OPERATION FOREVER: AFGHANISTAN

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OBAMA CARRIES OUT BUSH/OILCO PLANS IN MIDEAST

WHY WE WILL NEVER, EVER, EVER LEAVE THE MIDDLE EAST

YOUTUBE: THE DOORS
"Intro Apocalypse Now"
It didn't end well...


Solar, Shmolar, It's Oil & Gas We Really Want

Dick Cheney's Assassin-In-Chief, General "Spook" McChrystal, hinted to the new Rupert Murdoch Wall Street rag that we are losing in Afghanistan. This was his preamble to a demand for dropping another 10,000 American troops into the Hole In Nowhere. McChystal's predecessor in the Hole was fired for suggesting we needed 10,000 more troops in Afghanistan.

But wait, there's more! McChrystal is offering a different strategerie in the Hole: Instead of actively going after the hostile Afghans, we will passively wait for them to come after us where we hide among the less-hostile Afghans. In Vietnam, that was called "The Strategic Hamlet Program." No relation to the melancholy Dane. But it still had a tragic ending.

The "SH" Program, as the Army abbreviated it, was based upon a recognition that we were losing the war in Southeast Asia, just as the French had before us, by losing the "hearts & minds" of the local people. Since we could not make the countryside safe, we would fortify certain villages and hole up in them until Charlie and the NVA came for us. And come they did. And go we did. It didn't work. (Poor locals! Let's hope Afghan peasants don't read U.S. history! Or have boats.)

So we thought we'd try it again, in Southwest Asia this time, where we are losing the war for hearts & minds just as the Russians had before us. Maybe it was the climate, or the terrain that defeated that brilliant strategerie in 'Nam. Maybe hiding from the enemy and holding the locals hostage will work in frozen mountains and high deserts better than it did in broiling jungles and steamy swamps. Or maybe it was the people, and Caucasoid Muslim goat-herders and opium farmers will be more amoenable to being targets than Mongoloid Buddhist fishermen and opium farmers. Either way, the troops will have plenny opium, hashish & heroin to while away the hours with, waiting for Charlie, er, Talie, to come over the wall. This is the end, my only friend, the end...

Meanwhile, back in Iraq, things are falling apart, again. Violence is up. Our strategerie of pulling our troops out of Iraq's cities and hiding them in the countryside is not going as planned. Unless the plan is to keep them there forever. Maybe that is the plan. Why else would we continue two unwinnable wars (make that three with Pakistan) just digging in and fortifying our hidey holes, while allowing chaos to reign all around us? Clearly, the plan, if there is one at all, is simply to keep US troops near the oil & gas reserves and pipelines until there is peace and stability in the region. But the mere presence of US troops guarantees that there will never be peace in the region. Is the idea that chaos is easier to deal with than independent governments who might squeeze --or squeeze out-- our big Oilco's? Easier for the Oilco's, who never shed any of their own blood, and for our war machine, which is only there to shed blood for the Oilco's? Vietnam was thought to have oil too, y'know.

And after all, there is not much point in being a general in peacetime. A real general needs a war to show his stuff. A real army needs actual combat experience to know whether it can do the job. The troopies may prefer to serve their time one weekend a month, one month each year filling sandbags for disaster relief back in Iowa, but this ain't no democracy. So there will be blood, for oil. Forever.


NYTIMES
"At Least 50 Killed in Bombings in Iraq "
The war is over! YAAAAY!! We won!!! The Iraqi's lost. All of them.

' The entire village was gone. Local television broadcast scenes of homes reduced to heaps of rubble mixed with bed frames, mattresses, furniture and bloodstained pillows. A villager cried into the camera: “Look, Mr. Prime Minister and Mr. Interior Minister, where is the security that you speak about?” '

THE GUARDIAN
"Pakistan: Premature claims"
Game so NOT over!

' But that does not mean the Pakistani Taliban are a spent force. Even with Mehsud allegedly gone, the component parts of the Pakistani Taliban are still in place. Mehsud held sway over a cluster of about a dozen groups – more of a business franchise than a company – some of which have defied his orders. With Mehsud gone or going, the cohesion could be reduced further. But that could herald an increase in bombing and shooting, as each outlet of the franchise competes for exclusive rights. Besides, Mehsud's outfit was only one of a number of groups that comprise the Pakistani Taliban. '

CNN
"Support for Afghan war drops, CNN poll finds"
Gotta keep those Repukelickin's happy. They're violent and they have guns.

' A new national poll indicates that support among Americans for the war in Afghanistan has hit a new low. Forty-one percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday say they favor the war in Afghanistan -- down 9 points from May, when CNN polling suggested that half of the public supported the war. Fifty-four percent say they oppose the war in Afghanistan, up 6 points from May. "Afghanistan is almost certainly the Obama policy that Republicans like the most," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "Nearly two-thirds of Republicans support the war in Afghanistan. Three-quarters of Democrats oppose the war." '

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
"More US troops for Afghanistan: Are they inevitable?"
"Left-leaning Democrats in Congress"? Who do THEY represent? 54% of the American people? Who CARES!

' The 21,000 US troops promised to Afghanistan have still not all arrived, yet speculation is rife that rising violence may force the senior commander there to ask for more. Last month was the deadliest ever for US forces in Afghanistan. In all, 76 coalition troops were killed. Seeking to reverse that trend, the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is preparing an assessment of the mission. News reports suggest that he could ask for an additional 10,000 to 45,000 troops. Previous commanders have all asked for more forces. In the past, "the handwriting was on the wall for more forces – and may still be," says Michael O'Hanlon, an analyst at Brookings, a think tank in Washington. If General McChrystal does ask for thousands more troops, it could cause a rift between the administration and left-leaning Democrats in Congress. '

WALL STREET JOURNAL
"Taliban Now Winning "
Strategic hamlets, anyone?

' The Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan, the top American commander there said, forcing the U.S. to change its strategy in the eight-year-old conflict by increasing the number of troops in heavily populated areas like the volatile southern city of Kandahar, the insurgency's spiritual home. Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned that means U.S. casualties, already running at record levels, will remain high for months to come. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the commander offered a preview of the strategic assessment he is to deliver to Washington later this month, saying the troop shifts are designed to better protect Afghan civilians from rising levels of Taliban violence and intimidation. The coming redeployments are the clearest manifestation to date of Gen. McChrystal's strategy for Afghanistan, which puts a premium on safeguarding the Afghan population rather than hunting down militants. '

FOX NEWS
"Pentagon Disputes Claim That Taliban Is Winning in Afghanistan"
Quag, meet Mire.

' "I wouldn't say we are winning or losing or stalemated," McChrystal told USA Today. The U.S. commander said in that interview that the insurgency has "momentum" which coalition forces are working to reverse. The dispute over the course of the war comes as McChrystal prepares to present a comprehensive assessment of operations in Afghanistan -- an assessment that could eventually include requests for additional U.S. troops. Top brass are insisting that despite the sharp rise in casualties in July and an expectation of more bloody months ahead the war is not taking a turn for the worse. National Security Adviser Jim Jones, who left the door open to more troops, told CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday that the war is not at a "crisis level." '

MT HOLYOKE COLLEGE: DEPT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
"The Pentagon Papers"
Deja vu all over again: What the Pentagon knew, and when they knew it.

' A number of contributory reasons can be cited for the failure of the Strategic Hamlet Program. Over-expansion of construction and poor quality of defenses forms one category. This reason concentrates only on the initial phase of the program, however. While valid, it does little to explain why the entire program collapsed rather than only some hamlets within it. Rural antagonisms which identified the program with its sponsors in the central government are more suggestive of the basis for the complete collapse as Diem and Nhu departed the scene. The reasons why they departed are traceable in part to the different expectations which combined in the apparent consensus at the program's beginning: to Diem's insistence on material assistance and independence, to U.S. willingness to provide assistance only if its advice was heeded, and to the failure to resolve this question either by persuasion or leverage. Having said this, it does not automatically follow that the program would have succeeded even if Diem had met U.S. demands for change. To point to the causes of failure is one thing; to assume that changes of style would have led to success is quite another. It may well be that the program was doomed from the outset because of peasant resistance to measures which changed the pattern of rural life--whether aimed at security or control. It might have been possible, on the other hand, for a well-executed program eventually to have achieved some measure of success. The early demise of the program does not permit a conclusive evaluation. The weight of evidence suggests that the Strategic Hamlet Program was fatally flawed in its conception by the unintended consequence of alienating many of those whose loyalty it aimed to win. '

USA TODAY
"McChrystal: Jobs could curb Taliban fighting "
"It may well be that the program was doomed from the outset because of peasant resistance to measures which changed the pattern of rural life--whether aimed at security or control." -The Pentagon Papers: The Strategic Hamlet Program.

' In an interview with USA TODAY, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said his No. 1 unmet need is to have functioning local governments in Afghanistan and officials who can provide basic services. "At the end of the day, what the Afghan people are really looking for is that very basic level of governance provided, obviously, with security," McChrystal said. "I wouldn't say we are winning or losing or stalemated," McChrystal said about the current fighting. "What I would say at this particular point is that the insurgency has a certain amount of initiative and momentum that we are working to stop and, in fact, reverse." Afghanistan is holding its presidential and provincial elections on Aug. 20. '

CNN
"New NATO chief warns of Afghan 'terror Grand Central' "
Hey, anybody wanna play dominoes? Not real dominoes, theoretical dominoes.

' NATO will stay in Afghanistan "for as long as it takes," the military alliance's new leader said in Brussels, Belgium, Monday. He said success in the country was NATO's top priority "to help prevent Afghanistan from becoming again the Grand Central Station of international terrorism." '

SALON.COM
"It's easy for soldiers to score heroin in Afghanistan"
Another sad Vietnam parallel.

' Just outside the main gate to Bagram airfield, a U.S. military installation in Afghanistan, sits a series of small makeshift shops known by locals as the Bagram Bazaar. For Afghans, it is the place to buy American goods, but the stalls that make up the heart of the bazaar are also well known for what they provide American soldiers stationed at Bagram. Walking through the bazaar it takes less than 10 minutes for a vendor in his early 20s to step out and ask, "You want whiskey?" "No, heroin," I tell him. He ushers me into his store with a smile. The shop is small, 9 feet wide by 14 feet deep, and dark. The walls at the front are lined with dusty cans of soda, padlocks and miscellaneous beauty supplies. As we enter, a teenager is visible at the back, seated in a chair next to a collection of American military knives and flashlights. The shopkeeper speaks to him in Dari. The teen stands and heads for the door, where he stops and asks my Afghan driver a question. My driver translates, "He wants to know how much you want? Twenty, 30, 50 dollars' worth?" From past experience, for I have arranged this same transaction a dozen times in a dozen different Bagram Bazaar shops, I know that the $30 bag will contain enough pure to bring hundreds of dollars on the streets of any American city. Afghanistan, after all, is the source of 90 percent of the world's heroin. I say 30 and the teen jogs off. The true extent of the heroin problem among American soldiers now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan is unknown. At Bagram, according to a written statement provided by a spokesperson for the base, Army Maj. Chris Belcher, the "Military Police receive few reports of alcohol or drug issues." The military has statistics on how many troops failed drug tests, but the best information on long-term addiction comes from the U.S. Veterans Administration. The VA is the world's largest provider of substance abuse services, caring for more than 350,000 veterans per year, of whom about 30,000 are being treated for opiate addiction. Only preliminary information for Iraq and Afghanistan is available, however, and veterans of those conflicts are not yet showing up in the stats. According to the VA's annual "Yellowbook" report on substance abuse, during Fiscal Year 2006, fewer than 9,000 veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) sought treatment for substance abuse of all kinds at the VA; the report did not specify how many were treated for opiate abuse. The anecdotal information, however, suggests there may be a wave of new patients coming, and it will include many heroin users. I'm a filmmaker, and I have been to Afghanistan several times to research a film about a soldier who died there under murky circumstances. Before his death, the soldier, John Torres, had told friends and family of widespread heroin use at Bagram. Based on my own experience, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars the Bush administration has spent on opium poppy eradication, Torres was right. I asked to buy heroin a dozen times during two trips a year apart and never heard the word "no"; I also saw ample evidence that soldiers were trading sensitive military equipment, like computer drives and bulletproof vests, for drugs. Other soldiers who have served at Bagram agree: Heroin, they say "is everywhere." And although they haven't shown up in the statistics yet, reports from methadone clinics suggest the VA's future patients may already be back in the States in force. Much like the caskets that return to the Dover Air Force base in the dead of night, America's new addicts are returning undetected. '

MORE POSTS ON THE AFGHAN WAR & PRIVATIZATION OF THE MILITARY



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Suggestion Box & Tip Jar We would like to make over this blog to make it easier to access, to read and to comment on. We would also like to serve our readers better by providing more of what you need and want to see. All serious suggestions will be considered. We hope to move to our own domain in the near future, and we would like to ask for your financial assistance in doing that, and in upgrading our hardware & software. Small one-time donations and larger long-term subscriptions are welcome. Exclusive advertising is also available. If you think we are wasting our time in doing all this, please let us know. If you wish to help us, now is the time. As always, negative bullsh*t from right-wing trolls will be sh*tcanned. Thank you to everyone else. Please send feedback & PayPal contributions to cosanostradamusATexciteDOTcom. Thanks.

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OBAMA OUTSOURCES AFGHANISTAN

JUST IN CASE AFGHANIZATION DOESN'T WORK

Anti-War, Anti-Bush Candidate Follows Bush Iraq Strategies & Tactics In Expanding Afghan War

So. It's come to this. This mellow Hawaii dude, this Harvard man, this community organizer, this brother from the South Side of Chicago, with the African-Muslim name and the fiery black Christian preacher, this guy who promised to "end the war within eighteen months," this "socialist' is turning out to be pretty much Bush. He's not going to rule out or prosecute torture. He's going to cover it up. He's not going to close Gitmo and bring about fair & speedy trials in civilian courts inside the US. He's pulled some troops out of Iraqi cities, but not out of Iraq. He's going to redesignate them as "non-combat," not redeploy them. So.

Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan into Pakistan, against their will. We're losing people there now, and in Afghanistan, where there's a troop buildup and a major offensive going on. It's not going well. How do we know that? For one thing, there's a new "Phoenix Program" under the command of Dick Cheney's personal global & domestic assassin, General McChrystal. Can Cointelpro be far behind? Plus, we're starting to hear the kind of bullsh*t we used to hear from Defense Secretaries like Melvin Laird and Robert McNamara about "winning hearts & minds" and "Vietnamization," i.e. turning the war over to the locals. That was a disaster in Vietnam. We got our asses kicked out of there when it failed.

But wait, there's more! Now we have private security firms to clandestinely fight our battles, a corporate nightmare Mussolini never even had. Instead of paying our loyal, honor-bound, UCMJ & Geneva/Hague-conventions regulated regular & reserve military troops to fight our battles, getting their asses shot off for chump change, and coming home in widely telecast flag-draped coffins, we're hiring disposable, unaccountable, outside-the-law and very expensive mercenaries, most of them US ex-military, whose deaths will never make the front pages of our national propaganda sheets and infotainment broadcasts.

In other words, we're digging in for the long haul. We're ass-covering in advance. We're doing everything we can to minimize political collateral damage, keeping a low low low low profile, hoping everybody forgets about all the wars. Yeah, there's three now: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and maybe Iran or even Georgia, soon. Biden was over there dicking with the Rooskies just last week. Why? War is good business, even a cold war, comrade. For both sides. It gives them unlimited money and power, and lots of toys that go "BOOM!!!" Every world leader's ultimate wet-dream.

So, yes, your son will die. Your daughter will be raped and mutilated. Your country will go on just as it always has, slaughtering strangers for no apparent reason in countries you can't find on a map. Why? Try looking on a world oil & gas reserves map. Yes, you will find Iraq & Afghanistan there. And you will find oil & gas transhipment lines and ports in Pakistan & Georgia. And you will find Iran, well, sorta in the way.

So, even though Obama is a coal man, he's now working for Big Oil overseas. Is this what you voted for? It's what you got. Put a stop to it now, before Vietnamization takes hold, or get ready for official & unofficial body bags and helicopters frantically picking State Department officials off an embassy roof. And toss that homeless girl a quarter, willya? She's a Vet.



BBC NEWS
"Afghanistan 'agrees Taliban deal' "
Why not let the Americans build a highway? Bechtel can always use the money! And that new road will come in handy when the Taliban takes over again.

' Foreign Secretary David Miliband announced the shift of emphasis in the UK's Afghanistan strategy in a speech to Nato. He stressed the Afghan government must do more to talk to moderate members of the Taliban as part of a broader political process. Violence in Afghanistan has escalated in recent months as UK and US forces launched a full-scale offensive against Taliban militants in the south of the country. Presidential spokesman Siamak Hirawi told the BBC the agreement in Badghis also stipulated that the Taliban would allow the reconstruction of the main highway. If the Taliban confirm they have agreed to the terms of the ceasefire and if the deal is repeated in other provinces, then it could mark a significant new stage in the conflict, correspondents say. But it would not be the first time the Afghan government has tried to engage the Taliban. In October 2008, President Hamid Karzai's brother confirmed a BBC report that he had met former members of the Taliban in Saudi Arabia as part of a first step towards peace talks. '

CNN
"U.S.: No more enemy body counts in Afghanistan"
We have met the enemy, and he is us.

' "Indicating the number of insurgents killed has little relevance to impacting the lives of Afghans. In fact, if that were the only purpose and metric, you would likely only extend the time it takes to bring about an end to the insurgency," Smith said in an e-mail to CNN responding to a query about the change. The issue of publishing enemy body counts has been extremely sensitive to the U.S. military since the Vietnam War when the military regularly published large enemy body counts but seemed to be failing overall to make progress in the war. '

GOOGLE NEWS
"US military deaths in Afghanistan region at 677"
Start the deathclock again.

' As of Sunday, July 26, 2009, at least 677 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures Friday at 10 a.m. EDT. '

YAHOO NEWS
"Marines push militants out of Taliban region"
Or, they got away Scot-free. Whatever sounds better!

' U.S. Marines trapped Taliban fighters in a residential compound and persuaded the insurgents to allow women and children to leave. The troops then moved in — only to discover that the militants had slipped out, dressed in women's burqa robes. The fighters, who may owe their lives to the new U.S. commander's emphasis on limiting civilian casualties, were among hundreds of militants who have fled the offensive the Marines launched last week in southern Helmand province. Marine officers say keeping the Taliban from returning so the Afghan government can establish a stable presence will be a bigger challenge. "We have dislocated them while still protecting the people," said Col. Eric Mellinger, the operations officer for the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade. "Now the key is to prevent militants from coming back in, and the way to do that is to earn their (Afghan villagers') trust so that they don't allow them to come back in." '

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
"US push to put an Afghan face on Helmand offensive"
Painting the puppets' strings black makes them ALMOST invisible to the audience.

' There is a new push to dramatically expand the size of the Afghan Army and police, as the military operations now under way in southern Afghanistan is marked by a conspicuous absence of Afghans in the fight. The US's new Afghanistan strategy focuses on protecting the local population, reducing civilian casualties, and establishing security in Helmand, where the Taliban and other extremist groups have operated with relative impunity. But the military operation in the south that began July 1 has few Afghan soldiers, according to US commanders in the field. The Helmand offensive points to the need for more Afghans in the battlefield. There are roughly 4,000 US Marines operating in the Helmand region, but only about 650 Afghan soldiers fighting alongside them. There are also 6,500 British troops in the province. "I'm not going to sugarcoat it," said Brig. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson, commander of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade running the operation there, in a briefing with reporters earlier this month. "The fact of the matter is, we don't have enough Afghan forces, and I'd like more." There are in fact a total of 5,000 Afghan soldiers in Helmand, and more are said to be on the way, but officials haven't explained why they're not involved in the new offensive. The rest of the Afghan army is posted around the country, with many in the north, where violence is reasonably low. '

YAHOO NEWS
"US eyes private guards for bases in Afghanistan"
"Xe"? That's a Hessian name, isn't it?

' U.S. military authorities in Afghanistan may hire a private contractor to provide around-the-clock security at dozens of bases and protect vehicle convoys moving throughout the country. But the use of private contractors in Iraq has been highly contentious. Since a September 2007 shooting of Iraqi civilians in Baghdad by guards employed by Blackwater (now Xe Services), critics have urged U.S. officials to maintain much tighter controls over hired guards. The Washington Post reported Saturday that the Army published a notice July 10 informing interested contractors it was contemplating a contract for "theater-wide" armed security. "The contract would provide for a variety of security services, to include the static security of compounds on which U.S. and coalition forces reside, and for the protection of mission essential convoys in and around forward operating bases located throughout Afghanistan," the notice states. '

WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT
"Private Security Companies May Surge Into Afghanistan"
Mercenaries by any other name are still mercenaries.

' The ones whom McChrystal hires surely will. But what about the firms hired to protect the new State Department personnel on their way to Afghanistan? State Department security contractors like Blackwater Xe, Triple Canopy and DynCorp have been tied to more population-alienating abuses than the ones who work for the Defense Department. And McChrystal and his boss, Gen. David Petraeus — who dealt with the complications posed by buck-wild State Department security contractors in Iraq — won’t have control over them. The next Worldwide Personnel Protective Services contract, awarded to firms pledging to protect U.S. diplomats, will be a test of Petraeus’s oft-cited new “wingman” partnership with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the State Department’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. And this doesn’t say anything about security firms hired by private corporations doing business in Afghanistan. How to coordinate them into McChrystal’s battle plan? '

THE WASHINGTON POST
"U.S. General Sees Afghan Army, Police Insufficient"
Them damn dirty hippies is losin' us the war, AGAIN!

' U.S. commanders in southern Afghanistan told National Security Adviser James L. Jones late last month that additional Afghan forces are needed. But Jones made clear to them that Obama wants to give the nonmilitary elements of his strategy the time and resources to progress before considering new troop requests. If Obama approves a request for more training resources, he will probably have to contend with sharp questions from Congress about whether his new strategy is working as intended. Many of his constituents on the left would like to see the Afghan war ended rather than expanded. But McChrystal's "argument, and ultimately the argument of the Defense Department," will be that "if you only have one or two years to change the opinion of the people" of Afghanistan then "let's get on with it," one defense official said. McChrystal now has what the official called a "halo effect," similar to that of Gen. David H. Petraeus when he arrived in Iraq in early 2007 to preside over a major troop expansion and change in strategy that ultimately succeeded in turning the tide of that war. '

YAHOO NEWS
"Crooked Afghan police challenge Marines"
Kinda brings back memories of ARVN.

' Afghan villagers had complained to the U.S. Marines for days: The police are the problem, not the Taliban. They steal from villagers and beat them. Days later, the Marines learned firsthand what the villagers meant. As about 150 Marines and Afghan soldiers approached the police headquarters in the Helmand River town of Aynak, the police fired four gunshots at the combined force. No larger fight broke out, but once inside the headquarters the Marines found a raggedy force in a decrepit mud-brick compound that the police used as an open-pit toilet. The meeting was tense. Some police were smoking pot. Others loaded their guns in a threatening manner near the Marines. '

BBC NEWS
"Helmand's long and difficult road "
Kinda reminds us of the Ky Government. Right down to the heroin.

' The current focus on Helmand by 9,000 British and now an extra 10,000 US troops is because the province remains one of the Taliban's strongholds and the producer of more than half of the country's opium crop. The US and UK appear to have dropped the original policy of trying to eradicate the poppy crop before providing alternative livelihoods for Helmand farmers, a policy which had alienated potential allies. The US and British forces want to stabilise Helmand in time for next month's Afghan presidential elections. The levels of corruption within the Afghan government, its ineffectual reach in many provinces and the lack of a real justice system, or yet an effective police force, have all made it harder to convince the Afghan people that they are much better off now. There is now a gritty realism dawning in the campaign, and the public acknowledgement of just how difficult all this will be in the world's fourth-poorest country, which has been torn and scarred by war for the past three decades. '

AFP
"Britain urges new Afghan govt to defeat Taliban"
Politics is war by other means. See also: "Winning hearts & minds."

' British Foreign Secretary David Miliband warned Afghan leaders Monday that their next government must do more to defeat the insurgency and drive a wedge between the Taliban and its backers. Miliband called on the incoming government to weed out hard-line insurgents from those Afghans involved in fighting for money, because they they have no job or who are being coerced. "We will not force the Taliban to surrender just through force of arms and overwhelming might," he said. The government with the help of the international community could do so, he said, by "dividing the different groups, by convincing the Afghans that we will not desert them to Taliban retribution, and by building legitimate governance." "We need to help the Afghan government exploit the opportunity, with a more coherent effort to fragment the various elements of the insurgency, and turn those who can be reconciled to live within the Afghan constitution." '

YAHOO NEWS
"Report: Too few officials knew of surveillance"
I got yer COINTELPRO right heah, -ssh-le!

' The report, compiled by five inspectors general, refers to "unprecedented collection activities" by U.S. intelligence agencies under an executive order signed by Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Just what those activities involved remains classified, but the IGs pointedly say that any continued use of the secret programs must be "carefully monitored." Most of the intelligence leads generated under what was known as the "President's Surveillance Program" did not have any connection to terrorism, the report said. But FBI agents told the authors that the "mere possibility of the leads producing useful information made investigating the leads worthwhile." '

WIKIPEDIA
"COINTELPRO"
A little history.

' COINTELPRO (an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. The FBI used covert operations from its inception, however formal COINTELPRO operations took place between 1956 and 1971. The FBI motivation at the time was "protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order. According to FBI records, 85% of COINTELPRO resources were expended on infiltrating, disrupting, marginalizing, and/or subverting groups suspected of being subversive, such as communist and socialist organizations; the women's rights movement; people suspected of building a "coalition of militant black nationalist groups" ranging from the Black Panther Party and Republic of New Afrika to "those in the non-violent civil rights movement" such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and others associated with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Congress of Racial Equality, and other civil rights groups; a broad range of organizations labelled "New Left", including Students for a Democratic Society, the National Lawyers Guild, the Weathermen, almost all groups protesting the Vietnam War, and even individual student demonstrators with no group affiliation; and nationalist groups such as those "seeking independence for Puerto Rico." The other 15% of COINTELPRO resources were expended to marginalize and subvert "white hate groups," including the Ku Klux Klan and National States' Rights Party. The directives governing COINTELPRO were issued by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who ordered FBI agents to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" the activities of these movements and their leaders." '

WIKIPEDIA
"Phoenix Program"
A little more history

' The Phoenix Program (Vietnamese: Chiến dịch Phượng Hoàng, a word related to fenghuang, the Chinese phoenix) was a military, intelligence, and internal security program designed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and coordinated and executed by Republic of Vietnam's (South Vietnam) security apparatus and US Special Operations Forces such as the Navy SEALs, United States Army Special Forces and MACV-SOG (now Special Operations Group in the CIA's Special Activities Division) during the Vietnam War. The Program was in operation between 1967 and 1972, and similar efforts existed both before and after that period. The Program was designed to identify and "neutralize" (via infiltration, capture, terrorism, or assassination) the civilian infrastructure supporting the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF or Viet Cong) insurgency. The Phoenix Program is sometimes seen as an "assassination campaign," and has been criticized as an example of human-rights atrocities alleged to have been committed by the CIA or other allied organizations, including U.S. Military Intelligence. There was eventually a series of U.S. Congressional hearings. Consequently, the military command in Vietnam issued a directive that reiterated that it had based the anti-VCI campaign on South Vietnamese law, that the program was in compliance with the laws of land warfare, and that U.S. personnel had the responsibility to report breaches of the law. Supporters argue that the primary intent was to capture, not to kill, in order to gain further information. However, decentralized operations in an uncertain, ambiguous environment did lead to abuses. In many instances, rival Vietnamese would report their enemies as "VC" in order to get U.S. troops to kill them (Myra MacPherson, Long Time Passing, New York: Signet, 1984, p. 625.) In many cases, Phung Hoang chiefs were incompetent bureaucrats who used their positions to enrich themselves. Phoenix tried to address this problem by establishing monthly neutralization quotas, but these often led to fabrications or, worse, false arrests. In some cases, district officials accepted bribes from the NLF to release certain suspects. '

WIKIPEDIA
"The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia"
A short history of government-sponsored drug trafficking.

' The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia is a major, nonfiction book on heroin trafficking—specifically in Southeast Asia from before World War II up to (and including) the Vietnam War. Published in 1972, the book was the product of eighteen months of research and at least one trip to Laos by Alfred W. McCoy[1] who was the principal author and who wrote Politics of Heroin while seeking a PhD in Southeast Asian history at Yale University. Cathleen B. Read, co-author and graduate student[where?], also spent time there during the war. Its most groundbreaking feature was its documentation of CIA complicity and aid to the Southeast Asian opium/heroin trade; along with McCoy's Congressional testimony, its initially controversial thesis has gained a degree of mainstream acceptance. The central idea is that at the time, the vast majority of heroin produced was produced in the Golden Triangle, from which: "It is transported in the planes, vehicles, and other conveyances supplied by the United States. The profit from the trade has been going into the pockets of some of our best friends in Southeast Asia. The charge concludes with the statement that the traffic is being carried on with the indifference if not the closed-eye compliance of some American officials and there is no likelihood of its being shut down in the foreseeable future." Air America in particular was used for this transport. Further, this heroin supply is responsible for the parlous state of the Army in Vietnam: "By mid 1971 Army medical officers were estimating that about 10 to 15 per cent... of the lower ranking enlisted men serving in Vietnam were heroin users." Having interviewed Maurice Belleux, former head of the French SDECE intelligence agency, Mc Coy also uncovered parts of the French Connection scheme, as the French military agency had financed all of its covert operations, during the Indochina War, from its control of the Indochina drug trade. '

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
"U.S. military increases attacks on Afghan drugs"

' U.S. Marines and Afghan forces have found and destroyed hundreds of tons of poppy seeds, opium and heroin in southern Afghanistan this month in raids that a top American official said show the new U.S. counter narcotics strategy in Afghanistan is working. U.S. and NATO troops are attacking drug warehouses in Afghanistan for the first time this year, a new strategy to counter the country's booming opium poppy and heroin trade. NATO defense ministers approved the targeted drug raids late last year, saying the link between Taliban insurgents and drug barons was clear. U.N. officials say Taliban fighters reap hundreds of millions of dollars from the drug trade each year, profits used to fund the insurgency. '

MORE POSTS ON THE AFGHAN WAR & PRIVATIZATION OF THE MILITARY



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ALL QUIET ON THE PERSIAN FRONT?

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IRANIANS AWAKE TO A FINAL DAY OF STRUGGLE

YOUTUBE: IRANIAN NEWS
"Iranian Riots - Protests will continue as long as Ahmadinejad remains in power (June 20th)"
The final battle: Will it mean the end of the Ayatollahs, or the end of democracy in Iran?


THE AYATOLLAHS HAVE DRAWN A BLOODY LINE IN THE SAND

YOUTUBE: FARHAD 43
"Iran riots Basij shooting Girl Murdered in Iran June 20 2009"
A woman dies for her freedom in the streets of Tehran today.


Will The Iranian Liberal Democrats Put Their Lives On That Line?

Would American liberal democrats put their lives on such a line? No. They had the opportunity, indeed the responsibility to do so in the stolen election of 2000, and again in the great fraud of 2004. No one did anything. There wasn't even any talk of a general strike or mass demonstrations. Everyone meekly went about their business, allowing authoritarian corporatists to unlawfully take power. The illegitimate government of George "Dubya" Bush went on to allow the worst attack in history on U.S. soil, then to use that attack as an excuse to start America's first unprovoked war, to slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi's and Afghans, to shred the Constitution of the United States of America, to unlawfully detain and torture thousands of people with no significant connection to terrorism, to loot the U.S. treasury and to ruin the economy of the entire world, all for their own enrichment and empowerment. They were the right-wing Christian fundamentalist Ayatollahs of America.

Americans sat on their fat, timid, self-satisfied asses throughout all of this. For eight long years, no one said or did anything to any effect. No one risked a dollar or a day of work, a broken bone or a drop of blood. The world could be destroyed in our name, but we weren't going to do anything about it.

In Europe, the people take to the streets and shut the country down when their liberty and their way of life are threatened. Right-wing governments have been brought down or forced to back down by collective action. In Asia and Latin America, similar democratic movements have succeeded in removing despots and thieves from power, and making government work for the people.

Now even the always-oppressed Persians are standing up for their rights. After years of torture and repression under the UK & US-backed oil regime of the so-called "Shah of Iran," the Iranian people threw the bastard out. Unfortunately, that opened the door for the Ayatollahs, a small group of insane old religious fanatics with almost as much hatred for their own people as for the "Great Satan," America. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have been killed, tortured, unjustly imprisoned or exiled since the 1978 Iranian "Revolution." There was no hope of ever rising up against the half-wit clerics; until now.

Up until now, there has at least been the pretense of fair elections. All the candidates had to be approved by the self-appointed religious leadership, so, why not? Well, this time something went wrong. The people picked the wrong candidate. The old men's choice failed so spectacularly that the entire election had to be rewritten in reverse: It was the slightly more "liberal" clerical choice who lost by a landslide, not the current puppet. But the people knew better. Their outrage gave them courage and they were able to join together in great numbers to effectively bring the country to a halt, and stop the theft of their election. They are crying out now for support from the rest of the world for real democracy in Iran.

America cannot help. The US has shamed and delegitimized itself in the Middle East constantly since "Dubya" stole power in 2000. The Iranian beef with us goes all the way back to the 1950's, when the Republican Eisenhower Administration overthrew the Persians' legitimately elected government, to prevent the nationalization of the country's own oil. Nationalization happened everywhere in the world subsequently, save the US (except Alaska, where the State owns the oil). But in Iran, the memory of an overthrow of their chosen government by a foreign power never went away. That's why the US & UK can do nothing to help liberal democratic Iranians today. Any taint of foreign involvement would provide an excuse to crack down ruthlessly on the Iranian democrats, and delegitimize them forever. So all we can do is sit and watch. Ironically, the past bad acts of American conservatives are now helping to prop up todays religious conservatives in Iran, against the liberal majority there.

Well, tomorrow we will see what happens. Americans may learn several lessons from all of this. We may learn that democracy is worth fighting for, and that right-wing religious fanatics cannot be allowed to steal elections. We may learn that we can only stop tyranny by fighting it. Or we may learn that tyranny supports tyranny, and the American right-wing has handed the Ayatollahs a victory, once again.

Let's hope that democracy wins in Iran. Let's see if Americans learn a lesson from this. We voted for change in 2008. We have had mostly more of the same. If we do not get the change we voted for, will we be able to change the government again? If we cannot really change the government, do we really have a democracy? If we do not have a democracy, what are we going to do about it? Well, for starters, pay attention to what happens in Iran in the next few days. Watch and learn. But remember: Democracy is not a spectator sport. If we don't participate, if we don't fight for our point of view, if we're not willing to sacrifice to protect our democracy, we could end up like the Iranians, up till now. Watch and learn.


YAHOO NEWS
"Iran warns opposition against staging street rally"
Ayatollahs set to rock and rolla.

' Iran's opposition leader received another stern warning Saturday not to encourage his supporters to take to the streets a day after the country's top leader sought to end the deepening election crisis by effectively declaring President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner. Supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi have planned a massive rally in Tehran later Saturday, but it was unclear if he would attend and how large the rally would be after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered opposition leaders on Friday to end street protests or be held responsible for any "bloodshed and chaos" to come. Iran's Interior Ministry reiterated the warning to Mousavi on Saturday, saying he would "be held responsible for the consequences of any illegal gatherings." The ministry also accused the 67-year-old former prime minister of supporting protests that "have lead to the disruption of security and public order," State Security Council secretary, Abbas Mohtaj, said in a statement on the ministry's Web site. The warnings place Mousavi at a pivotal moment. He can either back down or risk a crushing response from police and the forces at Khamenei's disposal — the powerful Revolutionary Guard and their volunteer citizen militia, the basij. '

REUTERS
"Iran rally to go ahead - Karoubi aide"
Oh, it's on!

' A protest rally against a disputed presidential election will go ahead on Saturday, an aide of defeated candidate Mehdi Karoubi said, a day after Iran's top authority demanded an end to such demonstrations. "The demonstration plan has not been canceled and accordingly it must be held this afternoon," said the Karoubi aide, who declined to be named. If they proceed in defiance of Khamenei's explicit warning, they risk a severe response from security forces, which have so far not tried to prevent Iran's most widespread street rallies since the 1979 Islamic revolution. '

CHICAGO TRIBUNE: CHICAGO NOW
"Good Afternoon Tehran"
Live from the battlefield?

' It's Saturday afternoon here in Tehran. I arrived in here late last night and toured the areas of Tehran that have usually held protests, with no sign of demonstrations or Mousavi supporters. The Mousavi camp had previously planned on having a mass rally in Tehran today, but since Ayatollah Khamenei's sermon yesterday essentially telling demonstrators to wrap it up and choose more peaceful means, it's unclear what will happen. While Khamenei stated people have a right to protest and file complaints, he denounced the violence that usually came with the demonstrations. If the protests today happen, it's absolutely important that the protestors don't start fires, both literally and metaphorically. It's good to be back in Tehran, though, where the epicenter of the post-election protests occured so I can gague the streets and get a feel for what's going on. Walking around this morning on Vali Asr street, things seemed normal as people went about buying fresh bread and hurrying to work. '

AL JAZEERAH
"Police crack down on Iran protests"
UPDATE: Latests news from the "Islamic Republic."

' Riot police in Iran have used tear gas, water cannon and batons to disperse about 3,000 people attempting to protest over the disputed presidential election of Mahmoud Ahmdinejad, the president. Witnesses said that dozens of people were hospitalised after being beaten by police and pro-government militia in the capital, Tehran, on Saturday. "Lots of guards on motorbikes closed in on us and beat us brutally," one protester said. "As we were running away the Basiji [militia] were waiting in side alleys with batons, but people opened their doors to us trapped in alleys." Supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, a defeated reformist candidate, had planned to stage a rally in the city's Revolutionary Square, but arrived to find their way blocked by police. A witness told Al Jazeera that police were turning people away. "The roads were pretty much blocked by the militia, they were out with retractable metal batons. It looked like they were very frantically trying to keep people from the area," he said. '

TIME AND DATE .COM
"The World Clock - Time Zones"
Tehran is 4 1/2 hours ahead of London, England. As of this moment, it is 2:30pm/ 14:30 SAT 20 JUNE 2009 in Iran.

' Current time zone offset: UTC/GMT +4:30 hours '

WIKIPEDIA: HISTORY OF IRAN
"United States and the Shah"
Those who fail to learn from history are Republicans.

' In 1951 Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq received the vote required from the parliament to nationalize the British-owned oil industry, in a situation known as the Abadan Crisis. Despite British pressure, including an economic blockade, the nationalization continued. Mossadegh was briefly removed from power in 1952 but was quickly re-appointed by the shah, due to a popular uprising in support of the premier and he, in turn, forced the Shah into a brief exile in August 1953 after a failed military coup by Imperial Guard Colonel Nematollah Nassiri. Shortly thereafter on August 19 a successful coup was headed by retired army general Fazlollah Zahedi, organized by the American (CIA) with the active support of the British (MI6) (known as Operation Ajax). The coup — with a black propaganda campaign designed to turn the population against Mossadegh — forced Mossadegh from office, and was remembered with anger by Iranians. Mossadegh was arrested and tried for treason. Found guilty, his sentence reduced to house arest on his family estate while his foreign minister, Hossein Fatemi, executed). Zahedi succeeded him as prime minister, and suppressed opposition to the Shah, specifically the National Front and Communist Tudeh Party. Iran was ruled as an autocracy under the shah with American support from that time until the revolution. The Iranian entered into agreement with an international consortium of foreign companies which ran the Iranian oil facilities for the next 25 years spitting profits fifty-fifty with Iran but not allowing Iran to audit their accounts or have members on their board of directors. In 1957 martial law was ended after 16 years and Iran became closer to the West, joining the Baghdad Pact and receiving military and economic aid from the US. In 1961, Iran initiated a series of economic, social, agrarian and administrative reforms to modernize the country that became known as the Shah's White Revolution. '

TIME MAGAZINE
"Who's Who in Iran's Political System"

' Despite all the bad-mouthing Iran gets from the West, the Islamic Republic is more democratic than most other nations in the Middle East — that's why millions of Iranians are on the streets demanding that their votes be counted. Ayatullah Khomeini's 1979 Islamic revolution produced a hybrid political system combining the principle of giving the clergy ultimate executive authority with holding democratic elections — albeit from lists of candidates restricted by the clerics to those deemed loyal to the principles of the revolution — for parliament and the presidency. The result was a regime comprising competing factions and personalities, with its own version of checks and balances by distributing power across a variety of different institutions, from structures of government to unelected councils of clerics. Even the Supreme Leader, who holds ultimate executive power, is appointed by a clerical body — the 86-member Assembly of Experts — which also has the power to remove him. The conflict in Iran thus far has been not so much a wholesale revolt of the masses against the system, as it is a complex struggle for power within Iran's ruling establishment, and a battle over the country's direction. Here's a Who's Who of the players that may determine Iran's future in the unfolding drama. '

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THE TERRORISTS OF WALL STREET

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BIG FINANCE HOLDS A GOLDEN GUN TO AMERICA'S HEAD OF STATE

OBAMA CHICKENS OUT IN RUSSIAN ROULETTE

"Give Us Your Money Unconditionally Or We'll KILL Your Economy!!!"

Union contracts affecting millions can be shredded, ignored or rewritten without any difficulty. A few individual Wall Street executives' contracts cannot be touched. The union workers did no wrong. But they're getting screwed anyway. The Wall Streeters wrecked the economy while stealing billions. And now you and I are going to pay them billions more in bonuses for committing those crimes. Why?

Why? What are you, stupid? It's capitalism, baby! Free enterprise! This ain't no freakin' workers' paradise, you tool! What did you THINK that meant? Did you think you were one of the winners? BWAHAWHAHAHAH!!! Were you born with a membership in an exclusive country club? A seat on the New York Stock Exchange or the Chicago Board of Trade? An ancestor in the White House or the Senate? No? Well, then, you're nobody, nothing, nowhere, man. This game isn't being played for you. It's being played ON you.

See, the autoworkers and their sweaty ilk have no choice but to allow the abrogation of their own contracts. It's either that or die, financially. The whole industry could vanish overnight in this country, and all those working stiffs could then be homeless in a matter of weeks. That's the system they worked and fought and died for over the years, in the factories and in the many many wars of empire. That's the system they are going to have to pay for now. They're willing to do it because they see the need, and they care about our country, and their way of life, which they would lose by not giving in to this extortion. They're doing it because they have no choice. They're Americans [Read: "SUCKERS"].

Wall Street, on the other hand, already has enough of our money to pull up stakes and move to China or Brazil or Timbuktu and start a new economic empire there. Or, they could just sit it out, picking up big bloody chunks of what's left of this country for pennies on the dollar, after they pull their own moneylending temples down around them. It's win-win for them. If the American taxpayer doesn't give them everything they want, they just finish destroying the economy, and scarf up the pieces. Unlike the millions of blue-collar workers, Wall Streeters have the leverage to destroy the whole country, and still benefit by it. But their very, very good friends in Washington would never call them on that. They don't have the balls. And it would be rude for our "leaders" to speak to their corporate masters in such disrespectful tones.

See, the go-along to get along crowd in DC has been helping corporations take over the country for years now, shaping and reshaping our laws and institutions to serve corporate interests, not citizens'. In exchange, our glorious figureheads never had to work at a real job or worry about money, except at campaign time, when they had to bust their asses just kissing corporate sh*tholes. That's how the system really works, schmuck. You thought it was working for you, because you were so enmeshed in it. And you thought, "Oh, well, I got a house and a car out of it. My kids get to go to college. I have health insurance at work. I'll be able to retire at 50 or 60. It's a wonderful life." But now your job looks a little shaky. You may not be able to make your house and car payments much longer. If you lose your job, you'll lose your health insurance. You may even have to pull the kids out of college. There goes their middle-class status. And retirement? Well, that's already gone. It's almost as if you were what some people used to call a "n*gger." You know, a second-class citizen. A completely powerless person. A slave, a serf, a peasant, a bum. Poor, homeless, unemployed. How could this have happened to a nice "middle-class" white boy or girl like you? You, a veteran, a taxpayer, a property-owner, a person with a job or a business? A WHITE GUY!!!

What you failed to realize all along was that, if you weren't born with that membership in the exclusive country club, etc, you were a "n*gger." You were fooled by your own skin color. You came to believe your own bullsh*t: That you were the Master or Mistress of all that junk that you owe so much money on; and that it all made you SOMEBODY. Well, how's that workin' out for ya?

There was still time to reverse all this, last year. Back in November, maybe you thought you did reverse all this. But then your buddy Obama started appointing Bushies and Clintonistas, Wall Streeters and torturers to all of his highest posts. Still, you didn't catch on. You were still thinking that you mattered, somehow; that your vote had actually counted for something; all we had to do was be patient and trust in big O and wait, Change was coming. How's that "change" workin' out for ya?

This year we're all faced with another kind of change, and a much starker set of choices. We can eat corporate sh*t, or we can revolt. I mean, we obviously don't have the balls to pick up a gun and slaughter our way down Wall Street or up Capitol Hill. That would be wrong. That would be un-American. We would, could and should never do that. If only because our own military and police forces would cut us down without mercy, using bullets we paid for. So our corporate masters and their tame talking heads in the media and in the government all know that they can pretty much do anything they want to us. We're their bitches. Unless we rise up peacefully and just stop supporting them. Stop working, consuming, tax-paying, voting, serving in the military, going to school, playing their game. National strike, that's one thing we could do. Bring the game to a grinding halt. But who's going to organize that? And who's going to participate?

Because, you know, we never participate in anything. We don't go to meetings or run for office or organize movements. We just passively sit and wait for somebody else to do everything for us. And that's what we're doing now. Instead of picking up a gun or an axe or a scythe like some third-world peasants, instead of shutting down the country and marching in the streets like citizens of a real democracy, we just sit drooling in front of the daily corporate propaganda show on the tee-vee, and let 'em f*ck our country into submission, and us along with it. Because we don't have the balls to put our own lives and lifestyles on the line. So I guess we deserve to play Russian roulette, and lose. Even if there never was a chance we could win. Suckers.

See, the French shut down their country when the rich pull this sh*t over there. Back in the day, they even chopped the bastards heads off. That'll get their attention! Bad French! Bad! But the French have real political Parties, Left, Right and Center. They have real unions. They know how to organize and work together, how to take effective action and defend their own interests. Maybe they're not "surrender monkeys" after all. Maybe we are.
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THE INDICTMENT OF THE PRESIDENTS

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OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

GEORGE W. BUSH

And Barack H. Obama, If He Continues To Follow The Same Course As Bush

COUNTS:

1. Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. [not by "Divine Right" or "Executive Fiat"]

2. Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it. [and the "Strong Unitary Executive"]

3. When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. [by action in law and by elections]

4. A history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. [see below]

5. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. ["Executive Privilege"]

6. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. [no Rule of Law; above the Law]

7. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. ["National Security"]

8. For protecting [the Military] by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants. [Military Courts]

9. For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury. [Military tribunals]

10. For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences. [extraordinary rendition]

11. For abolishing the free System of American Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies. [Guantanamo]

12. For abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments. [Patriot Acts]

13. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. [Blackwater]


If any of this seems unlawful, radical, "left-wing," unAmerican, strange or foreign, you need to read the United States Declaration of Independence, issued 4 July 1776. It's a keeper. Let no President forget it.


U.S. HISTORY.ORG
"IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776, The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America"
The original writ.

' When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. '

GOOGLE NEWS
"Some cases where Obama's policies are like Bush's"
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme f**king chose.

' WHITE HOUSE RECORDS The Obama administration sided with Bush in trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails from the Bush years, reasoning that plenty had already been spent and done to recover the messages. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government, the private group that sued, called it "an incredibly cynical and narrow view" of the government's legal obligations. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs countered that the administration still was pursuing "a greater amount of transparency than Washington has seen." ENEMY COMBATANTS The administration filed a legal brief that echoed Bush in maintaining that detainees in Afghanistan have no constitutional rights and arguing that enemy combatants held at Bagram Airfield cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their detention. The brief said that if the Bagram detainees got access to U.S. courts, it would allow all foreigners captured by the United States in conflicts worldwide to do the same. Human rights lawyer Tina Monshipour Foster said she had "expected better" from the Obama administration. A Justice Department spokesman said the ruling spoke for itself. STATE SECRETS Even as Obama officials promised a thorough review of its use of state secrets protections, government lawyers continued to invoke the state secrets law in a federal appeals court in San Francisco. That case involves a suit over the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, in which U.S. operatives seized foreign suspects and handed them over to other countries for questioning. Some former prisoners subjected to the process contend they were tortured. Proving that in court has been difficult, as evidence they have sought to corroborate their claims has been protected by the president's state secrets privilege. '

MEDIA MOUSE.ORG
"Headlines: Obama Continues Bush Policy on Afghanistan Detainees; US Working with Pakistan's Military"
If Obama assumes responsibility for Bush's crimes, and continues them, they should both go to jail.

' Obama Backs Bush Policy on Bagram Detainees: The Obama administration has embraced another key argument of former President Bush"s counterterrorism policy. In a court filing on Friday, the Justice Department told a federal judge that prisoners held at the U.S. Air Force base at Bagram in Afghanistan have no legal rights to challenge their imprisonment. Human rights groups say they are becoming increasingly concerned that the use of extra-judicial methods in Afghanistan could be extended under the new U.S. administration. Bagram air base is about to undergo a $60 million expansion to provide enough space to house five times as many prisoners as remain at Guantanamo. Attorney General Eric Holder To Visit Guantanamo: Attorney General Eric Holder is heading to Guantanamo today for the first time since he took office. Holder told reporters he wants to talk to officials there about detention and interrogation techniques. This comes as the Pentagon is claiming in a new report that the prison complies with the Geneva Conventions, a position disputed by many human rights groups. '

DEMOCRACY NOW
"Obama Continues Bush Policy of Deadly Air Strikes in Pakistan"
War Number Three, coming up!

' In Pakistan, outrage continues to mount over a US military attack approved by President Obama. Last Friday, unmanned US Predator drones fired missiles at houses in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA, killing as many as twenty-two people, including at least three children. '

ALTERNET.ORG
"Obama Will Not 'Rule Out' Private Security Contractors in Iraq"
Plausible deniability, unaccountable "off-the-shelf" private security firms, beyond the rule of law.

' A senior foreign policy adviser to leading Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has told The Nation that if elected Obama will not "rule out" using private security companies like Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq. The adviser also said that Obama does not plan to sign on to legislation that seeks to ban the use of these forces in US war zones by January 2009, when a new President will be sworn in. Obama's campaign says that instead he will focus on bringing accountability to these forces while increasing funding for the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the agency that employs Blackwater and other private security contractors. (Hillary Clinton's staff did not respond to repeated requests for an interview or a statement on this issue.) '

WIKIPEDIA
"Unitary executive theory"
Here's the justification for a new monarchy in America.

' The unitary executive theory is a theory of American constitutional law holding that the President controls the entire executive branch. The doctrine stems from Article Two of the United States Constitution, which vests "the executive power" of the United States in the president. Although that general principle is widely accepted, there is disagreement about the strength and scope of the doctrine. It can be said that some favor a "strongly unitary" executive, while others favor a "weakly unitary" executive. The former group argue, for example, that Congress's power to interfere with intra-executive decisionmaking (such as firing executive branch officials) is limited, and that the president can control policymaking by all executive agencies within the limits set for those agencies by Congress. Still others agree that the Constitution requires a unitary executive, but believe this is a bad thing, and propose its abolition by constitutional amendment. The federal executive branch is currently very different from many state governments, where the attorney general and other executive officers may be elected separately from the state's governor. '

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THE PRESIDENT HAS BEEN SHOD!

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SECRET SERVICE FAILS AGAIN. AND AGAIN. ACCIDENT? OR DESIGN?

YOUTUBE: CNN
"[Updated] Bush Shoe Incident in Iraq {CNN}"
Yeah. Now the shoe's on the OTHER foot. Hey, babe, if the shoe fits, wear it! Walk a mile in the other guys shoes, butthead.


PERHAPS THE SECRET SERVICE AGENTS WERE WAITING FOR THE OTHER SHOE TO DROP

YOUTUBE: ABC NEWS
"Bad Sushi"
Like father, like son: Always a great exit.



Government Offers "Lone Shoeman" Theory: Where Have We Heard This Before?

Are we to believe that there was only one shoeman, aiming at our Commander-In-Chief? Isn't it OBVIOUS that there MUST have been a second shoeman? Maybe he never shoed, but he was there, all right, ready to finish off the POTUS with a final shoe to the head at point-blank range. Only the failure of the first two shoes kept him from carrying out his part in this vast conspiracy. The question is, where was the Secret Service?

Lincoln had no Secret Service. Garfield (not the cat) and McKinley didn't either. Kennedy was the first President assassinated on their watch. Jackson, Roosevelt, Truman, Ford and Reagan survived assassination attempts. Jackson was trying to abolish the first Federal bank when his Whig enemies sent crazed loser Richard Lawrence after him. He failed, and the Bank of the United States was abolished, due to the excise it tax it levied on moonshine, an intoxicant that was regarded by Jackson as essential to the smooth functioning of the slave-owning South. (No, really!) The deal that originally established the bank also moved the Capital, er, Capitol from the North, Philadelphia, to the South, Washington. The Bank, however, remained in Philly, even after it was reconstituted to deal with the financial problems caused by the War of 1812, which also made Jackson a national hero, ironically.

The Second Bank of the United States nearly collapsed due to unwise loans to speculators in real estate. Sound familiar? The Bank had become a sort of early Fannie Mae. Squabbles between political Parties over the financial crisis prevented a bail-out, and panics and depression ensued. The Second Bank would soon die. However, litigation over the Bank would result in the decision that made Federal laws trump State laws (McCullogh vs. Maryland). "States Rights" lost. It was the beginning of the Civil War. The first shoe was thrown at Jackson, and missed. But more shoes were coming.

The next President to be shod was Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was famous for going barefoot even in the snow, and in the House of Representatives. He regarded shoes as weapons of mass destruction, and a potential threat to his own existence, due to a dream he had as a child wherein he was killed by a boot. His dream proved prophetic: Rabid Southerner John Wilkes Boot [!] had planned to kidnap Lincoln and hold him until he released all Confederate POW's, like John McCain. Then Lincoln decided to give African-Americans the vote, which Boot [!] realized would lead, inevitably, to a black President. He resolved to kill Lincoln. He succeeded, but failed in his aim of overthrowing the Union government. Boot [!] was shot by a Union soldier named Boston (which city was later the point of origin of two of the four 9/11 flights), and everyone connected to him was Gitmo'd. The prime suspects were tried by a military tribunal, which was protested. The Supreme Court subsequently banned military tribunals where civil courts still functioned (ex parte Milligan). This led to the use of the actual Gitmo where no such courts exist today.

The military tribunal in the Lincoln assassination found all seven defendants guilty, and sentenced three to life imprisonment, and four to hanging. One was female, Mary Surratt. She was the first woman ever executed by the Federal government. It was the beginning of modern feminism, the judicial recognition of women as equal to men in the eyes of the law (at least for hanging purposes), though it is rarely celebrated today. The conspirators also tried to kill Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Seward, who later purchased Alaska, from which Governor Sarah Palin can now see Russia, the seller. Governor Palin, who became the first woman to run surreptitiously for President, despite the transparent glass ceiling, went on to lose the election of 2008, due partly to her love of expensive footwear. (She was not hung. Yet.) We all know how powerful women's obsession with shoes is. [cf Imelda Marcos; also "Sex In The City," Manolo's, ibid.] I'm getting to the link to Bush' attempted asshoessination. Really.

Next to be shoed came James Abram Garfield, a man of Firsts. He was the first President to be subjected to a metal detector, but only after he himself was shot. He was not required to remove his shoes. His ancestor, John Billington, came over on the Mayflower, and distinguished himself by becoming the first Englishman sentenced to hang in the New World, for shooting a fellow colonist, and not whilst hunting. Garfield was the first and, so far, the only sitting member of the House of Representatives ever to be elected President. He was also an attorney for the Confederate defendants in the ex parte Milligan case that forbade military tribunals in US jurisdictions.

Garfield received stock at "insider" prices in exchange for his voting participation as a Congressman in the stock-swindle involved in the Credit Mobilier scandal, a financial meltdown in the Gilded Age of the 1870's, similar to today's financial mess, in that it involved giving private financial corporations direct access to the US Treasury, saddling the taxpayers with all of the company's obligations, but none of the profits. Even as the enterprise was failing, Congress continued to put money into it, at the behest of principals in the enterprise such as Congressman Garfield.

Garfield was the only actual ordained minister to ever preach from the White House, perhaps the inventor of Republican religious hypocricy. He was also the Ohio Republican member of the electoral commission that awarded Florida's electoral college votes and the Presidency to fellow Ohio Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, who lost the popular vote in the disputed election of 1878, making Garfield the Katherine Harris of his day. Ohio Republicans subsequently rewarded Garfield with a Senate seat involuntarily vacated by a Democrat, making him the first Senator to become President, also, shortly thereafter.

As President, Garfield fought and defeated the principle of Senatorial privilege, beginning the erosion of the power of the Legislative Branch in favor of an Imperial Presidency. Garfield authored an unique proof of the Pythagorean Theorem whilst in Congress, a rare achievement in a famously innumerate body. Pythagoras was half Phoenician (Lebanese), and studied in Egypt. Garfield was shod to death shortly thereafter, in the presence of Lincoln's son, Todd. Todd was not Gitmo'd. Both of his shoes were found still on his feet. Garfield died in Long Branch, New Jersey, home State of the Soprano's. The Soprano's are Sicilians. Sicily was once controlled by Arabs. Both people wore sandals. Sandals are a type of shoes. There may be a Mafia connection, as with JFK. (Check with Oliver Stone.) Garfield has a rest stop on the NJ Turnpike named after him. The men's room there is frequented by foot-fetishists, and State Troopers. The troopers may have let Senator Larry Craig off with a warning after an "incident" there involving his feet, which were shod. Allegedly. This is referred to as "sodomy." Sodom is a town in Israel. See the connections? Try taking some LSD.

McKinley was next. Despite his Imperial precautionary measure of annexing Hawaii, where no one even wears shoes, he was assassinated by a poorly-shod anarchist from his native Ohio. The Secret Service, though it was established under President Lincoln, did not begin trying to protect Presidents until after McKinley was assassinated. Still, they were undoubtedly nearby, as the largest of only four Federal police forces in existence at the time. Perhaps they were enjoying the newfangled confection known as dough-knots at the Buffalo Pan American Exposition, or shopping for shoes. McKinley may have been preoccupied with foreign adventures and expanding the American Empire overseas.

The White House Police, not the Secret Service, did their duty on behalf of President Truman. Several officers were shot by Puerto Rican nationalists, who were fighting to end what they saw as the unlawful occupation of Puerto Rico by the United States. They started a gun-battle outside of Blair House, the guest-house across the street from the White House, which was under renovation at the time. Private Leslie Coffelt was shot and returned fire, killing one of the assassins after being mortally wounded by them. He is the only Presidential security officer ever killed in the course of an assassination attempt upon the President. He always wore big heavy shoes, as did President Truman. They were a band of shoemen.

John F. Kennedy was the next President to be fired upon. He was killed. The Secret Service were present. Shoes were present. The connection is obvious, but we are afraid to say any more.

Gerald Ford was saved from assassination twice in one month, not by the Secret Service, but by pure dumb luck. Ford, like George W. Bush was an idiot. Both wore shoes on the days of their attempted asshoessinations. Coincidence? I think not. Manson family member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromm failed to chamber a round before firing at Ford, and missed her chance at killing a President. Two weeks later, FBI stooge Sarah Jane Moore fired but missed, thanks to the quick reaction of a civilian bystander, disabled ex-Marine Oliver Sipple. The Secret Service missed both shooters. Now they realize the full effects of shoe-addiction, and its' commonality among women. All women are suspects, today. Most are shooed away, except for young interns with round heels.

Despite all the warnings, a man in shoes was allowed close enough to President Reagan to shoot at him. The bullet ricocheted off Reagan's limo and hit him in the side, entering his lung. Secret Service Agent Jerry Parr hustled Reagan into the limo. Agents Tom Delehanty and Tim McCarthy were shot while throwing themselves in front of the President. White House Press Secretary Jim Brady was grievously wounded, and suffers from his wounds to this day. Reagan went on to commit numerous crimes, and to escape with impunity. And men in shoes are still allowed to approach POTUS. Only the very, very, very Secret Service knows why.

Why?

The answer is obvious: The Secret Service cannot do their job as long as people are allowed to wear shoes. Every successful Presidential assassin has worn shoes. The Secret Service should have seen the shoe threat long ago. They must find ways to counter it. Until then, if you want to approach the President of the United States of America, you simply must remove your shoes, as at the airport these days, or in any oriental despotism. Maybe put them in a locker. Like in a bowling alley. But remember: Shoes don't kill people. People kill people. Even shoeless people can still be carrying a gun. Think about it, Secret Service. Duh. Maybe you need some training from Thom McAnn, or Nobel Prize winner Doc Martins.
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FOTO-FUNNIES FOR THE HOLLY-JOLLY SEASON

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AND NOT-SO-FUNNIES

VIEWS OF THE NEWS TO CHASE AWAY THE BLUES

Sometimes, A Word Is Worth A Thousand Pictures. Or Not.


YAHOO NEWS
"Homeless dog tries to save dog hit by car in Chile"
"I'm Bat Dog. No relation to Rodney."




YAHOO NEWS
"In lean times, SoCal residents trade guns for food"
Guns. It's what for dinner.




OMB WATCH
"White House Says "No Surprises" in Last-Minute Rules"
Redneck rules! Guns & oil drilling in National Parks!! YEEEE-HAW!!!



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DUBYA TO COUNTRY: DROP DEAD

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AFTER CLEANING OUT TAXPAYERS BANK ACCOUNTS, GOP HEADS FOR THE HILLS

WITH A HEARTY HIGH-YO SILVER, YOU SCHMUCKS!!! BWA-HA-HA!!!



Most Corrupt, Incompetent U.S. Administration In History Steals The Silver, Leaves Town

After allowing the gambling credit markets to wreck the economy, Dubya showered money on them. Tax money. The money was supposed to go to you, the taxpayer, in the form of credit and salaries. Instead it went for executive bonuses, shareholder dividends, and corporate take-overs. Not one cent went to free up credit markets, make loans, save jobs or housing. SEVEN HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS. When the weak, pusillanimous Congress objected, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said "F*CK YOU!" In economists language. I'm just translatin' for ya.

When Congress begged for their money back, I mean OUR money back to help save three million auto-industry connected jobs, Paulson said "NO WAY!" Can't spare $25 billion of that $700 billion. SCREW American industry. Let Japan & Germany take over. Bankers need all the money, OUR money, for themselves. And we can't have a PENNY of it back. Ever.

That there is what we call SOCIALISM FOR THE RICH. No, you can't have any. It's ONLY for the rich. You're too STUPID for socialism. If you were smart, you'd be rich, right? And a criminal. But then you'd just change the laws, if you were rich, and WE'D be the criminals if we tried to stop you, there, Richie Rich. So, let's see how Obama's going to "change" this.
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SUPREME COURT SAYS MILITARY ABOVE LAW

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ADMIRALS & GENERALS NOW RULE WITHOUT CHECKS & BALANCES



SOLDIERS HAVE NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS ARE IRRELEVANT, NO LAWS IN WAR

Judges Abdicate Responsibility Of Judicial Branch; Military Takes Up Slack

We might as well send those useless crypto-Nazi Supreme Court corporate shills home. They no longer have any legitimate function. The idiot Republicans have turned back the clock on our Courts to the 1800's. They live to strip away our most basic rights. They serve only as a rubber stamp for the powers that be. They justify and legally sanctify every heinous act of even a Bush Administration, regardless of the consequences.

This is the sort of thinking that created Guantanamo. And the Bastille. And Auschwitz: "National Security" trumps all other concerns, the Commander-In-Chief is above the rule of law, the military can do anything it wants without justification. There is a self-correcting mechanism. It's called "the Judgement of History." (See: "Hitler;" "Stalin;" "Tojo;" "Mao") Or just, "Morals." "Ethics." "Principles." Words to that effect.

Eh, the law is just words, after all. We don't have to take them seriously. Not if we have enough guns. Of course, we have to be in the military, first. Then we can do anything, and use "National Security" as a catch-all excuse. It's like being invulnerable, legally. It's what they had in communist Russia and China, and Fascist Germany and Japan. It's the banana in banana republic. It means that some people are on a higher plane than the rest of us. And the rest of us better watch out.

Of course, if human life is meaningless, why should other species be safe from our military? Why should it matter if a species is ancient, or intelligent, or endangered? If they're in the way of the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard or the Post Office, for that matter, it's OK to exterminate them. Even if we could just as easily not do so. Even if their extinction will not advance national security one inch. After all, that's a decision left solely up to our military commanders. They're the best judges of all matters, from environmental science to comparative religion, including their own conduct, according to SCOTUS. Even judges don't get to judge themselves. But Admirals and Generals do. Welcome to the new America, the one ruled by violent men in tin hats.


WIRED NEWS
"Supreme Court: National Security Trumps Whales, Environmental Law"
It's official: We now live in a National Security State.

' The NRDC produced graphic evidence of whales beaching themselves in distress, their brains and ears bleeding, or suffering from "the bends" — an affliction known to deep-sea divers who surface too quickly. Sonar appeared to have disoriented the whales, which rely on sound to navigate, in much the way that unrelenting and blinding light might make life difficult for people. On it went to the Supreme Court, where the Navy won by a 5-to-4 margin. Critically, the court didn't address environmental concerns: It ruled that federal courts had abused their discretion in ordering the Navy to stop sonar training, or at least finding a better place to do it. Formally dissenting from the ruling were Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter. All the Navy had to do, they argued, is draft an environmental impact statement, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act — but the Navy didn't bother, and then called in the President to exempt them from the law, even though he had no legal standing to do so. Even if the Navy wouldn't admit in court to hurting whales, wrote Ginsburg and Souter, their own Environmental Assessment — a less-formal version of an environmental impact statement — predicted that sonar training exercises would drive entire whale populations mad. "This likely harm," wrote the justices, "cannot be lightly dismissed.... There is no doubt that the training exercises serve critical interests. But those interests do not authorize the Navy to violate a statutory command." '

TALKING POINTS MEMO.COM
"Defying Subpoena, DoD Orders Sexual Assault Program Chief Not To Testify Before Congress"
No Sir, No Sir!

' The Pentagon defied a Congressional subpoena yesterday by refusing to let the head of its sexual assault program testify at an oversight hearing about sexual assault in the military. An advocate for military victims of sexual assault tells TPMmuckraker that Whitley's office is under-resourced and reflects the Pentagon's lack of attention to sexual assault. '

YAHOO NEWS
"US general urges Obama to keep missile defense"
Shit-canned General gives new President his orders.

' The Air Force general who runs the Pentagon's missile defense projects said that American interests would be "severely hurt" if President-elect Obama decided to halt plans developed by the Bush administration to install missile interceptors in Eastern Europe. Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering III, director of the Missile Defense Agency, told a group of reporters Wednesday that he is awaiting word from Obama's transition team on their interest in receiving briefings. Obering, who is leaving his post next week after more than four years in charge, said in the interview that his office has pulled together information for a presentation to the Obama team, if asked. "What we have discovered is that a lot of the folks that have not been in this administration seem to be dated, in terms of the program," he said. "They are kind of calibrated back in the 2000 time frame and we have come a hell of a long way since 2000. Our primary objective is going to be just, frankly, educating them on what we have accomplished, what we have been able to do and why we have confidence in what we are doing." Asked whether he meant that Obama or his advisers had an outdated view of missile defense, Obering said he was speaking more generally about people who have not closely followed developments in this highly technical field. '

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