Imperialism

By Dave Lindorff

So much for economic “green shoots.”

The Obama administration and the Federal Reserve, along with the servile corporate media, have been quick to grasp at and trumpet every little suggestion that things might be improving, as they did when the Labor Dept. announced last week that new unemployment claims had dropped to “just” 434,000, from a high of 684,000 in the week ended March 28 or last year.

Or when the Commerce Dept. reported last month that November housing starts had risen by 8.9% compared to the prior month.

By Dave Lindorff

The Taliban suicide attack that killed a group of CIA agents in Afghanistan on a base that was directing US drone aircraft used to attack Taliban leaders was big news in the US over the past week, with the airwaves and front pages filled with sympathetic stories referring to the fact that the female station chief, who was among those killed, was the “mother of three children.”

By Dave Lindorff

You know, the year 2009 started out kind of nicely. We watched Barack Obama take the oath of office, serenaded by the awesome Aretha Franklin (wearing her awesome hat), after first hearing Pete Seeger sing the real Woody Guthrie verses to "This Land Is Your Land" on the steps of the Lincoln Monument.

By Dave Lindorff (with apologies to Clement Clark Moore)

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the land
Not a creature was stirring in Afghanistan.
The bedrooms were bunkered with piles of hard stones
To protect from attacks by the Predator drones.
The children were huddled, afraid, in their beds
While visions of night raiders danced in their heads.

A few days ago, I mentioned a line from an old science teacher: "If you can't measure it, it doesn't exist."

In what passes for corporate journalism in American, this concept has taken the form of, "If we don't report on it, it didn't happen."

That certainly was the case for the emergency protest organized by a coalition of anti-war organizations under the banner EndUSWars.org, which saw over 1000 people gather on short notice in the bitter cold on Lafayette Park opposite the White House to protest President Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan on Saturday, Dec. 12.

By Dave LIndorff

There are so many things wrong with Obama’s “New and Improved”
Afghanistan War that it’s hard to know where to begin, but I guess the
place to start is with his premise.

If America needs to be fighting in Afghanistan because Al Qaeda
planned and launched the 9-11 attacks from there back in 2001, as the
president claimed in his lackluster address to the cadets at West Point
last week, then we would have to assume either that Al Qaeda is still
there, or that if we were not there fighting, that Al Qaeda would be
back to plan more attacks.

By Dave Lindorff

Nobody in the corporate media mentions it, but the war in
Afghanistan which President Barack Obama just ramped up by 50% this
year, with the dispatch, first of 17,000 troops last spring and now
with another 30,000 troops, to begin deployment on Christmas, is being
fought on the shaky legal basis of a hastily passed Authorization for
the Use of Military Force (AUMF) voted by Congress back in October
2001, more than three years before Obama was even elected to the Senate.

That AUMF was the handiwork of President George W. Bush and Vice
President Dick Cheney, and it was rammed through House and Senate with
almost no debate in the wake of the 9-11 attacks and then used to
justify most of the subsequent assaults on the Constitution and Bill of
Rights that are still haunting America and the world today.

By Dave LIndorff

Merry Xmas Jarheads!! The Man of Peace, Nobel Laureate-to-be
President Barack Obama, your latest commander-in-chief, is going to be
shipping you out as a holiday gift to the people of Afghanistan.

You will be delivering bullets and bombs, with my name and the name
of other American taxpayers on them, to the long-suffering people of
Afghanistan by December 25, according to press reports ahead of the Mr.
Hope and Change’s planned nationwide speech tonight.

By Dave Lindorff

If you are sitting in class taking a test, and you’ve chosen to sit
amongst your bone-headed, slacker friends, don’t turn to them for help
when you can’t figure out of any of the answers. They may all tell you
the same thing, but they’ll all be wrong.