Obama! The Next USA President!

[Nur]

eNuri Introduces the Next USA President.

 

 

Imagine, three men in a tent at a desert location somewhere in the Middle East, discussing the appointment of next American President. The Three men are:

 

1. Ehud Barak of Israel

2. Saddam Hussein of Iraq

3. Osama Binladin of Tora Bora

 

The three men are discussing who should be the next President of the United States, since Americans elect their officials more for charisma and good sounding names, and less for substance, they discuss what name will be so captivating and memorable for voters during the Primaries and in November 2008? well, here is their imaginative Compromise:

 

His First Name should reflect his total allegiance and unwavering support for Israel, and that can be attained if his first name sounds like the leader of the Likud Party of Israel, Ehud Barak.

 

His Second Name, should reflect a Muslim name accepted by Sunni and sanctified by the Shia. Hussein was the Grand son of Prophet Muhammad Martyred in Karbalaa, the holiest Shia Shrine.

 

His Last Name, should sound like Osama, since the Osama name and its sounding is the most recognized name for Corporate America during the 8 years of the Bush Administration. No name has created so much wealth (reverse Robin Hood, from the poor nations to the rich)! than Osama.

 

 

The Ideal Presidential Candidate NAME shall sound like:

 

 

Barak Hussein Obama!

 

 

Reverend Martin Luther King's famous dream came true when black and White kids held hands for the election of a true colorful American son of African Muslim Immigrant, and a White Christian Girl.

 

 

I also had a dream:

 

In this dream, I was marrying a Jewish woman, I can't remember details of the marriage, when I got up that morning, It was shocking! an Islamist-Zionist Marriage?

 

I cooled down, I realized it was only a dream, I quickly opened my Dream Interpretation guide book. Guess what was the interpretation?

 

My book says " Marrying a Jewish woman in a dream means wealth/ money is about to knock on my door, It means Allah will bless me with worldly wealth". This is not bad after all, I am relieved.

 

Now, If you ask me, unlike Martin Luther King, my Dream has not been realized, I am still waiting for my wealth, which I need for my Somali orphanages, and my beautiful Jewish bride! which can happen if Hamas and Israel dance together in Haifa streets. But I believe in miracles. From what I've heard about Jewish women, they are great mothers and wives.

 

In the 1981 movie, carbon Copy, a memorable quote by Walter Whitney says: " I'm Jewish, my son is Black and my lawyer smokes pot. Don't tell me I'm not in trouble "

 

Like Walter Whitney, Obama, the Democratic Presidential hopeful has done his best to keep Muslims at arms length just like Mr. Whitney who was embarrassed when Roger Porter (His illegitimate black son) unexpectedly shattered His suburban affluent lifestyle when he knocks on his door while Walter was happily dining with his picture perfect wealthy white Jewish family, shocking him with his doomed greeting" Hi, Dad !"

 

 

Which partially explains why the Obama campaign is uneasy about the "Muslims" name and the " Hijab" to be seen around Obama?

 

You see, my dear Nomad, The Jewish owned Media has already tainted Islam and Muslims beyond repair as bunch of Terrorists in the American mind, I mean, the Media has succeeded in painting on American voters heads that Muslims were responsible for 911 tragedy, the war In Iraq and the Weapons of Mass Deception, The crazy Taliban of Afghanistan, The Somalia Banana Threat on America's sanity. You name any foreign trouble for the USA, and somewhere, lurks a Muslim name.

 

When you deliver such a message in the morning paper with every bottle of milk , how can the same media moguls convince Americans to vote for a candidate with the most difficult sounding name since the discovery of America? even if that precisely serves the interest of Corporate America the best?

 

Well, Hillary accused Obama of being a Muslim, since being "Muslim" today in America, is like being a Jew in Germany circa 1935. That accusation was met by the following denial from the Obama camp, "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian.". Translated : "Obama is a good clean shaven church going friend of the Likud Party of Israel"

 

instead, the Party should have defended the morals it hypocritically says it champions, that all men ae created equal! a dignified stand against the very principle of bigotry, in other words, if what has been said about Muslims is said about Jews today, it will spell the end of a career, and income for any hopeful. (That is why marrying a Jewish Woman will keep You rich, at least in dreams). Hence, poor Muslims, are the International "Looma ooyaan".

 

The principle of "looma ooyaan" was invented in Somalia during the un-Civil war. As different clans battled out, the sanctity of the dead was classified according to the power of their clan, so, its easy to know which funeral belongs to the strong clan, usually, a louder wailing and crying is heard if the dead belongs to a powerful clan, while, the weak clans funerals is quiet and subdued, no one cries in their tent, hence the term "looma ooyaan" translation " The dead who no one cries for"

 

Also, the level of crying in a funeral is equivalent to the level of expected revenge to answer the killing of this loved son. The louder the crying, ( American Media), the deadlier the revenge! So, it becomes natural to always be careful who you violate their sanctity, because, as the Somali saying goes, "Ninuusan warankiisu ku gelin, weedhiisu kuma gasho" meaning: " He whose spear can not penetrate (your heart, to kill you), can not force his words to penetrate your mind , in negotiations".

 

Which is the principle that explains why America and Nato are huffing and puffing against Iran's purported shish-kabaab kitchen bomb, when the same can not be said against Russia who has some 4000 mobile nuclear ICBMS all pointed at the West's capitals.

 

Its Ironic that after 911 incident (When America shot itself in the foot, like its soldiers in Vietnam), that the son of A Muslim and a white Christian woman, whose name rhymes with Osama, and His Middle name reminds Americans Saddam Hussein, is seriously the front runner for Presidency.

 

What happened to the Anglo Saxon Dominance of American politics? during last election, it was Lieberman ( Jewish American), and this time around, a woman and a black? America is becoming very colorful if you ask me, but as a Muslim, I am still color blind, I see the world as believers and non believers!

 

If my guess is right, The Democratic Party is in dire need to reinvent itself, it must please everyone (except you know who):

 

They need the following minimum scores to win in November:

 

1. 50% of white Vote,

2. 70% Of Latino Vote.

3. 90% of African- American Vote,

4. 60% of Christian Vote,

5. 50% of Jewish Vote,

6. 80% of The Young (students and professionals)

7. Zero Percent of Muslim Vote! They are like the bad cholesterol, the lesser involved in the campaign, the better!

 

So, Who can deliver the above targets except a candidate who has studied at Ivy league ( hence his friendship with Corporate America), Unqualified support for Israel, ( First US President to openly endorse the occupation of Muslim Jerusalem as the undivided Capital of Israel, who also has Oprah Winfrey's support)!

 

So, Now you can see the value of Obama to his investors, a man who is black and white, staunch friend of Israel (most important qualification for any politician), a church going Christian, salable to naive Muslims as their ( closet Muslim , when appropriate), and the first black American who is not a descendant of slaves ( Whites feel no guilt toward Obama), as he was born of a free Kenyan Muslim Father and a White Christian Mother, both well educated and Intellectuals.

 

The above explains, the mechanics of wealth, power and the presidency in the good old US of A.

 

Is Obama going to win the election in November?

 

Well, I predict he will be the next US President, and if my other dream (which I cant share *) proves to be true, Obama will resign early during the first 24 months of His Presidency due to an internal conflict involving his white house staff.

 

 

Nur

 

 

2008 eNuri Forecasting Services.

Bringing You The Future! One Step Closer!

-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------

 

* Reason I cant share this dream is because of an incident that took place in Somalia during the Siad Barre administration; Story has it that a man had a dream of a coup that overthrew the Siad Barre Regime, the dreaded NSS, arrested the man and interrogated him Guantanamo style ( we Somalis take honor teaching America about interrogation skills). The interrogating officer questioned the man to describe the people who he has seen in his dream that were the plotters of the coup, after water-boarding him in the Indian Ocean, the man had no choice but to cherry pick passersby from the streets to alleviate his pain"

[Nur]

The US Elections are getting closer, while the American economy is fast heading south, more war fronts than money can buy are being opened by the neocons for the heir of the US Presidency Mzee Obama.

 

Americans find their hard earned wealth and homes disappear in computer screens, to the boys at Wall Street and hurricanes, and the remaining wealth is earmarked to pay a national debt of 9 Trillion Dollars representing Sovereign Funds of China and Mideast Oil countries used for "foreign wars and homeland security".

 

As I Predicted, Obama will be elected, he will inherit the Bushladin mess, he will also be blamed for all the "Change you can not believe", which will force him to resign early.

 

Thats is bad, the first black man in a white house will be credited to America's decending to join the Developing Nations like Nicaragua.

 

Hey America, welcome to Somalia -in- America! complete with a possible civil war between Nazi Party of America with their white allies, the White supremacists against blacks, Latinos, coloreds and the Neocon Jews who will be blamed for all the mess in America.

 

The EU may invade New York, Canada invades Illinois and Montana, and the Russians will take Alaska back, sending Sarah Palin on horse back to Texas.

 

The second American civil war will not be be complete before The Republic of Spanish California declares independence as the sixth powerful world economy, with the EU support.

 

 

The Future is interesting!

 

 

Nur

[Nur]

Warning to readers: The following Article is provocative, suggestive language, read it at your own discretion. Its posted for its political content only.

 

Moderator.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------

 

Mad Dog Palin

 

By Matt Taibbi

 

01/10/09 "Rolling Stone" -- - Sep 27, 2008 -- - The scariest thing about John McCain's running mate isn't how unqualified she is -- it's what her candidacy says about America.

 

I'm standing outside the XCEL ENERGY CENTER in St. Paul, Minnesota. Sarah Palin has just finished her speech to the Republican National Convention, accepting the party's nomination for vice president. If I hadn't quit my two-packs-a-day habit earlier this year, I'd be chain-smoking now. So the only thing left is to stand mute against the fit-for-a-cheap-dog-kennel crowd-control fencing you see everywhere at these idiotic conventions and gnaw on weird new feelings of shock and anarchist rage as one would a rawhide chew toy.

 

All around me, a million cops in their absurd post-9/11 space-combat get-ups stand guard as assholes in papier-mâché puppet heads scramble around for one last moment of network face time before the coverage goes dark. Four-chinned delegates from places like Arkansas and Georgia are pouring joyously out the gates in search of bars where they can load up on Zombies and Scorpion Bowls and other "wild" drinks and extra-maritally grope their turkey-necked female companions in bathroom stalls as part of the "unbelievable time" they will inevitably report to their pals back home. Only 21st-century Americans can pass through a metal detector six times in an hour and still think they're at a party.

 

The defining moment for me came shortly after Palin and her family stepped down from the stage to uproarious applause, looking happy enough to throw a whole library full of books into a sewer. In the crush to exit the stadium, a middle-aged woman wearing a cowboy hat, a red-white-and-blue shirt and an obvious eye job gushed to a male colleague they were both wearing badges identifying them as members of the Colorado delegation at the Xcel gates.

 

"She totally reminds me of my cousin!" the delegate screeched. "She's a real woman! The real thing!"

 

I stared at her open-mouthed. In that moment, the rank cynicism of the whole sorry deal was laid bare. Here's the thing about Americans. You can send their kids off by the thousands to get their balls blown off in foreign lands for no reason at all, saddle them with billions in debt year after congressional year while they spend their winters cheerfully watching game shows and football, pull the rug out from under their mortgages, and leave them living off their credit cards and their Wal-Mart salaries while you move their jobs to China and Bangalore.

 

And none of it matters, so long as you remember a few months before Election Day to offer them a two-bit caricature culled from some cutting-room-floor episode of Roseanne as part of your presidential ticket. And if she's a good enough likeness of a loudmouthed middle-American archetype, as Sarah Palin is, John Q. Public will drop his giant-size bag of Doritos in gratitude, wipe the Sizzlin' Picante dust from his lips and rush to the booth to vote for her. Not because it makes sense, or because it has a chance of improving his life or anyone else's, but simply because it appeals to the low-humming narcissism that substitutes for his personality, because the image on TV reminds him of the mean, brainless slob he sees in the mirror every morning.

 

Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power.

 

Not only is Sarah Palin a fraud, she's the tawdriest, most half-assed fraud imaginable, 20 floors below the lowest common denominator, a character too dumb even for daytime TV -and this country is going to eat her up, cheering her every step of the way. All because most Americans no longer have the energy to do anything but lie back and allow ourselves to be jacked off by the calculating thieves who run this grasping consumer paradise we call a nation.

 

The Palin speech was a political masterpiece, one of the most ingenious pieces of electoral theater this country has ever seen. Never before has a single televised image turned a party's fortunes around faster.

 

Until the Alaska governor actually ascended to the podium that night, I was convinced that John McCain had made one of the all-time campaign season blunders, that he had acted impulsively and out of utter desperation in choosing a cross-eyed political neophyte just two years removed from running a town smaller than the bleacher section at Fenway Park. It even crossed my mind that there was an element of weirdly self-destructive pique in McCain's decision to cave in to his party's right-wing base in this fashion, that perhaps he was responding to being ordered by party elders away from a tepid, ideologically promiscuous hack like Joe Lieberman -- reportedly his real preference -- by picking the most obviously unqualified, doomed-to-fail joke of a Bible-thumping buffoon. As in: You want me to rally the base? Fine, I'll rally the base. Here, I'll choose this rifle-toting, serially pregnant moose killer who thinks God lobbies for oil pipelines. Happy now?

 

But watching Palin's speech, I had no doubt that I was witnessing a historic, iconic performance. The candidate sauntered to the lectern with the assurance of a sleepwalker - and immediately launched into a symphony of snorting and sneering remarks, taking time out in between the superior invective to present herself as just a humble gal with a beefcake husband and a brood of healthy, combat-ready spawn who just happened to be the innocent targets of a communist and probably also homosexual media conspiracy. It was a virtuoso performance. She appeared to be completely without shame and utterly full of shit, awing a room full of hardened reporters with her sickly sweet line about the high-school-flame-turned-hubby who, "five children later" is "still my guy." It was like watching Gidget address the Reichstag.

 

Within minutes, Palin had given TV audiences a character infinitely recognizable to virtually every American: the small-town girl with just enough looks and a defiantly incurious mind who thinks the PTA minutes are Holy Writ, and injustice means the woman next door owning a slightly nicer set of drapes or flatware. Or the governorship, as it were.

 

Right-wingers of the Bush-Rove ilk have had a tough time finding a human face to put on their failed, inhuman, mean-as-hell policies. But it was hard not to recognize the genius of wedding that faltering brand of institutionalized greed to the image of the suburban American supermom. It's the perfect cover, for there is almost nothing in the world meaner than this species of provincial tyrant. Palin herself burned this political symbiosis into the pages of history with her seminal crack about the "difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull: lipstick," blurring once and for all the lines between meanness on the grand political scale as understood by the Roves and Bushes of the world, and meanness of the small-town variety as understood by pretty much anyone who has ever sat around in his ranch-house den dreaming of a fourth plasma-screen TV or an extra set of KC HiLites for his truck, while some ghetto family a few miles away shares a husk of government cheese.

 

In her speech, Palin presented herself as a raging baby-making furnace of middle-class ambition next to whom the yuppies of the Obama set -who never want anything all that badly except maybe a few afternoons with someone else's wife, or a few kind words in The New York Times Book Review -- seem like weak, self-doubting celibates, the kind of people who certainly cannot be trusted to believe in the right God or to defend a nation. We're used to seeing such blatant cultural caricaturing in our politicians. But Sarah Palin is something new. She's all caricature. As the candidate of a party whose positions on individual issues are poll losers almost across the board, her shtick is not even designed to sell a line of policies. It's just designed to sell her. The thing was as much as admitted in the on-air gaffe by former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, who was inadvertently caught saying on MSNBC that Palin wasn't the most qualified candidate, that the party "went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives."

 

The great insight of the Palin VP choice is that huge chunks of American voters no longer even demand that their candidates actually have policy positions; they simply consume them as media entertainment, rooting for or against them according to the reflexive prejudices of their demographic, as they would for reality-show contestants or sitcom characters. Hicks root for hicks, moms for moms, born-agains for born-agains. Sure, there was politics in the Palin speech, but it was all either silly lies or merely incidental fluffery buttressing the theatrical performance. A classic example of what was at work here came when Palin proudly introduced her Down syndrome baby, Trig, then stared into the camera and somberly promised parents of special-needs kids that they would "have a friend and advocate in the White House." This was about a half-hour before she raised her hands in triumph with McCain, a man who voted against increasing funding for special-needs education.

 

Palin's charge that "government is too big" and that Obama "wants to grow it" was similarly preposterous. Not only did her party just preside over the largest government expansion since LBJ, but Palin herself has been a typical Bush-era Republican, borrowing and spending beyond her means. Her great legacy as mayor of Wasilla was the construction of a $14.7 million hockey arena in a city with an annual budget of $20 million; Palin OK'd a bond issue for the project before the land had been secured, leading to a protracted legal mess that ultimately forced taxpayers to pay more than six times the original market price for property the city ended up having to seize from a private citizen using eminent domain. Better yet, Palin ended up paying for the ******* thing with a 25 percent increase in the city sales tax. But in her speech, of course, Palin presented herself as the enemy of tax increases, righteously bemoaning that "taxes are too high," and Obama "wants to raise them."

 

Palin hasn't been too worried about federal taxes as governor of a state that ranks number one in the nation in federal spending per resident ($13,950), even as it sits just 18th in federal taxes paid per resident ($5,434). That means all us taxpaying non-Alaskans spend $8,500 a year on each and every resident of Palin's paradise of rugged self-sufficiency. Not that this sworn enemy of taxes doesn't collect from her own: Alaska currently collects the most taxes per resident of any state in the nation.

 

The rest of Palin's speech was the same dog-whistle crap Republicans have been running on for decades. Palin's crack about a mayor being "like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities" testified to the Republicans' apparent belief that they can win elections till the end of time running against the Sixties. (They're probably right.) The incessant grousing about the media was likewise par for the course, red meat for those tens of millions of patriotic flag-waving Americans whose first instinct when things get rough is to whine like *****es and blame other people -reporters, the French, those ungrateful blacks soaking up tax money eating big prison meals, whomever -for their failures.

 

Add to this the usual lies about Democrats wanting to "forfeit" to our enemies abroad and coddle terrorists, and you had a very run-of-the-mill, almost boring Republican speech from a substance standpoint. What made it exceptional was its utter hypocrisy, its total disregard for reality, its absolute un-relation to the facts of our current political situation. After eight years of unprecedented corruption, incompetence, waste and greed, the party of Karl Rove understood that 50 million Americans would not demand solutions to any of these problems so long as they were given a new, new thing to beat their meat over.

 

Sarah Palin is that new, new thing, and in the end it won't matter that she's got an unmarried teenage kid with a bun in the oven. Of course, if the daughter of a black candidate like Barack Obama showed up at his convention with a five-month bump and some sideways-cap-wearing, junior-grade Curtis Jackson holding her hand, the defenders of Traditional Morality would be up in arms. But the thing about being in the reality-making business is that you don't need to worry much about vetting; there are no facts in your candidate's bio that cannot be ignored or overcome.

 

One of the most amusing things about the Palin nomination has been the reaction of horrified progressives. The Internet has been buzzing at full volume as would-be defenders of san-ity and reason pore over the governor's record in search of the Damning Facts.

 

My own telephone began ringing off the hook with calls from ex-Alaskans and friends of Alaskans determined to help get the "truth" about Sarah Palin into the major media. Pretty much anyone with an Internet connection knows by now that Palin was originally for the "Bridge to Nowhere" before she opposed it (she actually endorsed the plan in her 2006 gubernatorial campaign), that even after the project was defeated she kept the money, that she didn't actually sell the Alaska governor's state luxury jet on eBay but instead sold it at a $600,000 loss to a campaign contributor (who is now seeking $50,000 in taxpayer money to pay maintenance costs).

 

Then there are the salacious tales of Palin's swinging-meat-cleaver management style, many of which seem to have a common thread: In addition to being ensconced in a messy ethics investigation over her firing of the chief of the Alaska state troopers (dismissed after refusing to sack her sister's ex-husband), Palin also reportedly fired a key campaign aide for having an affair with a friend's wife. More ominously, as mayor of Wasilla, Palin tried to fire the town librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, after Emmons resisted pressure to censor books Palin found objectionable.

 

Then there's the God stuff: Palin belongs to a church whose pastor, Ed Kalnins, believes that all criticisms of George Bush "come from hell," and wondered aloud if people who voted for John Kerry could be saved. Kalnins, looming as the answer to Obama's Jeremiah Wright, claims that Alaska is going to be a "refuge state" for Christians in the last days, last days which he sometimes speaks of in the present tense. Palin herself has been captured on video mouthing the inevitable born-again idiocies, such as the idea that a recent oil pipeline deal was "God's will." She also described the Iraq War as a "task that is from God" and part of a heavenly "plan." She supports teaching creationism and "abstinence only" in public schools, opposes abortion even for victims of rape, denies the science behind global warming and attends a church that seeks to convert Jews and cure homosexuals.

 

All of which tells you about what you'd expect from a raise-the-base choice like Palin: She's a puffed-up dimwit with primitive religious beliefs who had to be educated as to the fact that the Constitution did not exactly envision government executives firing librarians. Judging from the importance progressive critics seem to attach to these revelations, you'd think that these were actually negatives in modern American politics. But Americans like politicians who hate books and see the face of Jesus in every tree stump. They like them ****** and mean and ignorant of the rules.

 

Which is why Palin has only seemed to grow in popularity as more and more of these revelations have come out. The same goes for the most damning aspect of her biography, her total lack of big-game experience. As governor of Alaska, Palin presides over a state whose entire population is barely the size of Memphis. This kind of thing might matter in a country that actually worried about whether its leader was prepared for his job -but not in America.

 

In America, it takes about two weeks in the limelight for the whole country to think you've been around for years. To a certain extent, this is why Obama is getting a pass on the same issue. He's been on TV every day for two years, and according to the standards of our instant-ramen culture, that's a lifetime of hands-on experience. It is worth noting that the same criticisms of Palin also hold true for two other candidates in this race, John McCain and Barack Obama.

 

As politicians, both men are more narrative than substance, with McCain rising to prominence on the back of his bio as a suffering war hero and Obama mostly playing the part of the long-lost, future-embracing liberal dreamboat not seen on the national stage since Bobby Kennedy died. If your stomach turns to read how Palin's Kawasaki 704 glasses are flying off the shelves in middle America, you have to accept that middle America probably feels the same way when it hears that Donatella Versace dedicated her collection to Obama during Milan Fashion Week. Or sees the throwing-panties-onstage-"I love you, Obama!" ritual at the Democratic nominee's town-hall appearances.

 

So, sure, Barack Obama might be every bit as much a slick piece of imageering as Sarah Palin. The difference is in what the image represents. The Obama image represents tolerance, intelligence, education, patience with the notion of compromise and negotiation, and a willingness to stare ugly facts right in the face, all qualities we're actually going to need in government if we're going to get out of this huge mess we're in.

 

Here's what Sarah Palin represents: being a fat ******* pig who pins "Country First" buttons on his man titties and chants "U-S-A! U-S-A!" at the top of his lungs while his kids live off credit cards and Saudis buy up all the mortgages in Kansas.

 

The truly disgusting thing about Sarah Palin isn't that she's totally unqualified, or a religious zealot, or married to a secessionist, or unable to educate her own daughter about sex, or a fake conservative who raised taxes and horked up earmark millions every chance she got. No, the most disgusting thing about her is what she says about us: that you can ram us in the *** for eight solid years, and we'll not only thank you for your trouble, we'll sign you up for eight more years, if only you promise to stroke us in the right spot for a few hours around election time.

 

Democracy doesn't require a whole lot of work of its citizens, but it requires some: It requires taking a good look outside once in a while, and considering the bad news and what it might mean, and making the occasional tough choice, and soberly taking stock of what your real interests are.

 

This is a very different thing from shopping, which involves passively letting sitcoms melt your brain all day long and then jumping straight into the TV screen to buy a Southern-Style Chicken Sandwich because the slob singing "I'm Lovin' It!" during the commercial break looks just like you. The joy of being a consumer is that it doesn't require thought, responsibility, self-awareness or shame: All you have to do is obey the first urge that gurgles up from your stomach. And then obey the next. And the next. And the next.

 

And when it comes time to vote, all you have to do is put your Country First -- just like that lady on TV who reminds you of your cousin. U-S-A, baby. U-S-A! U-S-A!

 

Matt Taibbi is a writer for Rolling Stone.

[Abtigiis]

I enjoyed the article by Matt. Harsh but truthful. And felt I should this one too!

----------------------------------------

Please put Sarah Palin out of her agony - Newsweek

September 29th, 2008

 

Palin Is Ready? Please.

 

McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, that is simply not true.

 

Fareed Zakaria, NEWSWEEK

 

Will someone please put Sarah Palin out of her agony? Is it too much to ask that she come to realize that she wants, in that wonderful phrase in American politics, "to spend more time with her family"? Having stayed in purdah for weeks, she finally agreed to a third interview. CBS's Katie Couric questioned her in her trademark sympathetic style. It didn't help. When asked how living in the state closest to Russia gave her foreign-policy experience, Palin responded thus:

 

"It's very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America. Where—where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to—to our state."

 

There is, of course, the sheer absurdity of the premise. Two weeks ago I flew to Tokyo, crossing over the North Pole. Does that make me an expert on Santa Claus? (Thanks, Jon Stewart.) But even beyond that, read the rest of her response. "It is from Alaska that we send out those …" What does this mean? This is not an isolated example. Palin has been given a set of talking points by campaign advisers, simple ideological mantras that she repeats and repeats as long as she can. ("We mustn't blink.") But if forced off those rehearsed lines, what she has to say is often, quite frankly, gibberish.

 

Couric asked her a smart question about the proposed $700 billion bailout of the American financial sector. It was designed to see if Palin understood that the problem in this crisis is that credit and liquidity in the financial system has dried up, and that that's why, in the estimation of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, the government needs to step in to buy up Wall Street's most toxic liabilities. Here's the entire exchange:

COURIC: Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

 

PALIN: That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

 

This is nonsense—a vapid emptying out of every catchphrase about economics that came into her head. Some commentators, like CNN's Campbell Brown, have argued that it's sexist to keep Sarah Palin under wraps, as if she were a delicate flower who might wilt under the bright lights of the modern media. But the more Palin talks, the more we see that it may not be sexism but common sense that's causing the McCain campaign to treat her like a time bomb.

 

Can we now admit the obvious? Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president. She is a feisty, charismatic politician who has done some good things in Alaska. But she has never spent a day thinking about any important national or international issue, and this is a hell of a time to start. The next administration is going to face a set of challenges unlike any in recent memory. There is an ongoing military operation in Iraq that still costs $10 billion a month, a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is not going well and is not easily fixed. Iran, Russia and Venezuela present tough strategic challenges.

 

Domestically, the bailout and reform of the financial industry will take years and hundreds of billions of dollars. Health-care costs, unless curtailed, will bankrupt the federal government. Social Security, immigration, collapsing infrastructure and education are all going to get much worse if they are not handled soon.

 

And the American government is stretched to the limit. Between the Bush tax cuts, homeland-security needs, Iraq, Afghanistan and the bailout, the budget is looking bleak. Plus, within a few years, the retirement of the baby boomers begins with its massive and rising costs (in the trillions).

 

Obviously these are very serious challenges and constraints. In these times, for John McCain to have chosen this person to be his running mate is fundamentally irresponsible. McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, it is simply not true.

 

------------------------------------------

One Response to “Please put Sarah Palin out of her agony - Newsweek”

1. Anonymous says:

 

Poor Palin…McSame is brutalizing this woman's life!! This lady literally knows nothing about American politics - the republicans, who are full of talented politicians screwed up this time! This lady doesn't even know what a VP does! I doubt if she know what a governor does

Have mercy on her with Biden on Thursday… I think what Biden should do is…take her to back stage and do to her what Bush did to the American economy and international reputation! I am certain she can handle that - she might even be pro in that!!…her looks says it all!

[Nur]

Abtigiis

 

America used to inspire me, now, thinkng about its fate, prespires me. Never imagined that a nation of 300 Million people cant produce anyone better than Obama and Palin, I am not counting McCain, White house was not built for retirement. Why not offer Federal incentive equal to Bin Laden's warrant prize of $ 50 Million to find a reasonable American candidate? If I was paid even $ 5 Million Dollars, I bet I can find a person who can run the USA like Singapore or Finland in efficiency and fiscal responsibility. But under this current system, it wont happen, Americans dont need to change the whip, they need to change the horse, their electoral system is the problem.

 

It seems that, potential American candidates that can best represent America at this crucial time have been eliminated upon conception in the womb, or silenced somehow, which leaves the only choice Americans have is between two parties who agree on everything except on how high to jump.

 

Superficially the two parties disagree on Abortion, environment and few other cosmetic issues, when it comes to serious issued that will define Americas place among nations next century, they elect Bush and his likes, who have no clue what climate change is all about until someone tells him " Mr. President, its caused by uncontrolled appetite for burning oil," which in the eyes of the President is a leftist conspiracy.

 

Does the USA election raise Europe as an important ally as tiny Israel? Nope. Fifty Million Americans of German origin are never heard of except for Octoberfest, the cultural beer drinking festival, imagine if they became more vocal and active like AIPAC, the Israeli lobby and began grilling every presidential hopeful about his commitment to German Security and prosperity? and rightfully so, Germany has an ugly past with the Jews, and today the state of Israel has some 200 Nuclear weapons developed with US assistance, and since an Israeli professor once threatened to attack Germany with Nukes, if I was a German, I wouldn't sleep at night. Imagine if they demand that American foreign policy to be made in Berlin, Germany, as Americas strategic ally since ww2? or if they arrange free routine trips for all German origin lawmakers to visit Nuremberg and Dresden? Unfortunately most of them have melted away with no affinity or allegiance to their ancestral Saxony or Bavaria, except for the remnants who live around Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Wyoming and Oregon.

 

As for African Americans, they care less of the plight of hungry Africans and the tragedy in Somalia, they will never demand from their politicians justice for the people of Africa. Obama, who is half African, seldom raises African issues to win votes.

 

 

Nur

[S.O.S]

"Americans find their hard earned wealth and homes disappear in computer screens, to the boys at Wall Street and hurricanes, and the remaining wealth is earmarked to pay a national debt of 9 Trillion Dollars representing Sovereign Funds of China and Mideast Oil countries used for "foreign wars and homeland security"."

 

National debt is by now close $11 trillion and by the end of this year it would amount to some 80% of total GDP (possibly 100% by 2009 if you take into account all hidden future costs to fund the deficits of trade, war and financial bailout).

 

My prediction is that they will not be able to repay back all of that debt, but desperate people do desperate things. I think that they'll borrow even more!!!

 

When all of your liabilities or at least significant proportions thereof are denominated in domestic currency, like the US, and are struggling with fiscal strength and solvency gap, all it takes is desperation and arrogance to solve your national debt by (deception) inflating it away in real terms with timed hyperinflation. The only problem is that the looming ghost of recession and the possibility of stagflation are causing some fearsome headaches.

 

In which case, the "Sovereign Funds of China and Mideast Oil countries" could significantly be wiped out. There are two other alternatives in my opinion:

 

1) The optimistic scenario (Obama survives); and

2) the pessimistic scenario (Obama hangs).

[S.O.S]

I knew that most Americans were very ******, but I would never have guessed that their religious polytheism is now officially beyond the usual trinity dogma to include rival gods! In the below quote, Rev. Arnold Conrad is cheering his adopted god to help McCain defeat Obama, in who's mind is obviously being supported by other (existing) gods.

 

I would also pray Lord that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their God -- whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah -- that his [McCain’s] opponent wins for a variety of reasons.

 

And Lord I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you would step forward and honor your own name in all that happens between now and Election Day.

 

Oh Lord, we just commit this time to you, move among us, make your presence very well felt as we are gathered here today in Jesus's name I pray.

[Nur]

The Little Lie, and How It Grew

 

By David Benjamin

 

October 18, 2008 "Common Dreams" -- GREAT NECK, N.Y. - Last week, Gayle Quinnell, a septuagenarian reactionary from Shakopee, Minnesota, confessed - on TV - to G.O.P. candidate John McCain that she fears Democratic candidate Barack Obama because "he's an Arab." McCain replied that, no, Obama's no Arab at all, but a "decent family man" (implying that the two depictions are mutually exclusive).

 

To me, the more intriguing element of this bizarre exchange was the word "Arab," rather than the more common Obama epithets, "Muslim," "terrorist" and "Osama." Mrs. Quinnell's "Arab" formulation was just enough off-key to make me wonder where she picked it up. In a subsequent YouTube video, Mrs. Quinnell helpfully elaborated, explaining that she possesses pages and pages of corroboration, plumbed from the Shakopee Public Library. Since it's unlikely that there's much info on Obama's ethnicity in the Shakopee stacks, I figured what Gayle had done was surf the Web.

 

So I decided to try tracing her steps. It wasn't hard. No matter where I landed after Googling "obama, arab," I inevitably returned to the same damning quote. It goes: "Mr. Obama is 50% Caucasian from his mother's side. He is 43.75% Arabic, and 6.25% African Negro from his father's side." Also: "Obama is not legally African-American. It is impossible for him to be, in truth, America's first African-American president."

 

Holy Leopold's ghost, Batman!

 

As I continued searching, I unearthed this shocker, verbatim, on a dozen websites, including Yahoo!Answers. I found it cited by conservative superstars Rush Limbaugh, Monica Crowley and Laura Ingraham. Every repetition of this statistical proof that Barack Obama is "legally" Arab-American circles back to a Web blogger named Kenneth E. Lamb, a self-described journalist who claims a career of "writing and researching" for such august media outlets as the New York Times, the Miami Herald, the Pentecostal Herald and the Jewish Information Network.

 

Lamb's indictment of Obama the Mock-Negro is threefold. First, Lamb notes, Barack Hussein Obama must be an Arab because his full name is Arabic. Second, "Kenyan government" records, according to Lamb, have listed Obama's father, Barack Obama, Sr., as "Arab-African." Third, Lamb states that Barack is "descended from Arab slave traders" who resided in southern Sudan (an Arab-dominated state) until at least the 19th century, before emigrating to Kenya.

 

Lamb says that he discovered this "devastating truth" in research for "... a NY daily of international reputation. It wasn't what I thought I'd find. I documented it, presented it to the Washington Bureau Chief, but was hardly surprised that it never saw ink..."

 

The above statement represents the sum total of Lamb's documentation. There are no footnotes, no genealogical lists, no weblink to the "Kenyan government." There is no proof of Lamb's assertion that every male ancestor of Barack Obama has an Arabic name. For all this "information," the only Web source - for poor gullible Gayle Quinnell, as well as Limbaugh, Crowley and Ingraham - is Ken Lamb.

 

However, by delving into the Web beyond the point where Mrs. Quinnell hung up her mouse, I learned a few things about Obama's lineage. First, yes, his mom was white. Second, according to Wikipedia and Britannica, Barack Obama's African half originates in the Luo tribe, who fled their roots in Sudan, bound for Kenya, in roughly 1500 A.D. The Luo - who are black as the ace of spades - have no blood connection to the Arabs who invaded Sudan about 500 years ago. Until the early 20th century, Luos got by with only one name. Under British colonial rule, they were forced to take a family name. So Barack Obama's grandfather, Onyango, simply combined his name with his father's, relabeling himself Onyango Obama. Both names, by the way - according to Ethnologue.com - are Luo, not Arabic. Obama means "slightly bent."

 

The point where Ken Lamb probably got lost was where Onyango moved to Zanzibar for while, and was lured away from Christianity by some unknown Muslim spellbinder. According to several sources, the Obama clan was Christian - as are 90 percent of Luos - until Barack's grandddad went all Islamic and added another name! According to About.com, the Chicago Sun-Times and Barack's autobiography, Onyango not only decided to call himself Hussein ("the good") Onyango Obama, he decided to hang an Arabic name on his son, Barack Hussein Obama ("blessings on the good, slightly bent"). This Arabic-naming tradition among the Obamas didn't last long. The current Barack Obama named his daughters Malia (a Hawaiian word meaning "maybe," according to Think Baby Names.com) and Natasha (see "Rocky and Bullwinkle").

 

For the record, according to the Sun-Times, prior generations of Barack Obama's male forebears (the Luos, until recently, never kept track of mothers' names) were named Mwiru, Sigoma, Owiny, Kisodhi, Ogelo, Otondi, Obongo and Obiyo. His great grandmother was Nyaoke. His step-grandmother, the family genealogist, was named Sarah. Sarah, by the way, is a non-Luo name. It's Arabic (and Hebrew), according to Wikipedia, meaning "woman of high rank, " or "lady governor."

 

So, what's the difference? Who cares if Barack Obama's forebears were Negro - as they appear to be - or Arab? For sane people, it's all the same. Most of us live side-by-side, in harmony, with Arab-Americans like Dr. Michael DeBakey, Jerry Seinfeld, Ralph Nader, Donna Shalala, Paula Abdul and Frank Zappa.

 

But Kenneth Lamb's point is that by lying about his Arabicity, Barack Obama is concealing his very identity. Hence, we cannot trust any word that comes out of his lying mouth. Lamb writes that if Obama were to admit that Mwiru, Owiny, Obiyo and Nyaoke were ALL Arab slave-traders, "Mr. Obama will have to admit that which he has never been forced to admit before, even in the face of the massive lies of his autobiography: Mr. Obama's entire projection of who he is, and what he is, is a lie."

 

Yeah, well, trouble is, according to the record, Obama is actually what he says he is - a half-caste darkie with a weird-*** name. So, how can we explain a growing posse of Web cadets out there - Gayle, Rush and Laura among them - who take Kenneth Lamb's dippy confection about Arabobama the Slave Prince of Wau at face value? Perhaps all we need to do is scroll back to a simpler, more analog era...

 

One of the Third Reich's lasting contributions to Western culture was the articulation by Nazi propaganda guru Joseph Paul Goebbels of a strategy he called the Big Lie - a whopper told so often, so brazenly and with such conviction that it morphs magically into Gospel in the minds of the masses. Today, the Big Lie remains alive and well, but - judging by Ken Lamb's blog, the Drudge Report and other Internet travesties - it's evident that the Web has spun a 21st-century subspecies of Goebbels' brainstorm: the Little Lie.

 

The Little Lie, ideally, is uttered but once - weakly - and released like a plankton speck into the Internet's vast soup of words. A typical Little Lie is credible, at first, to only a handful of its author's co-religionists. These believers might be crazier than the aunt in the attic. But they also have the Web. They echo the Little Lie until it loses all contact with its source. Ken Lamb disappears. Second- and third-circulation consumers have no idea that the author's assertions are both groundless and easily debunked.

 

The Little Lie takes on the cast of verisimilitude. It swells effulgently; it makes its debut on Talk Radio. Pretty soon, it's on national TV, spouted by a cocksure bigot from just south of Lake Riley. Fed by YouTube, it grows, from a once-tiny microorganism, into a myth so smug that it ends up, finally, mocking the very words of its originator, Kenneth E. Lamb, who has said, "Racist presumptions coupled with sloppy vetting don't turn a lie into the truth."

 

David Benjamin is a novelist and journalist, originally from Madison, Wisconsin, who now divides his time between New York and Paris. His latest book is The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked

[Nur]

As Predicted, here is a possible scenario that can force Obama out from Oval Office, so Zionist Joe Biden ( in his own words, during his visit to Israel " I am Zionist, You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist" can assume the Presidency after Obama resigns:

 

 

Read this interesting analyses:

 

 

"October Surprise":

 

Preparing for "Something Unexpected”?

 

By Dr. Judith H. Young

 

 

 

October 27, 2008 -- Global Research, October 26, 2008 -- At a news conference on October 22, 2008, U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barak Obama was asked about a comment by his Vice Presidential running mate Joe Biden that Obama could expect to be tested within six months of the new presidential term by a “generated” international crisis that will force him to make unpopular decisions. Obama said the Delaware senator has occasionally engaged in "rhetorical flourishes," but the essential point was that the new President could expect to be challenged no matter who wins.

 

 

Obama held the news conference following a meeting with his national security advisers, who include long standing globalist asset Zbignew Brezezinski. He denied the meeting with his advisors had been called because of political damage stemming from Biden's remarks, in my view a classic ploy for calling more attention to it. [1]

 

 

Colin Powell, former Secretary of State (2001-2005), echoed Biden’s warning by referring to an unknown crisis that will come a day or two after the inauguration:

 

 

I would start with talking to the American people and talking to the world and conveying a new image of American leadership, a new image of America’s role in the world. The problems will always be there and there's going to be a crisis which will come along on the 21st, 22nd of January that we don't even know about right now. So I think what the President has to start to do is to start using the power of the Oval Office and the power of his personality to convince the American people and convince the world that America is solid, that America is going to move forward, we are going to fix our economic problems, we're going to meet our overseas obligations. [2]

 

John McCain and Madeleine Albright added to the furor. Albright called Biden’s statement “a statement of fact,” in that one always has to be prepared “for something unexpected.” [3] McCain raised the specter of nuclear war as he resumed his attack against Obama’s judgment by warning that the next president "won't have time to get used to the office." [4]

 

 

Alternative news analysts speculated on the import of these simultaneous warnings by public figures, including their possible relation to a new false flag:

 

 

Albright, like Biden and Powell, is an insider minion, so she may know something is up. It is rather suspect that all these voices are saying basically the same thing: Obama will be “tested,” either by an [al-Qaeda] attack, a war or confrontation in the Middle East – read Iran, or Russia….Hopefully, the ACLU’s [Freedom of Information Act request regarding the combat unit deployed domestically as of 10/1/2008] will turn up more information on the emerging police state control grid going online. Unfortunately, we are but one “terrorist event” away from this system being used to identify, track, trace, and round up the opposition. If we are to believe Joe Biden, Colin Powell, and Madeleine Albright, this event may happen as soon as the end of January, 2009. [5]

 

There has also been wide speculation about an imminent false flag, to be blamed on al-Qaeda, as an “October surprise” designed to influence the outcome of the election. The two scenarios, a staged event before the voting and another manufactured crisis following inauguration, are not mutually exclusive. In this article I argue for both occurring, as part of a multi-phased shock and awe campaign designed to move us into full scale martial law with the help of Barak Obama as the new national savior in a time of peril.

 

 

In my view, an October surprise consisting of a staged event in Obama’s home state, such as a dirty nuke detonated in Chicago, is a hypothesis worth exploring. Such an attack would be designed in part to focus attention on Obama as the global elite’s U.S. President of choice. In a crisis such as urban “terrorism,” the propaganda machine could spring into action to spin Obama’s popular appeal in a time of crisis as well as his argument that the Republicans have failed miserably in not apprehending bin Laden seven years after 9/11.

 

 

I believe an urban attack would in fact be but step one in a broader psyop by the globalists to condition the public to accept Obama as a new protective father figure to replace George Bush as part of their final push for a full blown police state on a global scale. This possibility brings into bold relief Colin Powell’s reference (in answering fellow Council of Foreign Relations spin-meister Tom Brokaw’s query about how to respond to the post-inaugural crisis Powell had warned about) to the “power of the President’s personality to convince the American people that America is solid.” As Naomi Klein has revealed in her work on the shock doctrine of disaster capitalism, in the CIA’s basic interrogation manual declassified in 1963, a window of opportunity is highlighted in which torture reduces its victim to a state of traumatized disorientation and childlike regression, creating an opening for the interrogator to be transformed into a protective father figure. This is one of the classic tactics of tyrants across the planet. In the view of Klein and others, it was used after the shock of 9/11 to permit George Bush and others to offer a narrative on the shocking events allowing the profoundly disoriented victims to make sense of the trauma. Hence the extraordinary power of the mind control matrix known as the War on Terror. (See also my discussion of psychological control techniques in my two-part article “Deconstructing the Power of the Global Elite”). [6]

 

 

My core argument is that the globalists’ final battle plan for world dominance is as follows: the current economic implosion that they themselves engineered, its ongoing exploitation to advance their agenda for worldwide financial and economic control, and finally, additional engineered crises designed to enable full-blown martial law as part of an international police state under their power.

 

 

I do not believe the globalists want to see riots or other forms of protest on any major scale in the U.S. because of the huge number of guns still in the hands of the populace and because of their uncertainty about the ability (and willingness) of their forces to prevail in armed conflict with Americans. They worry, in my view, that things could become similarly messy in other parts of the globe. Another mass trauma on the scale of 9/11 – or several back-to-back mass traumas involving large numbers across the globe - would be far more efficient for implementing and justifying worldwide full scale martial law, with its attendant confiscation of guns and detention of dissidents.

 

 

There is growing recognition of the commonplace use of false flag operations as a cold-blooded tool, even in so-called democracies, for promoting agendas that serve the interests of the power elite at the price of massive suffering for the common man. The most recent evidence of this criminal culture of death was a revelation by renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh in July 2008 that Bush administration officials had recently held a meeting in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran. The discussion addressed the idea of disguising Navy seals to look like Iranians, put them on specially built boats that look like Iranian PT boats, and start a fake attack on them in the Straits of Hormuz.

 

 

Look, is it high school? Yeah. Are we playing high school with, you know, 5,000 nuclear warheads in our arsenal? Yeah, we are. We’re playing, you know, who’s the first guy to run off the highway with us and Iran. [7]

 

The prospect of an October surprise has already factored into the 2008 campaign, including warnings of another al-Qaeda terrorist attack both from U.S. intelligence sources and allegedly from al Qaeda itself. [8] An alternative press article on October 24 expresses its alarm as follows:

 

 

The chatter surrounding the probable entrance of Bin laden or Al-Qaeda to impact the election is widespread…. The fact that the media is hyping the inevitability of an “October surprise” should be a cause for concern, especially when allied to reports of police departments across the country ‘preparing for possible civil unrest and riots’ [during the election]. [9]

 

The term “October surprise” stems from the 1980 election campaign between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter to refer to last-minute sensations with the potential to reshape a Presidential race. Such a sensation occurred in the last Presidential campaign in 2004. Going into the final weekend of the campaign, Democratic candidate John Kerry had a good chance of winning. Then an alleged Osama bin Laden videotape was issued: Bush went on to beat Kerry and both men attributed the result to the influence of the tape.

 

 

In adding my voice to the widespread speculation about the spate of warnings of coming crises, I again proffer the hypothesis of a staged terrorist attack as an imminent October surprise going into the final weekend of the current campaign. In Part II of this work, forthcoming shortly at my blogs and YouTube channel, I will offer specific arguments for my choice of Chicago as a likely location for this new 9/11.

 

 

 

NOTES

 

 

 

1. Jennifer Loven, “Obama brushes aside GOP criticism of his tax plans,” Yahoo! News, October 21, 2008: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081022/ap_on_el_pr/obama

 

 

 

2. Alex Johnson, “Powell endorses Obama for President, “ msnbc.com, October 19, 20008

 

 

3. CNN, October 22, 2008. Cf. “Albright Agrees with Biden: Terrorists Will Test Obama,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD_EAe1N9-M

 

 

4. Staff Writers, “McCain raises specter of nuclear war,” Moon Township, Pennsylvania (AFP), Oct 22, 2008

 

 

5. Kurt Nimmo, “ACLU Files FOIA On Brigade Deployed in U.S.,” Infowars, October 22, 2008 www.infowars.com

 

 

6. Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt & Company, New York, 2007; Judith H. Young, Ph.D., “Deconstructing the Power of the Global Elite: Brute Force, the Power to Hurt, and Psychological Control,” Global Research, October 9, 2008 http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10493

 

 

7. Faiz Shakir, “EXCLUSIVE: To Provoke War, Cheney Considered Proposal To Dress Up Navy Seals As Iranians And Shoot At Them,” Think Progress, July 31, 2008 http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/31/cheney-proposal-for-iran-war/

 

 

8. Eli Lake, “Spies Warn That Al Qaeda Aims for October Surprise,” The New York Sun, September 22, 2008; “Al-Qaida Threatens 'October Surprise' Attack,” Newsmax.com, September 22, 2008; “In video, al-Qaeda vows more US attacks,” 9/19/08, CNN.com/world; “Terrorist advocate endorses McCain: An al-Qaeda supporter has called for a pre-election attack in the US to help Republican candidate John McCain win the presidency,” Press TV, October 22, 2008; William Bratton & R.P. Eddy, “Osama Bin Laden wants a vote, so beware a late October surprise,” New York Daily News, Opinions, 10/21/08

 

 

9. Paul Joseph Watson, “Clarke: Bin Laden to Influence U.S. Election,” Prison Planet, October 24, 2008. infowars.com

 

Judith H. Young, holds a Ph.D from Brandeis University. In the 1960s she was a published think tank researcher with a Top Secret security clearance in the areas of arms control, strategic studies and international aerospace activities. In 1973-74 she taught International Politics at Mount Holyoke University in Massachusetts.

 

In the 1990s Judy became a practitioner and teacher in several venerable healing arts, including animal-assisted therapy and traditional Reiki. She founded a nonprofit animal and nature center dedicated to promoting the healthy development of children and youth, which she directed from 1994-2004, and she published widely in the field of equine-assisted activities and ecotherapy.

 

 

After the shocking events of 9/11/2001, Judy returned to her earlier vocation as a writer and educator in the field of International Politics, while also maintaining a professional practice in complementary and alternative healing.

 

 

 

Web site: http://freefalltofascism.homestead.com/

 

Blogs: http://freefalltofascism.wordpress.com/

 

http://earthrising.typepad.com/

 

YouTube: http://crisiscenterinfo.youtube.com/

 

 

 

© Copyright Judith H. Young, Global Research, 2008

[Nur]

An Open Letter to Barack Obama

 

Between Hope and Reality

 

By Ralph Nader

 

Dear Senator Obama:

 

In your nearly two-year presidential campaign, the words "hope and change," "change and hope" have been your trademark declarations. Yet there is an asymmetry between those objectives and your political character that succumbs to contrary centers of power that want not "hope and change" but the continuation of the power-entrenched status quo.

 

Far more than Senator McCain, you have received enormous, unprecedented contributions from corporate interests, Wall Street interests and, most interestingly, big corporate law firm attorneys. Never before has a Democratic nominee for President achieved this supremacy over his Republican counterpart. Why, apart from your unconditional vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, are these large corporate interests investing so much in Senator Obama? Could it be that in your state Senate record, your U.S. Senate record and your presidential campaign record (favoring nuclear power, coal plants, offshore oil drilling, corporate subsidies including the 1872 Mining Act and avoiding any comprehensive program to crack down on the corporate crime wave and the bloated, wasteful military budget, for example) you have shown that you are their man?

 

To advance change and hope, the presidential persona requires character, courage, integrity-- not expediency, accommodation and short-range opportunism. Take, for example, your transformation from an articulate defender of Palestinian rights in Chicago before your run for the U.S. Senate to an acolyte, a dittoman for the hard-line AIPAC lobby, which bolsters the militaristic oppression, occupation, blockage, colonization and land-water seizures over the years of the Palestinian peoples and their shrunken territories in the West Bank and Gaza. Eric Alterman summarized numerous polls in a December 2007 issue of The Nation magazine showing that AIPAC policies are opposed by a majority of Jewish-Americans.

 

You know quite well that only when the U.S. Government supports the Israeli and Palestinian peace movements, that years ago worked out a detailed two-state solution (which is supported by a majority of Israelis and Palestinians), will there be a chance for a peaceful resolution of this 60-year plus conflict. Yet you align yourself with the hard-liners, so much so that in your infamous, demeaning speech to the AIPAC convention right after you gained the nomination of the Democratic Party, you supported an "undivided Jerusalem," and opposed negotiations with Hamas-- the elected government in Gaza. Once again, you ignored the will of the Israeli people who, in a March 1, 2008 poll by the respected newspaper Haaretz, showed that 64% of Israelis favored "direct negotiations with Hamas." Siding with the AIPAC hard-liners is what one of the many leading Palestinians advocating dialogue and peace with the Israeli people was describing when he wrote "Anti-semitism today is the persecution of Palestinian society by the Israeli state."

 

During your visit to Israel this summer, you scheduled a mere 45 minutes of your time for Palestinians with no news conference, and no visit to Palestinian refugee camps that would have focused the media on the brutalization of the Palestinians. Your trip supported the illegal, cruel blockade of Gaza in defiance of international law and the United Nations charter. You focused on southern Israeli casualties which during the past year have totaled one civilian casualty to every 400 Palestinian casualties on the Gaza side. Instead of a statesmanship that decried all violence and its replacement with acceptance of the Arab League's 2002 proposal to permit a viable Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in return for full economic and diplomatic relations between Arab countries and Israel, you played the role of a cheap politician, leaving the area and Palestinians with the feeling of much shock and little awe.

 

David Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, described your trip succinctly: "There was almost a willful display of indifference to the fact that there are two narratives here. This could serve him well as a candidate, but not as a President."

 

Palestinian American commentator, Ali Abunimah, noted that Obama did not utter a single criticism of Israel, "of its relentless settlement and wall construction, of the closures that make life unlivable for millions of Palestinians. ...Even the Bush administration recently criticized Israeli's use of cluster bombs against Lebanese civilians [see www.atfl.org for elaboration]. But Obama defended Israeli's assault on Lebanon as an exercise of its 'legitimate right to defend itself.'"

 

In numerous columns Gideon Levy, writing in Haaretz, strongly criticized the Israeli government's assault on civilians in Gaza, including attacks on "the heart of a crowded refugee camp... with horrible bloodshed" in early 2008.

 

Israeli writer and peace advocate-- Uri Avnery-- described Obama's appearance before AIPAC as one that "broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning, adding that Obama "is prepared to sacrifice the most basic American interests. After all, the US has a vital interest in achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace that will allow it to find ways to the hearts of the Arab masses from Iraq to Morocco. Obama has harmed his image in the Muslim world and mortgaged his future-- if and when he is elected president.," he said, adding, "Of one thing I am certain: Obama's declarations at the AIPAC conference are very, very bad for peace. And what is bad for peace is bad for Israel, bad for the world and bad for the Palestinian people."

 

A further illustration of your deficiency of character is the way you turned your back on the Muslim-Americans in this country. You refused to send surrogates to speak to voters at their events. Having visited numerous churches and synagogues, you refused to visit a single Mosque in America. Even George W. Bush visited the Grand Mosque in Washington D.C. after 9/11 to express proper sentiments of tolerance before a frightened major religious group of innocents.

 

Although the New York Times published a major article on June 24, 2008 titled "Muslim Voters Detect a Snub from Obama" (by Andrea Elliott), citing examples of your aversion to these Americans who come from all walks of life, who serve in the armed forces and who work to live the American dream. Three days earlier the International Herald Tribune published an article by Roger Cohen titled "Why Obama Should Visit a Mosque." None of these comments and reports change your political bigotry against Muslim-Americans-- even though your father was a Muslim from Kenya.

 

Perhaps nothing illustrated your utter lack of political courage or even the mildest version of this trait than your surrendering to demands of the hard-liners to prohibit former president Jimmy Carter from speaking at the Democratic National Convention. This is a tradition for former presidents and one accorded in prime time to Bill Clinton this year.

 

Here was a President who negotiated peace between Israel and Egypt, but his recent book pressing the dominant Israeli superpower to avoid Apartheid of the Palestinians and make peace was all that it took to sideline him. Instead of an important address to the nation by Jimmy Carter on this critical international problem, he was relegated to a stroll across the stage to "tumultuous applause," following a showing of a film about the Carter Center's post-Katrina work. Shame on you, Barack Obama!

 

But then your shameful behavior has extended to many other areas of American life. (See the factual analysis by my running mate, Matt Gonzalez, on www.votenader.org). You have turned your back on the 100-million poor Americans composed of poor whites, African-Americans, and Latinos. You always mention helping the "middle class" but you omit, repeatedly, mention of the "poor" in America.

 

Should you be elected President, it must be more than an unprecedented upward career move following a brilliantly unprincipled campaign that spoke "change" yet demonstrated actual obeisance to the concentration power of the "corporate supremacists." It must be about shifting the power from the few to the many. It must be a White House presided over by a black man who does not turn his back on the downtrodden here and abroad but challenges the forces of greed, dictatorial control of labor, consumers and taxpayers, and the militarization of foreign policy. It must be a White House that is transforming of American politics-- opening it up to the public funding of elections (through voluntary approaches)-- and allowing smaller candidates to have a chance to be heard on debates and in the fullness of their now restricted civil liberties. Call it a competitive democracy.

 

Your presidential campaign again and again has demonstrated cowardly stands. "Hope" some say springs eternal." But not when "reality" consumes it daily.

 

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader

November 3, 2008

[Nur]

eNuri Nomads!

 

Obama Is President against all odds! As predicted by eNuri back in the summer, July 05, 2008.

 

The first part of my prediction, the Good news, has been realized! Obama is President!

 

The second part of my dream, is a warning to President Obama, unless he falls back in line to uphold Justice for the oppressed people of the world, from Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, I am afraid that the curse of the poor and the oppressed under the Bush Administration will kick him out of office. The choice is for Obama to make.

 

 

Americans have finally voted Bush out of Office, A clear message was sent to the world, that this nation is distancing itself from Bush and his bad Company, however, Bush's legacy is not over, its tentacles are deeply ingrained in the new administration which is powered by big business and the "AIPAC Lobby".

 

The world watched this election like no other, simply, because its outcome can either kill goat herders in Somalia or can build schools for them instead, it can also bancrupt the world wih fiscal irresponsibility, sending world markets to chaos, or can go on fiscal diet, to consume what it rightfully earns alone and not what it steals from other nations in blackmail or fraud.

 

International Law as the world has known it and has been depicted by eNuri in the past seven years, has transformed to the law of the powerful, in which might makes right. The entire world is hoping American hegemony and interventionism to go away with Bush. Its about time America respected the conscience of the planet, from Environment to justice as was in optimistic eyes of Berliner's and Kenyans alike. The removal of Ethiopian troops from Somalia should be the first foreign policy for the Obama administration as far as Somalis are concerned.

 

 

The End of International Law?

 

By Robert Dreyfuss

 

November 04, 2008 - -"The Nation" -- -10/28/2008 -- A parallel new Bush doctrine is emerging, in the last days of the soon-to-be-ancien regime, and it needs to be strangled in its crib. Like the original Bush doctrine -- the one that Sarah Palin couldn't name, which called for preventive military action against emerging threats -- this one also casts international law aside by insisting that the United States has an inherent right to cross international borders in "hot pursuit" of anyone it doesn't like.

They're already applying it to Pakistan, and this week Syria was the target. Is Iran next?

 

Let's take Pakistan first. Though a nominal ally, Pakistan has been the subject of at least nineteen aerial attacks by CIA-controlled drone aircraft, killing scores of Pakistanis and some Afghans in tribal areas controlled by pro-Taliban forces. The New York Times listed, and mapped, all nineteen such attacks in a recent piece describing Predator attacks across the Afghan border, all since August. The Times notes that inside the government, the U.S.Special Operations command and other advocates are pushing for a more aggressive use of such units, including efforts to kidnap and interrogate suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders. Though President Bush signed an order in July allowing U.S. commando teams to move into Pakistan itself, with or without Islamabad's permission, such raids have occurred only once, on September 3.

 

The U.S. raid into Syria on October 26 similarly trampled on Syria's sovereignty without so much as a fare-thee-well. Though the Pentagon initially denied that the raid involved helicopters and on-the-ground commando presence, that's exactly what happened. The attack reportedly killed Badran Turki Hishan al-Mazidih, an Iraqi facilitator who smuggled foreign fighters into Iraq through Syria. The Washington Post was ecstatic, writing in an editorial:

 

"If Sunday's raid, which targeted a senior al-Qaeda operative, serves only to put Mr. Assad on notice that the United States, too, is no longer prepared to respect the sovereignty of a criminal regime, it will have been worthwhile."

Is it really that easy? To say: We declare your regime criminal, and so we will attack you anytime we care to? In its news report of the attack into Syria, the Post suggests, in a report by Ann Scott Tyson and Ellen Knickmeyer, that the attack is raising cross-border hot pursuit to the level of a doctrine:

 

"The military's argument is that 'you can only claim sovereignty if you enforce it,' said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'When you are dealing with states that do not maintain their sovereignty and become a de facto sanctuary, the only way you have to deal with them is this kind of operation,' he said."

The Times broadens the possible targets from Pakistan and Syria to Iran, writing (in a page one story by Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker):

 

"Administration officials declined to say whether the emerging application of self-defense could lead to strikes against camps inside Iran that have been used to train Shiite 'special groups' that have fought with the American military and Iraqi security forces."

That, of course, has been a live option, especially since the start of the surge in January, 2007, when President Bush promised to strike at Iranian supply lines in Iraq and other U.S. officials, including Vice President Cheney, pressed hard to attack sites within Iran, regardless of the consequences.

 

On October 24, I went to hear Mike Vickers, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, speaking at the Washington Institiute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a pro-Israeli thinktank in Washington. He spoke with pride about the vast and growing presence of these commando forces within the U.S. military, noting that their budget has doubled under the Bush administration and that, by the end of the decade, their will more than 60,000 U.S. forces in this shadowy effort. Here are some excerpts of Vickers' remarks:

 

"If you look at the operational core of our Special Operations Forces, and focus on the ground operators, there are some 15,000 or so of those -- give or take how you count them -- these range from our Army Special Forces or our Green Berets, our Rangers, our Seals, some classified units we have, and we recently added a Marine Corps Special Operations Command to this arsenal as well. In addition to adding the Marine component, each of these elements since 2006 and out to about 2012 or 2013 has been increasing their capacity as well as their capabilities, but their capacity by a third. This is the largest growth in Special Operations Force history. By the time we're done with that, there will be some things, some gaps we need to fix undoubtedly, but we will have the elements in place for what we believe is the Special Operations component of the global war on terrorism.

"Special Operations Forces, I think through this decade and into the next one, have been and will remain a decisive strategic instrument. ...

 

"There's been a very significant -- about a 40 or 50 percent increase in operational tempo and of course more intense in terms of the action since the 9/11 attacks. On any given day that we wake up, our Special Operations Forces are in some sixty countries around the world. But more than 80 percent or so of those right now are concentrated in the greater Middle East or the United States Central Command area of responsibility -- the bulk of those of course in Iraq and Afghanistan."

 

Notice what he said: operating in 60 countries.

 

Of course, the very invasion of Iraq was illegal in 2003, and it flouted international law. So some may say, these cross-border raids are small potatoes. But they're not. This is a big deal. If it becomes a standard part of U.S. military doctrine that any country can be declared "criminal" and thus lose its sovereignty, then there is no such thing as international law anymore.

 

When Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked about this, here's what he said, as quoted in the Post article cited earlier:

 

"'We will do what is necessary to protect our troops,' Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in Senate testimony last month, when asked about the cross-border operations. Under questioning, Gates said that he was not an expert in international law but that he assumed the State Department had consulted such laws before the U.S. military was granted authority to make such strikes."

Not an expert in international law? He'll leave it to the State Department? And this is the guy that Barack Obama's advisers say ought to stay on at the Pentagon under an Obama administration?

[S.O.S]

I'm not a very happy man. The wolf in sheep's clothes is worse, in my opinion, than a wolf pretending not to be otherwise. He was/is the establishment's candidate in order to repackage America and their agenda to mislead the world. What better way than to use one of unlikeliest candidates for maximum impact. Suddenly, literally in a matter of hours, America is good again, innocent of all crimes, aggression and genocides committed in the past decades, of slavery and social injustices, of greed and exploitation. After an unprecedented bombardment of American PR in the wider world, we're led to believe that a change has happened. I for ones, to confess, secretly hoped for the sick old man to win the presidency; in fact, any administration continuing the current bankrupting course. I'm sure that would have been far more beneficial to the world in the long-term.

[Nur]

Silence on War Crimes

 

By Andy Worthington

 

November 04, 2008 "fff" --- November 3, 2008 -- - Last week, Bill Kovach, former Washington Bureau Chief of the New York Times and the founding chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, blasted the U.S. media for its failure to ask tough questions of both presidential candidates regarding their opinions of the Bush administration’s unprecedented adherence to the controversial “unitary executive theory” of government.

The theory, which became prominent in the Reagan administration, but has peppered U.S. history, contends that, when he wishes, the president is entitled to act unilaterally, without interference from Congress or the judiciary. This is in direct contravention of the separation of powers on which the United States was founded, and critics have long contended that it is nothing less than an attempt by the executive to seize the dictatorial powers that the Constitution was designed to prevent.

 

Under the cover of the wartime powers granted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and with encouragement from lawyers including, in particular, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff (and former legal counsel) David Addington, President Bush has pursued the theory relentlessly, issuing a record number of “signing statements” to laws passed by Congress, designed to prevent the nation’s politicians from interfering in the executive’s quest for unchecked power.

 

He has also approved a number of secret memos, which, in conjunction with various “signing statements,” have authorized what numerous critics of the administration regard as war crimes. These include detaining prisoners seized in the “war on terror” as “illegal enemy combatants” and holding them without charge or trial, dismissing the protections of the Geneva Conventions, redefining torture and approving its use by the U.S. military and the CIA, and authorizing “extraordinary rendition” and the use of secret prisons.

 

As if to prove what he was saying, Bill Kovach’s speech to a meeting of international journalists in Washington, D.C., went unreported in the U.S. media (and I located it only on the website of a Jamaican newspaper). And yet in many ways Kovach could have gone further, and could also have asked why the presidential candidates themselves have been silent about the current administration’s crimes.

 

The answer, sadly, is that the executive’s thirst for unfettered executive power is not a priority for voters, even when it spills out of foreign wars and offshore prisons and onto the U.S. mainland. Too many Americans, it seems, are unconcerned or unaware that the president can even hold U.S. citizens and legal residents as “enemy combatants” and can imprison them indefinitely on the U.S. mainland without charge or trial, as the cases of Jose Padilla and Ali al-Marri reveal in horrific detail.

 

As a result, gross abuses of power in the name of the “war on terror,” and the dictatorial theory that underpins them, have largely been ignored on the campaign trail.

 

Over the past two years, Senator Barack Obama repeatedly declared his support for habeas corpus, a cornerstone of American law, inherited from the English, which prohibits arbitrary imprisonment and grants all prisoners the right to know why they are being held. He defended habeas corpus while resisting the Military Commissions Act of 2006, a poisonous piece of legislation, which not only stripped the Guantánamo prisoners of their habeas rights, but also reinforced the president’s right to seize and detain indefinitely anyone he regarded as an “illegal enemy combatant,” and attempted to grant immunity to the president and his minions for any actions that might one day be regarded as war crimes.

 

Senator Obama has also stated that he will “reject torture without exception,” and last August delivered a speech in which, touching on all the administration’s law-shredding excesses, he declared,

 

As President, I will close Guantánamo, reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Our Constitution and our Uniform Code of Military Justice provide a framework for dealing with the terrorists … The separation of powers works. Our Constitution works. We will again set an example to the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers, and that justice is not arbitrary.

In June this year, when the Supreme Court (which had granted the Guantánamo prisoners statutory habeas corpus rights in June 2004) rejected the habeas-stripping provisions of the Military Commissions Act and its predecessor, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, and ruled that the prisoners’ habeas corpus rights were constitutional, Senator Obama was swift to congratulate the justices, calling the ruling “an important step toward reestablishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus.”

 

Since then, however, the Obama campaign has gone silent on executive power and the administration’s war crimes, and Senator Obama has only spoken out publicly on one occasion in September, in response to an assertion by Sarah Palin, at the Republican conference, that “Al-Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America and he's worried that someone won't read them their rights.”

 

Senator Obama responded by telling supporters in Michigan that habeas corpus was “the foundation of Anglo-American law,” which “says very simply: If the government grabs you, then you have the right to at least ask, ‘Why was I grabbed?’ And say, ‘Maybe you've got the wrong person.’” He explained that it was an essential safeguard, “because we don't always have the right person. We may think it's Mohammed the terrorist, but it might be Mohammed the cab driver. You might think it's Barack the bomb-thrower, but it might be Barack the guy running for president.” His conclusion drove the argument back to where it should have been, but it has sadly not been repeated since: “Don't mock the Constitution. Don't make fun of it. Don't suggest that it's not American to abide by what the founding fathers set up. It's worked pretty well for over 200 years.”

 

Another reason for disappointment is that, by refusing to raise these issues, Senator Obama has allowed John McCain to comfortably maintain the Republicans’ “traditional” role as protectors of national security, without having the basis of that assumption challenged, and has also failed to exploit Senator McCain’s shameful hypocrisy, as he has drifted to the right to appeal to the Republican base.

 

Even before the campaign became all-consuming, Senator McCain (an outspoken opponent of torture, as the result of his own experiences in Vietnam) had a spotty record on the abuse of executive power — and even on the prevention of torture by U.S. forces. Although he attempted to introduce a ban on torture by all U.S. personnel in the Detainee Treatment Act, he allowed himself to be bullied by Dick Cheney into excluding the CIA from the act’s provisions, and the following year he willingly endorsed the Military Commissions Act.

 

This year, however, Senator McCain’s flight from his own convictions has accelerated alarmingly. In February, he conveniently shelved his lifelong opposition to torture by voting against a bill banning the use of torture by the CIA, and after the Supreme Court’s habeas ruling in June, he declared that it was “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country,” even though, in 2005, he had told NBC’s Meet the Press that the problem with Guantánamo was that the prisoners continued to be held without “any adjudication of their cases.”

 

However, the main reasons for being disappointed that the crimes of a rogue administration have barely been mentioned as the election approaches are these: firstly, that I can only wonder, in spite of Senator Obama’s fine words, whether the Democrats in general, who famously ruled impeachment “off the table” when they gained a political majority two years ago, would in fact be unwilling to cede power if it was theirs to wield; and secondly (and most significantly), because it allows those responsible for the long list of egregious crimes that have soiled America’s name to leave office unchallenged. Donald Rumsfeld may be long gone, and George W. Bush nothing more than a shadow, but in the office of the vice president, Dick Cheney and David Addington, the architects of this unprecedented assault on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the UN Convention Against Torture, the War Crimes Act and the Geneva Conventions have been allowed to maintain their dangerous delusions, nurtured through decades of support for executive overreach in the administrations of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush.

 

As law professor Scott Horton explained to the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer for an in-depth analysis of Addington in 2006, the mission of the vice president’s closest adviser “and a small group of administration lawyers who share his views” has been to “overturn two centuries of jurisprudence defining the limits of the executive branch. They’ve made war a matter of dictatorial power.”

 

In conclusion, then, I can only note that it’s a sad indictment of a country’s state of mind when the ruling administration has been devoted to dictatorial powers and war crimes, but an election campaign comes and goes as though it had never happened.

 

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press). Visit his website at: www.andyworthington.co.uk.

[S.O.S]

Military sees Obama as key to victory in Afghanistan

 

Democrat's popularity abroad will make European nations less reluctant to contribute more troops, generals believe

 

DOUG SAUNDERS

 

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

 

November 4, 2008 at 3:08 AM EST

 

LONDON — In normally hawkish military and diplomatic circles, it is being called an "Obama boost": a widespread belief that the war in Afghanistan may be winnable only if Barack Obama is elected president tonight.

 

To a surprising degree, military and government officials in the United States and Europe have pegged their hopes for victory in Afghanistan or a reduction in violence to Mr. Obama's ability to win over skeptical European audiences and persuade them to contribute large numbers of troops to a war that is widely seen to be in serious trouble.

 

Amid fast-increasing violence and declining public support in Afghanistan, many top U.S., British and Canadian military commanders and government officials involved with the war say in private discussions that they believe the Afghan war will be lost unless a large number of additional soldiers and civil workers - a number that ranges from 60,000 to more than 100,000 - is sent to Afghanistan by the end of next year.

 

There are currently about 64,000 troops in Afghanistan, including 2,500 Canadian soldiers. To bring about this effective doubling in troops at a time when NATO has had difficulty getting its member countries to contribute even 2,000 additional soldiers, officials are counting on an Obama victory.

 

"The Europeans are likely to be more accommodating of the next administration to increase their own troop presence," said James Dobbins, who was President George W. Bush's envoy to Afghanistan. "And I think Obama, if he becomes the next president, is greatly more popular in Europe. So I think there's a honeymoon, and he'll have more leverage to increase troops ... the effect is there, and it's not negligible."

 

Mr. Obama, whose campaign has focused on the war in Afghanistan far more than that of his Republican opponent, John McCain, has pledged to remove all U.S. soldiers from Iraq within 16 months and shift the military focus to Afghanistan.

 

This would contribute as many as 40,000 soldiers to the Afghan war, though some analysts say that in practice the contingent would be more in the range of 25,000 to 30,000, or about half the required number.

 

The other half would have to come from North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries, including Canada and most European countries, which have been reluctant to contribute more troops.

 

This is where the military is putting its hopes on Mr. Obama.

 

A British general said in an off-the-record briefing last month that he believes "a five-figure number" of soldiers can be made available by Western European countries including Britain, but are being held back because of a desire to avoid seeming to support the Bush administration.

 

An Obama victory, he said, would provide an even greater number of troops.

 

"I would say that there is a reasonable prospect of Obama getting the Europeans to do more," said Charles Kupchan, a former U.S. National Security Council director who is now a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

"One reason has to do with discomfort with President Bush, the war in Iraq, and U.S. foreign policy during the past eight years. And the discomfort with U.S. policy creates a domestic environment across Europe which makes it harder for European governments to step up to the plate in Afghanistan. Having Obama in the White House will engender goodwill, which will buy European governments more room for manoeuvre, more latitude to act."

 

Also, European and Canadian voters, and to some extent governments, are seen to have lost any sense of purpose in the Afghanistan war, and to have developed a skepticism toward U.S. motives in the war. Because Mr. Bush has done so little to sell the war, there is a widespread sense that countries are seeking excuses to withdraw from the conflict.

 

"That's an area, I think, where Obama will be able to work with his European allies to do a better job of selling the war to skeptical publics," Mr. Kupchan said.

[Nur]

A Look Under the Hood at the (Potential) Obama Administration

 

By Joshua Frank

 

November 06, 2008 -- - Tuesday’s celebration hangovers have finally started to wear off, and the pieces are beginning to fall into place. Change will be coming to Washington in January, but it is difficult to decipher what form it will take. Early clues, however, suggest that Barack Obama’s administration will prove unlikely to alter the fundamental political machinery that has led us into war and economic turmoil. Below is a brief summary of Obama’s potential choices for a few key roles in his administration.

Chief of Staff

 

Obama’s key White House position will go to Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois. While Emanuel knows his way around the corridors of Washington, qualifying him in the traditional sense, this alone doesn’t mean he’s the guy you want drawing up Obama’s policy papers day after day.

 

For starters, Emanuel is a shameless neoliberal with close ties to the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), even co-authoring a strategy book with DLC president Bruce Reed. Without Emanuel, Bill Clinton would not have been able to thrust NAFTA down the throats of environmentalists and labor in the mid-1990s. Over the course of his career, Emanuel’s made it a point to cozy up to big business, making him one of the most effective corporate fundraisers in the Democratic Party. He’s also a staunch advocate of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.

 

Emanuel’s shinning moment came in 2006 as he helped funnel money and poured ground support into the offices of dozens of conservative Democrats, expanding his party’s control of the House of Representatives. Emanuel, who supports the War on Terror, and expanding our presence in Afghanistan, worked hard to ensure that a Democratic House majority would not alter the course of US military objectives in the Middle East.

 

In short, Rahm Emanuel is not only a poor choice for Obama’s Chief of Staff; he’s one of the least progressive picks he could have made. While he may have decent views on abortion, tax policy, and social security, Emanuel’s broader vision is more of the same: war and corporate dominance.

 

Treasury Secretary

 

For arguably the most important position Obama will be appointing, the President-Elect may pick well-regarded economist Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Volker is one of Obama’s closest economic advisors and is thought to be the top-choice for the position of Treasury Secretary.

 

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Volker, in an attempt to cut inflation, dramatically raised interest rates, which helped the elite maintain value in their assets but strangled the working class as credit dried up.

 

In his book, A Brief History of Neoliberalism, David Harvey writes that Volker personified one of the key facets of the neoliberal era.

 

“[Volker] engineered a draconian shift in U.S. monetary policy. The long-standing commitment in the U.S. liberal democratic state to the principles of the New Deal, which meant broadly Keynesian fiscal and monetary policies with full employment as a key objective, was abandoned in favour of a policy designed to quell inflation no matter what the consequences might be for employment. The real rate of interest, which had often been negative during the double-digit inflationary surge of the 1970s, was rendered positive by fiat of the Federal Reserve. The nominal rate of interest was raised overnight … Thus began ‘a long deep recession that would empty factories and break unions in the U.S. and drive detour countries to the brink of insolvency, beginning a long-era of structural insolvency’. The Volker shock, as it has since come to be known, has to be interpreted as a necessary but not sufficient condition of neoliberalism.”

 

In supporting Henry Paulson’s bailout package, Volker would not re-regulate the banks nor provide more power to shareholders, he’s simply carry on one facet of neoliberalism: tightening federal budgets which inevitably will put great budgetary pressure on federal agencies.

 

Another potential pick for the post is Robert Rubin, who served under Clinton in the same position and is currently Director and Senior Counselor of Citigroup. Rubin played a key role in abetting another neoliberal objective: deregulation. Where Volker was hung up on economic austerity, Rubin pushed for more deregulatory policies that ended up shifting jobs, and entire industries, overseas.

 

Rubin even pushed for Clinton’s dismantling of Glass-Steagall, testifying that deregulating the banking industry would be good for capital gains, as well as Main Street. “[The] banking industry is fundamentally different from what it was two decades ago, let alone in 1933,” Rubin testified before the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services in May of 1995.

 

“[Glass-Steagall could] conceivably impede safety and soundness by limiting revenue diversification,” Rubin argued.

 

While the industry saw much deregulation over the years preceding these events, the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act of 1999, which eliminated Glass-Steagall, extended and ratified changes that had been enacted with previous legislation. Ultimately, the repeal of the New Deal era protection allowed commercial lenders like Rubin’s Citigroup to underwrite and trade instruments like mortgage backed securities along with collateralized debt and established structured investment vehicles (SIVs), which purchased these securities. In short, as the lines were blurred among investment banks, commercial banks and insurance companies, when one industry fell, others could too.

 

Robert Rubin is in part responsible for supporting the policies that pushed us to the brink of a great recession. When the subprime mortgage crisis hit, instability and collapse spread across numerous industries.

 

Another name that is in the hunt for the top spot is Lawrence Summers, who served during the last 18 months of the Clinton administration. Summers is greatly responsible for expanding Rubinomics and is credited by many for the collapse in the derivatives market, which later imploded the housing market.

 

Defense Secretary

 

While Obama’s choice for this important role is speculative, quite a few fingers are pointing to Richard Holbrooke.

 

After Gerald Ford’s loss and Jimmy Carter’s ascendance into the White House in 1976, Indonesia, which invaded East Timor and slaughtered 200,000 indigenous Timorese years earlier, requested additional arms to continue its brutal occupation, even though there was a supposed ban on arms trades to Suharto’s government. It was Carter’s appointee to the Department of State’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Richard Holbrooke, who authorized additional arms shipments to Indonesia during this supposed blockade. Many scholars have noted that this was the period when the Indonesian suppression of the Timorese reached genocidal levels.

 

During his testimony before Congress in February 1978, Benedict Anderson of Cornell University cited a report that proved there never was a United States arms ban, and that during the period of the alleged ban; the US initiated new offers of military weaponry to the Indonesians at Holbrooke’s request.

 

Over the years Holbrooke, who is philosophically aligned with Paul Wolfowitz and other neoconservatives, has worked vigorously to keep his bloody campaign silent. Holbrooke described the motivations behind his support of Indonesia’s genocidal actions:

 

“The situation in East Timor is one of the number of very important concerns of the United States in Indonesia. Indonesia, with a population of 150 million people, is the fifth largest nation in the world, is a moderate member of the Non-Aligned Movement, is an important oil producer — which plays a moderate role within OPEC — and occupies a strategic position astride the sea lanes between the Pacific and Indian Oceans … We highly value our cooperative relationship with Indonesia.”

 

Other foreign policy advisors may also include the likes of Madeline Albright, the great supporter of Iraq sanctions, which killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Madeline Albright, when asked by Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes about the deaths caused by U.N. sanctions, infamously condoned the deaths. “I think this is a very hard choice,” she said. “But the price–we think the price is worth it.”

 

Samantha Power, that great cheerleader for humanitarian intervention, also has Obama’s ear and may even entice him to put U.S. forces in Darfur.

 

“With very few exceptions, the Save Darfur campaign has drawn a single lesson from Rwanda: the problem was the US failure to intervene to stop the genocide. Rwanda is the guilt that America must expiate, and to do so it must be ready to intervene, for good and against evil, even globally. That lesson is inscribed at the heart of Samantha of Power’s book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. But it is the wrong lesson,” writes author Mahmood Mamdani in the London Review of Books.

 

As Mamdani continues: “What the humanitarian intervention lobby fails to see is that the US did intervene in Rwanda, through a proxy … Instead of using its resources and influence to bring about a political solution to the civil war, and then strengthen it, the US signalled to one of the parties that it could pursue victory with impunity. This unilateralism was part of what led to the disaster, and that is the real lesson of Rwanda … Applied to Darfur and Sudan, it is sobering. It means recognising that Darfur is not yet another Rwanda. Nurturing hopes of an external military intervention among those in the insurgency who aspire to victory and reinforcing the fears of those in the counter-insurgency who see it as a prelude to defeat are precisely the ways to ensure that it becomes a Rwanda.”

 

Other names in the running include John Kerry, who as many know, ran an antiwar campaign for president in 2004. A full supporter of the War on Terror, with a hard-line on Iran, will certainly not alter the U.S. relationship in the Middle East.

 

Regarding the Department of Defense, it looks as if Robert Gates will still control the top spot, with no alterations made to the DoD or its inflated budget.

 

The Next Step

 

While the election of Barack Obama is a blow to George W. Bush-Republicanism and a gain for racial equality in this country, it is in many ways only a symbolic victory. The future of the U.S.’s foreign and economic agenda will continue to be saturated with ideologies and individuals that are directly responsible for our current predicament, both in the Middle East and domestically.

 

Celebrating the end of the ugly Bush era is one thing. Celebrating the continuation of their policies with a different administration in the White House is quite another. With these prospective appointments, Obama seems to be moving backwards to Clintontime. This may be sufficient change for some, but it far from a progressive push toward social, economic, and environmental justice.

 

For significant change to happen, the kind that is needed in order to mend the wounds of the Bush years, we have to put down our Obama signs and force Congress and the new administration to end the wars in the Middle East, and push for regulating the financial industry while providing true universal health-care and economic safety-nets for all Americans.

 

Given the make up of his potential advisors, we’re in for a long uphill battle. So let’s drop our illusions and start organizing, beginning with a discussion of what “organizing” even means in today’s political climate.

 

Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of the new book Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, published by AK Press in June 2008. Check out the new Red State Rebels site at www.RedStateRebels.org Read other articles by Joshua, or visit Joshua's website