OBAMA -
War President.
War criminal.
Nothing but a Bush Wolf in Sheep's Clothing!
We said so from the beginning. . . now will you believe it?!!!

Obama Steals Bush’s Speechwriters

By Matthew Rothschild

If you closed your eyes during much of the President’s speech on Afghanistan Tuesday night and just listened to the words, you easily could have concluded that George W. Bush was still in the Oval Office. Continue

Obama Lied:

Taliban Did Not Refuse to Hand Over Bin Laden

By Ralph Lopez

Obama slipped past a real doozy Tuesday night when he said the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden. It just ain't so. They tried three times to open negotiations for this, but Bush refused each time. He wanted to bomb people so bad it hurt. Continue

How do you ask a Man to be the Last Man to Die for a President's Political Image?

By David Sirota

There are 68,000 U.S. troops and 42,000 from other countries in Afghanistan. The U.S. Army's recently revised counterinsurgency manual estimates that an all-out counterinsurgency campaign in a country with Afghanistan's population would require about 600,000 troops. Continue

The Audacity of Ethnic Cleansing

Obama's plan for Afghanistan

By Mike Whitney

The Bush administration never had any intention of liberating Afghanistan or establishing democracy. The real aim was to remove the politically-intractable Taliban and replace them with a puppet regime run by a former-CIA asset. The rest of Afghanistan would be parceled-off to the warlords who assisted in the invasion and who had agreed to do much of the United States dirty-work on the ground. Continue

Obama’s speech on Afghanistan: A compendium of lies:

In his December 1 speech at West Point announcing the deployment of 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan, President Barack Obama attempted to justify a major escalation of a deeply unpopular war on the basis of lies and distortions. That he had to resort to such falsifications reflects both the reactionary character of his policy and the fact that it is being imposed in violation of the popular will.

President Obama's Secret:

Only 100 al Qaeda Now in Afghanistan

One Thousand U.S. Soldiers and $300 Million for Every One al Qaeda Fighter

By RICHARD ESPOSITO, MATTHEW COLE and BRIAN ROSS

President Barack Obama's description Tuesday of the al Qaeda "cancer" in that country left out one key fact: U.S. intelligence officials have concluded there are only about 100 al Qaeda fighters in the entire country. Continue

“More occupation means less occupation.”

Obama's Af-Pak is as Whack as Bush's Iraq

By Glen Ford

Barack Obama’s oratorical skills have turned on him, revealing, as George Bush’s low-grade delivery never could, the perfect incoherence of the current American imperial project in South Asia. Continue

Suicides and Corporate Wars

BY IFTEKHAR A KHAN

General Peter Chiarelli, US Vice Chief of Staff, has revealed in his briefing to the Pentagon that "suicides in the army will escalate." Certainly, these incidents among the troops have increased because the soldiers see no point in laying down their lives in purposeless wars. Continue

Is President Obama’s Surge A Trap?

By Cynthia McKinney

U.S. policy is not only guided by pipeline politics. There is also the consideration of chessboard geo-positioning necessary to contain Russia, China, and ensure U.S. empire—for those inclined to traditional Cold Warrior “containment” thinking. Continue

Obama's War

By Jim Hightower

Obama has been taken over by the military industrial hawks and national security theorists who play war games with other people's lives and money. Continue

Why Obama’s Surge in Afghanistan?

By Shamus Cooke

....The hope that Obama’s election would drastically change U.S. foreign policy has been destroyed. The effects of his troop surge will change the minds of millions of Americans, who, until this point, were giving Obama the benefit of the doubt....

Obama is compelled to tell the really big lie because the truth is too damning. If he remotely approached the real motives behind the war, the public would be pushed into total defiance — Obama’s new $660 billion military budget for 2010 would have caused mass demonstrations.

In reality, the war in Afghanistan was a convenient way for U.S. corporations — who dominate U.S. politics — to get a firmer hold in the resource-rich Middle East...

Who really benefits from war in the Middle East? So far, U.S. weapons manufacturers have (Boeing, etc.), U.S. oil companies (Exxon, etc.), and the big banks that help move the spoils around (Citigroup, etc.) who also dominate the finances of the conquered country. Corporations that deal with “reconstruction” contracts love war (Halliburton, etc.), while also the multitude of “private contractors” that specialize in everything from cooking (Halliburton again) to mercenary fighting (Blackwater, etc.).

The many U.S. corporations that export abroad also benefit from the war, since a dominated country offers them a monopoly market to sell their goods in, or the ability to set up shop where none existed before. It is these collective interests that are driving Obama’s foreign policy; they would rather see the U.S. and Afghani people bled dry than allow a foreign competitor — China, Russia, etc. — to dominate Afghanistan’s resources and markets.

The U.S. is certainly not fighting terrorists in Afghanistan — the Al Qaeda bogey men and the “evil genius” Osama Bin Laden are not directing military operations from a cave. The vast majority of people fighting U.S. troops are not “Islamic extremists” (another catchphrase), but average citizens enraged by foreign troops rummaging around in their homes, patting them down at check points, indiscriminately detaining them at torture centers (U.S. Bagram Air base), and killing their family members.

Yes, many Afghanis are deeply religious, but the presence of U.S. troops is the motor force behind their “radicalism,” i.e. resistance to military occupation. Islam is not inherently violent, but a military occupation unquestionably is.

Those wishing to end these wars must end their reliance on the corporate-bought two-party system, and begin organizing independently.

The anti-war movement was strong while Bush was President, based not only on mass outrage, but the cynical maneuvering of those sitting atop of Democratic Party front groups like MoveOn and others — who helped organize and fund anti-war (Bush) demonstrations.

When Obama became President, the leaders of these groups played a thoroughly destructive role in the anti-war movement, shifting away from the effective measures used against Bush, or abandoning the struggle altogether, taking their funding with them. This disruption in organization, plus the mass-effect of the Obama illusion, had a temporary derailing effect on organizing.

But Obama’s troop surge may very well breathe new life into the deflated movement. Demonstrations are being organized for the spring, and there is plenty of time to join local groups/coalitions to help with the planning.

Mass demonstrations are a very effective tool, since they educate about the undemocratic nature of the state, while showing demonstration participants that there is power in collective action.

More importantly, large marches prove to U.S. soldiers that they will have public support if they collectively choose to publicly oppose the war (by marching in a demonstration), or individually opt not to fight in these illegal wars.

The Vietnam War was ended largely because so many soldiers opposed the war, demonstrated against it, or refused to fight; a courage they found by the massive public support felt at home.

Mass demonstrations do not organize themselves. It will take ordinary people working together to make it happen, while collectively demanding:

BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!

END THE U.S. WARS IN THE MIDDLE EAST!

Continue

Some Simple Questions After Obama's Afghanistan War Speech

By David Sirota

Would you be OK sending yourself or a loved one over to face combat and potentially death for the mission Obama articulated in Afghanistan?

If not, how could you support sending other people?

Continue