a ceremony to open French naval, air and army facilities in Abu Dhabi. The bases are the first permanent French military installations to be built outside of French territory since the process of decolonization began more than half a century ago.

Interesting times:

(TPM link)

So, as far as I can tell, Rep. Jane Harman [D-Ca] was conspiring with the Israelis to drop some spy charges in exchange for some lobbying on her behalf, and Alberto Gonzales had an NSA warrantless wiretap™ (wait for it) on her phone and overheard the deal.

In exchange for not investigating, Gonzales asked her to attack the NYT's exposé on (wait for it) NSA warrantless wiretapping. The one she had personally requested be held back until before after the 2004 election (Department of With Democrats Like These, anyone?)

And so she goes free, although the Israelis didn't get her that committee chair she wanted in the first place.

One has to wonder just how much dirt Hoover Gonzales and Rove had on everyone in Washington, and more importantly, how many other favors they blackmailed out of people. And it certainly explains some of those bizarre, neo-Maoist ritual apologies.

It's Heeeere:

LONDON (AFP) – Israel's military is preparing so it could launch major aerial attacks on Iranian nuclear sites if ordered to by the new government, a British newspaper said on Saturday, quoting Israeli defence and intelligence sources.

"Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light, they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours," an unnamed senior defence official told The Times.

"They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words."

Gates Pushes for Radical Overhaul of Pentagon Arsenal

After his party placed an impressive third in the elections for Israel's 18th Knesset, last month, it appears that Israel's most popular racist, bigot, and all around bad-guy, Avigdor Lieberman, will become Israel's next Foreign Minister:

JERUSALEM — An Israeli politician who based his election campaign on baiting the country's Arab minority, drawing accusations that he is a racist demagogue, now seems likely to become the Jewish state's top diplomat.

It looks like the Pentagon is continuing on its all-out offensive to keep the Guantanamo Bay prison camp open by trying to put cosmetic touches on a prison set up on inherently unconstitutional grounds: indefinite seizure and gaining intelligence by torture.

WASHINGTON, (AFP) – A Pentagon report has found conditions at the controversial Guantanamo prison in line with the Geneva Conventions, but called for the isolation of some inmates to be eased by allowing them more social contact and recreation.

I hope that everyone realizes that the Pentagonian Establishment is very much in the midst, and not at the start of, trying to push back at Obama's promise to close Gitmo, and the left's push for this thing to close since we've known of its existence.

This is why it is so incredibly important that the left push him harder than ever before and constantly to close this house of horrors down, as well as all of the others we know and don't know about, because he's being pushed very forcefully (more forcefully, in fact) from the right to "stay the course" on Gitmo.

Perhaps, it's because this is only the unconfirmed word of a former CIA agent (though, are these things ever confirmed?), or maybe it's a double standard, but why did the media give this story such a passing glance? Can you hear the uprorar if the script was flipped and it was Iran clandestinely trying to disrupt and sabotage the internal governmental instruments of Israel or the United States?

Israel engaged in covert war inside Iran: report

LONDON (Reuters) – Israel is involved in a covert war of sabotage inside Iran to try to delay Tehran's alleged attempts to develop a nuclear weapon, a British newspaper said on Tuesday, quoting a former CIA agent and intelligence experts.

So, I was reading this article about continued trouble between the Israelis and Hamas, and caught this near the end of the article:

Responding to Israel's concerns, U.S. Army engineers arrived at the Gaza-Egypt frontier on Sunday to set up ground-penetrating radar to detect smuggling tunnels, an Egyptian security official said.

Inside the Rafah terminal — the gateway between Egypt and Gaza — four army trucks loaded with wooden crates and drills could be seen accompanied by four U.S. Army engineers. The Egyptian officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity.

I'm with SoBe: WTF?

Talk about your security breaches: A New Zealand man bought a used MP3 player for $15 only to discover it came with 60 pages of sensitive U.S. military data:

The files Ogle found on the MP3 player contain the names and personal details of US soldiers, including some who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. There are no details on exactly how many personal records are contained within the documents (most of which date back to 2005), but they also have information on mission briefings and equipment deployment.

This incident is probably not the worst breach of military data in recent memory. [...] Still, Ogle's situation is a bit bizarre in that no one knows how or why this sensitive information was stored on an iPod, or how that MP3 player slipped out to a used hardware vendor. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), some of the phone numbers from the MP3 player's records still work, and the identified individuals indeed picked up on the other end.

"The more I look at it, the more I see and the less I think I should be [seeing]," Mr Ogle told ABC. He says he will hand the player over to the US Defense Department should it ever ask.

WTF? You mean, they haven't asked?

This is one of those stories that inspires me to write foily fiction. What do you think is going on here? My first guess is that someone on our team is selling data to 'the enemy.' Like, a contractor.

It seems that the war-mongering, right-winger Bebe Netanyahu, yes, that Bebe Netanyahu, Israel's former prime minister, is leading in the polls, meaning he has much more than a passing shot at getting back the seat:

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Hawkish former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the clear favourite to become Israel's next premier after February 10 elections, according to an opinion poll published on Monday.

So yeah, I'm happy about Gitmo and the lifting of the Global Gag Rule. BUT

Obama is going to continue Bush's policy of bombing Pakistan.

The Pakistan military's top spokesman called the attacks, which he said were by pilotless drones, "counterproductive," because they undercut his country's efforts to oust militants from the ungoverned tribal areas.

I mean, for anyone paying attention this shouldn't come as a shock as he told us that he would use military action against Pakistan. But he's anti-war, right? (Is this where I apologise for being prematurely correct?)



17 people were killed today, 3 of them children. Since the bombings began in August we have apparently killed 2 terrorist leaders. I guess everyone else who lives in the region is a terrorist by default since there are no numbers for how many *actual* terrorists we've killed.



Great policy. It worked so well when Clinton was bombing Iraq in the 90's, didn't it?



"We can bomb the world to pieces, but we can't bomb it into peace."

No AP content was harmed in the making of this story.

With 5 days to go, there is still plenty of time for yet another Bush fuck up and opportunity to disgrace us all.

Case in point:

"Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said a telephone call he made to U.S. President George W. Bush last week forced Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to abstain in a U.N. vote on the Gaza war, leaving her "shamed."

Pouring on political bravado in a speech late Monday, Olmert said he demanded to talk to Bush with only 10 minutes to spare before a U.N. Security Council vote Thursday on a resolution opposed by Israel calling for an immediate cease-fire.

LAT

For a change, the reporter actually went there and talked to real live Afghani fighters. Bottom line: there is no "victory" to be had there. At this point, I'm completely cynical about anything I hear coming from American politicians on what we're supposedly doing there. We're there to enrich energy companies, contractors and merc firms, and those political districts that benefit from profligate war spending. The exploding heroin market also plays a role. Anyone who says otherwise is bullshitting you.

The New York Times is reporting that we almost helped carry out an act of war against Iran at the behest of our BFF:

WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush rejected a plea from Israel last year to help it raid Iran's main nuclear complex, opting instead to authorize a new U.S. covert action aimed at sabotaging Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, The New York Times reported.

Interesting observation by Craig Murray former British Ambassador to the Central
Asian Republic of Uzbekistan. He writes:

I watched BBC World News for a timed hour yesterday. In that time I saw:
Pro-Israeli (including US government) speakers - 17
Pro-Palestinian speakers - 2

Mentions of Hamas Rockets as reason for war - 37
Mentions of illegal Israeli settlements - 0
Mentions of Palestinians killed by Israel during "ceasefire" - 2
Mentions of Sderot - 12
Mentions Sderot used to be Palestinian - 0 Link