Iraq Permanent Bases

Clinton and Obama: The Worst and Best Thing to Happen to the Democratic Party in Years

dlindorff — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:20:06 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Bill Clinton was the worst thing to happen to the Democratic Party
and to progressives since that racist warmonger Woodrow Wilson won the
presidency and dragged the US into the utterly pointless and incredibly
bloody First World War.

Clinton, by posing as a progressive, confused and undermined, and
ultimately betrayed the liberal/progressive wing of the party,
shattering what was left of the New Deal coalition and leaving the
American left adrift and riven by the conflict between those who
thought the Democratic Party was the only viable vehicle for
progressive reform and those who thought it was hopelessly in the grip
of corporate interests.

Barack Obama offers the hope of bringing that era of debilitating confusion to an end.

Not because he is the Great Black Hope of progressives, but because
he has taken the concept of selling out to corporate interests and
compromising with Republicans to such remarkable heights that
progressives hopefully can no longer be confused about the
irretrievably corrupted nature of the Democratic Party.

On virtually every issue of importance, President Obama has sided with corporate interests and the wealthy.

On the issue of war and peace, he has sided with the
military-industrial complex, with a policy of permanent occupation of
Iraq and endless war in Afghanistan, as well as continued funding of
the country’s colossal armory of death, from strategic missiles and
submarines to aircraft-carrier-group armadas to high-tech fighter
squadrons and space weaponry.

On civil liberties, he has sided with the police state, supporting
continuation of the Bush/Cheney administration’s insidious National
Security Agency spying program, defended military spying within the US,
and refused to prosecute obvious abuses by the prior administration.

On torture, the Obama administration is continuing the imprisonment
and torture of captives in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world
at Bagram Air Base and, probably, at other secret sites, and instead of
closing Guantanamo as promised, is looking into transferring that
hellhole of torture and abuse to one or several sites in the mainland
US.

Health care reform has become a sad joke, with the emerging
“reform” bill looking for all the world like the Rube Goldberg creation
of the Clinton era that properly went down in flames. Instead of taking
on the insurance industry, the hospital companies and the
pharmaceutical industry and other parts of the profit-making
medical-industrial complex, Obama cut deals with all of them behind
closed doors, assuring that their profits would be left untouched, and
that they could essentially write their own “reform” bill through the
offices of bought-and-paid members of Congress like Senator Max Baucus.
Obama and his congressional allies carefully kept any discussion of the
single-payer idea—essentially Medicare for all, and the approach that
even Obama himself admits would be cheaper and more universal—out of
sight and off the table.

Climate change action, too, has been sold out, with Obama adopting
the approach favored by the energy industry—“cap and trade.” That
concept is a gold mine for Wall Street trading firms, which will be
doing trades next in pollution credits instead of subprime mortgages,
and for energy companies which will get free credits to sell, courtesy
of the taxpayer. And because it’s a system so easy to game, it will do
nothing or next to nothing to reduce greenhouse gases.

Finally, there’s economy and banking reform. Here Obama didn’t even
make a pretense of taking a progressive approach. There is a stimulus
program, but half of it was in the form of tax cuts—token for the poor
and middle class and significant for the rich and for businesses, and
half in the form of federal grants, often for unneeded projects like
roads and road repair which go to some of the higher paid members of
the working class, leaving the poor and the ununionized with no job
help. Meanwhile, bankers were the recipients of trillions of dollars in
bailout assistance, while nothing was done to break up the huge
mega-bank holding companies that brought on the financial and economic
crisis in the first place. Instead of picking economic advisers and
bank regulators from the many talented system critics like Nobelists
Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, Obama picked veterans of the
Bush/Cheney administration, and Wall Street shills like Larry Summers
and Timothy Geithner.

Last fall, I and many progressives urged voters to elect Obama, not
because we thought he was a progressive, but because we hoped that his
background—community organizer, raised by a single mother, experience
living in a third world country (Indonesia), multi-racial—would lead
him to make at least some right decisions. We, or certainly I, hoped
too that the energized young and working class electorate that came out
for him in the fall would continue to press him aggressively to do the
right thing on war, environment, civil liberties and the economy.

I was wrong on the first count: Obama has been a corporatist
through and through on all the major issues that matter. And I was
wrong on the second. Most of the left in the US, from the labor
movement to the environmentalist movement to the anti-war movement, has
to date remained glumly quiescent as Obama has sold them out on each of
their key issues.

But here is the silver lining: The sell-out this time is so much
more blatant, and so much more serious, than it was with Clinton, and
for all the talk about Obama’s ability to string words together, he is
so much less of a charismatic figure than the gregarious Bill Clinton,
that he is unlikely to hang on to the ardent support that propelled him
to his victory last November. The disappointment and sense of betrayal
among progressives this time is palpable, especially because, while
Clinton, by 1994, had the excuse that he was working with a Republican,
or partially Republican Congress, Obama has solid control of both
houses, but refuses to use it. If, as I expect, the recession continues
to deepen, with more and more people losing jobs and homes, if, as I
predict, health care continues to be unaffordable and inaccessible, if,
as I know will happen, evidence of deadly climate change continues to
pile up, and if, as I am equally certain, Iraq explodes and the war in
Afghanistan continue to worsen, the left is going to see Obama and the
Democrats in Congress as the failures and corrupt frauds they are, and
will abandon them.

That leaves the question of what to do, and where those frustrated progressives will turn.

I don’t claim to have the answer to that. Clearly the labor movement
needs to recognize that hitching its fortunes to the Democratic Party
has been and will continue to be a dismal failure. It needs to pull all
its political money back and only support those who are 100% allies in
the struggle for the rights of workers. No money for the party as a
whole. It should also go back to the pioneering work of people like the
late Tony Mazzocchi of the Oil and Chemical and Atomic Workers Union,
who before his death was tirelessly working to establish an American
labor party.

Other third parties on the left need to drop their individual
agendas and work towards unity, especially with the labor movement, in
order to create a broad-based left party that doesn’t have litmus tests
for inclusion—just broad principles like steeply progressive taxation,
an end to NAFTA and the WTO, democratization of the Federal Reserve
Bank, national health care, a wholesale slashing of the military
budget, by perhaps two-thirds or more, free education through four
years of college for all, and a crisis plan to attack climate change.

If the ever fractious US left, and the somnolent labor movement,
cannot come together as one, there is little hope of political change
in America. At that point the alternative would be an increasing
militancy over these critical issues, outside of the electoral
arena—something that has to happen anyhow, regardless of whether a real
third party force can be put together. We know that simply organizing
occasional polite marches in Washington, or in key cities, accomplishes
nothing. We have learned that email campaigns to deluge members of
Congress with canned opinions don’t work. What has worked, and will
always work, is massive campaigns of civil disobedience, tent cities in
Washington, organized disruption of war preparations, and door-to-door
organizing. The corrupt hacks who inhabit the halls of Congress and the
White House will not do the right thing just because it is the right
thing, or because we ask them nicely. They may, if we make them fear
that they will actually lose our votes in the next election. For the
most part, incumbent Democrats know that the people who peacefully
march down Connecticut Avenue are still likely to vote for them come
the next election. They’re not going to be so sure about people who are
being hit by tear gas and water cannons and who are being hauled off en
masse to jail at protests.

We may need to start sending that stronger message.
___________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest
book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work
is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net www.thiscantbehappening.net

Change in the SOFA

davidswanson — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:32:30 -0400

By David Swanson

In November 2008, then President George W. Bush and then Puppet Nouri al-Maliki negotiated an unprecedented, unconstitutional treaty to "legalize" three more years of war in a manner not unlike the "legalization" of invasions, detentions, torture, and warrantless spying by secret decree of the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice.

This treaty was public, but it was not called a treaty. Instead Bush presented it as a "Status of Forces Agreement" or SOFA, even though it went far beyond what any other SOFA had previously done. The U.S. Constitution requires that two-thirds of senators present consent to any treaty. A certain Senator Barack Obama favored upholding that requirement. Another senator by the name of Joe Biden introduced a bill (S. 3433) that, had it been brought to a vote and passed, would have cut off any money for U.S. operations in Iraq authorized only by an unconstitutional treaty.

The U.S. media barely told Americans the treaty was happening at all, never called it a treaty, and whited out the opposition from senators. Americans followed the treaty's progress in Iraq via bloggers like Raed Jarrar who translated Arabic translations of English documents back into English. (Jarrar should be publishing an update on the situation this week, so watch for it!) The Iraqi media covered the story well, and the Iraqi Parliament insisted on the right to vote the treaty up or down, no matter what Bush and Maliki called it. The parliament approved the treaty only on condition that the Iraqi people be allowed to vote it up or down in a referendum to be held no later than July 2009. If you haven't heard about this, or have succumbed to the collective amnesia, even the New York Times admitted this occurrence in a buried half a sentence on November 27, 2008:

"Approved Thursday along with the security pact were a nonbinding resolution that included a commitment to address longstanding grievances of minority blocs in the Parliament as well as a law requiring a referendum on the pact to be held in July 2009."

The treaty was actually called "An agreement regarding the withdrawal of the U.S. forces from Iraq and regulating the U.S. activities during its temporary presence, between the United States and the Iraqi government." It required that U.S. troops be out of all cities and localities by June 2009, and that US forces entirely leave all of Iraq by the end of 2011. The peace movement in the United States could not be persuaded to lift a finger to challenge the unconstitutionality of the treaty, because many feared any treaty actually approved by the U.S. Senate would be worse. In vain, some of us argued that this treaty was not legal and therefore could simply be ignored or revised, that it in fact had no more legal weight than the promises of then President elect Barack Obama, who was promising something arguably better than the treaty.

That this treaty worsened expectations even while being celebrated as an "end to the war" is illustrated by an action taken by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). The AFSC had created a graphic that many pro-peace websites had posted. It counted down the days to withdrawal from Iraq based on Obama's often repeated (though hedged and qualified) promise to end the occupation in 16 months. Once the treaty was created, AFSC silently altered its widget to count the days to the end of 2011.

While a complete withdrawal is certainly better than Obama's promised incomplete withdrawal, even the incomplete withdrawal is not now happening. Any moment for accountability has been pushed off to the end of 2011, and there is no reason to expect a complete withdrawal to have been made by then.

On June 9, 2009, the New York Times reported that Iraq was moving ahead with holding the referendum required by the end of July 2009. Otherwise, the U.S. media has gone silent. And since July 9th the Times has too. An occasional wire service story, such as this one from Reuters, has suggested the referendum might not be held or might be pushed off until January 2010. To understand what this would mean, it's important to recall that from the very start most observers interpreted the prospect of a referendum as allowing the ending of the occupation one year after the referendum. The treaty claims, in its text, to be valid through one year following any date on which it is declared invalid. (Imagine getting your health insurance company to agree to such terms!) There has never been any doubt that the Iraqi public would vote the treaty down if permitted to, so a vote this week would be interpreted as requiring an end to the occupation a year from now, but a vote in January would require ending the occupation in January 2011. Majorities of the following groups have long told pollsters they want the "democracy"-imposing occupation ended: Iraqis, U.S. soldiers, Americans.

In January 2009, the U.N. fig leaf for an illegal occupation expired. It was replaced only by this absurd treaty. But the treaty itself was violated from the start. For eight months, the United States has failed to comply with its part of the bargain. The treaty regulates the behavior of U.S. forces in Iraq, but their compliance with its terms has been weak. And from the beginning, top US commanders have openly said they intend to remain beyond 2011. When required to exit localities last month, the United States re-labeled troops as "non-combat," redrew urban boundaries, stationed forces around cities, and simply failed to comply, continuing patrols in blatant violation of the agreement. Read Dahr Jamail's report here.

While American "journalists" might perhaps be forgiven for forgetting to ever ask Obama about the looming deadline for a referendum in Iraq, last week's press conference in Washington, D.C., with Maliki might have offered such an opportunity. Yet, as far as I have been able to learn, not even the progressive reporters in the room breathed a word about it. Instead they asked Maliki about U.S. troops remaining in Iraq beyond 2011 and then congratulated themselves for "making news" when he replied essentially that he'd be happy to see that happen. The New York Times has just published an article with this headline: "Iraq Can't Defend Its Skies by Pullout Date, U.S. Says."

I asked independent reporter Dahr Jamail what he was hearing from Iraq, and he told me:

"From what I can tell, the referendum has not been canceled. This surprises me, because if/when it does happen, the vote will overwhelmingly be to reject the SOFA. Thus, I'm watching the situation closely, to see if it does indeed happen, and if so, how will the US react to the inevitable results...but also to see if it's fixed, and then what happens in Iraq in the wake of that. Either way, there is nothing to indicate a real US withdrawal from Iraq, ever. So this begs the question, how will the US Government spin the referendum, if/when it happens. Yet, we're already seeing Gates openly discuss the US use of Iraqi air space beyond 2011, and Maliki already making gestures towards a US presence in Iraq post-2011."

The problem is obvious. If the referendum is honest and verifiable, the occupation has to end in a year rather than never. If it's rigged and the Iraqis protest, the US media might have a hard time condemning them while celebrating similar protests next-door in Iran. If the referendum is never held, and the Iraqis allow that, and the US media never mentions it, who's harmed? I mean, who in the power structure in Washington, D.C., is harmed? I'm not much into gambling, but you can guess what my prediction is here. My desire is to see Iraqis and Americans prove me wrong.

It's not as if the SOFA has been forgotten. Maliki is using it to justify crimes, incidents noticed even by the Washington Post. "It's our territory and it's our right to enter, to impose Iraqi law on everybody," defence ministry spokesman General Mohammed Askari told Al-Arabiya television, regarding a new assault. "They have to submit to the law, and to Iraqi sovereignty. The SOFA authorizes us to do what we did."

And what have we done? We've sat on our sofas while a so-called SOFA eliminated the requirement that our congress approve treaties and wiped out any remnant of the congressional power to begin and end wars. We've set an international precedent whereby wars of aggression are justified through treaties made with puppet governments installed by the invaders. We've proactively torn up Obama's promise to have (at least "combat") troops out in 16 months, so that he didn't have to. We've allowed violations of the treaty to pass unnoticed and announcements of intent to prolong the occupation further to go unchallenged. We've effectively made the occupation of Iraq permanent by allowing George W. Bush to play us all for fools from the comfort of his Dallas mansion, and by imagining that electing someone else to take his place had anything to do with our peace movement.

CIA’s Lies About Secret Program Should Have Congress In Open Revolt

dlindorff — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:04:06 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

If this were the democracy that the Founding Fathers thought they
were creating, word from CIA Director Leon Panetta that his agency had
lied to Congress and specifically that it had lied repeatedly from
9-11-2001 through the end of 2008 concerning an as-yet undisclosed
secret program, would have virtually every member of Congress in a
state of rebellion, demanding answers.

After all, the CIA is required by law to report to at least the
majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence
Committees and to the majority and minority leaders of both houses of
Congress about such things.

But not only did the spy agency not report on what it was up to; it lied about what it was up to.

Now, given what we do know about the Bush/Cheney
administration—that it initiated a massive campaign of spying on
Americans by the Defense Department, the FBI, and the National Security
Agency, as well as other intelligence agencies, that it initiated a
campaign of torture of captives, including American citizens, while
asserting that the President didn’t even need to notify the courts or
the public about the arrest, detention, torture or even execution of an
American citizen if he, acting on his own, deemed that person to be an
“enemy combatant,” and given that we also know that Bush and Cheney
lied repeatedly about the justification for their invasion of Iraq, and
refused to be put under oath in their “interviews” by the 9-11
Commission, you would think the members of Congress, which was
railroaded into supporting everything from the USA PATRIOT Act to the
Iraq War invasion based on all these lies and deceptions, would be
demanding answers regarding this mysterious program.

For the rest of this story, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net
_________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest
book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work
is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Funding War Is Good for Babies and Your Garden

davidswanson — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 17:13:46 -0400

By David Swanson The executive director of something called the National Security Network, named Heather Hurlburt, offers -- I kid you not, and that's really her name, so try not to hurl -- Six Reasons to Love the Supplemental and Celebrate Progressives in Government. Hurlburt begins with her own warning not to vomit:

"Usually, there are lots of reasons for progressives not to love supplemental spending bills. And I won't argue that this one is perfect. But before you get too queasy, consider six ways that progressives in Congress and the man at 1600 Pennsylvania turned 'more of the same' into 'change.'"

Oh thank goodness! What a relief! For a minute there I thought we might have to consider breaking out some… well, frankly, some mild criticism of the new emperor. I know, I know, it's not appropriate. But I was thinking, you know, another $97 billion off budget for wars, more dead bodies, more displaced families, more people who hate America, more debt for our grandkids, plus $108 billion for European banksters stapled onto the same bill. I mean, I was almost ready to suggest possibly, I don't know, phoning the White House to ask for the best talking points on this one. But Heather has saved us. THANK YOU, Heather! I suppose we should at least read the six reasons after Hurlburt finishes her prefatory remarks:

"Perhaps most important, the bill offers shifts in momentum that progressives can build on -- prioritizing economic support for poorer countries, even in an economic downturn; stopping the advance of the conservative effort to turn back the closing of Gitmo and ending of torture; and ending the apparently ceaseless expansion of defense budgets. It also marks various brands and blocs of progressives coming together to promote each other's goals -- i.e., successfully managing American's security and international engagement. And that's worth showing a little love."

Jackpot! That's six bonus reasons before we even get to the six reasons. We're home free! Wake me when it's primary season. Except, I'm wondering why the word "war" hasn't come up yet, and I'm not actually totally sure of that very first reason, once I've put my beer down:

"shifts in momentum that progressives can build on"

What IS that, exactly? Maybe I need MORE beer. Or maybe the other reasons clear it up. Let's see.

"prioritizing economic support for poorer countries, even in an economic downturn"

Now, I'll admit this SOUNDS good. But isn't Afghanistan the third poorest country on earth, a place where people fight because it's the only available career move? And doesn't this bill prioritize bombing those people's houses with unmanned drones? And doesn't that make everything worse in every possible way? I mean, am I supposed to believe Heather Hurlburt or my own eyes? Now, the bill does contain funding for the financial overclass in European countries, but aren't European countries, even in the east, richer than Afghanistan or Iraq, the places we're focused on bombing and shooting? And doesn't the IMF have a tremendous record of leaving nations around the world worse off than it found them? If we wanted to provide aid to poor countries couldn't we simply stop bombing and occupying them and instead, you know, provide aid?

"stopping the advance of the conservative effort to turn back the closing of Gitmo and ending of torture"

You know, these look like two more reasons to vote for war funding that have nothing to do with war funding. If the war funding is not a good thing, and all these other proposals are, why not just do them without the war funding? The thinking cannot possibly be that all this other stuff does more good than the war funding does harm. Can it? Hurlburt never makes that claim. But then, surely she can't just be picking out the smaller supposedly good reasons to vote for something she knows stinks to high heaven. Can she? In any event, this bill does NOT close Guantanamo. Nor does it do anything to end torture. In fact, it funds the expansion of massive military bases where hundreds, if not thousands, of people are imprisoned by our nation completely outside the rule of law, virtually guaranteeing that torture will continue, as reports - keep - telling - us - it is.

"ending the apparently ceaseless expansion of defense budgets"

If you're like me, this was where you really tossed your tamales. Think about this. At the request of President Obama, the 111th Congress just recently passed the largest military budget in the history of the known universe. It had virtually nothing to do with "defense." And now an "emergency supplemental" based on no emergency whatsoever is supposed to be added on top like icing. This is $85 billion that Obama wants for wars that have been dragging on for the better part of a decade, plus $12 billion Congress wants to generously pile on for things like airplanes the Pentagon has no use for. And yet, by passing this disgusting swill and shoveling it onto Obama's desk for his signature, Heather Hurlburt tells us we are ending the expansion of "defense" budgets. And you thought the age of miracles had ended long ago!

"marks various brands and blocs of progressives coming together to promote each other's goals -- i.e., successfully managing American's security and international engagement"

That would be truly wonderful, Heather, but -- I don't know how else to put this -- WHAT the Cheney are you TALKING about?! Is the peace movement promoting someone else's goals? No, because the peace movement opposes this murderous, racist, and borderline genocidal legislation. Are any social justice groups promoting peace? That's rhetorical, of course. Or, by "brands and blocs of progressives" does Heather mean completely unprogressive things like the "National Security Network" and astroturfers compliantly maintaining their silence, like True Majority, Moveon.org, Open Left, TPM, Campaign for America's Future, and the Center for American Progress? All right. Settle your stomachs, and get ready for the Six Descending Circles of Hurlburt Hell:

1. It marks the first turn-back of conservative efforts to push the Obama Administration to the right on torture. Some progressives want to force the Administration to release photos of Abu Ghraib abuse -- others believe that allowing Senator Lieberman and Graham to set that policy legislatively takes away the Administration's freedom of action and sends the wrong message about what photos might be suppressed, and why. And they won!

Pushing the Obama Administration to the right on torture would require dressing the president in a black hood and sticking a whip in his hand. This administration has converted torture from a crime to a policy preference, guaranteeing its continuation, has openly instituted preventive detention and rendition, and has claimed unprecedented powers of secrecy in order to cover up torture secrets. Now, let's look at what happened, because it really was a progressive victory, but you'd never know it from Hurlburt. The "some progressives" who want to force "the Administration" to release photos are actually courts of law. The photos were ordered released. Many of us want the transparency we were told we were voting for. We want all of these photos released and more and videos and memos and all the rest, and this evidence is NOT just from Abu Ghraib. Many of us would be happy to have the photos turned over to a prosecutor, but we also believe the public should know what its government is doing and that the opposite belief is not progressive at all. From Hurlburt's twisted prose, you'd think Lieberman and Graham were trying to force the photos released. They are actually trying to defy the courts and prevent the release of any such photos or videos. The court decision was based on a law, a law created by Congress. The problem with Lieberman and Graham's proposal is not that it would impose the inconvenience of a law on the emperor, but that it would create a dangerous exception to a good law meant to restrain imperial abuses. Maybe in her next list Hurlburt will fill us in on the right "message about what photos might be suppressed, and why." In the meantime, Hurlburt's "And they won!" is exactly right, assuming you were able to invent an antecedent for "they." Progressives who favor the rule of law prevented the inclusion of a ban on releasing photos and videos of torture in the war supplemental. Having won that victory, however, it is now in the past. We should learn from it and move forward. The question before us is whether to support a war supplemental, and the fact that it could have had something else bad in it is irrelevant. Notice that reason number 1 for the war funding has nothing to do with the war funding. You want to end torture? Save $96.5 billion, and invest $0.5 billion in a special independent prosecutor's office.

"2. It makes it clear that the priority pathway for Guantanamo detainees is civilian trials in United States courts. Even as Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney and their wacky friends continue to suggest that American courts and prison guards can't do their jobs -- the same institutions that currently hold dozens of convicted terrorists, including the only convicted 9-11 conspirator -- Congress explicitly endorses bringing detainees to the US for civilian trials. That's a welcome rebuke to the drumbeat of "Khalid Sheikh Mohamed infiltrates your supermarket" we've been hearing on the Senate floor for the last month. I don't want to downplay the importance of the points still in contention -- where and how we imprison convicted detainees, and how we convince other countries to take in detainees if we don't take any ourselves. But with civilian trials a process begins which puts some of those decisions clearly in the hands of the executive and legislative branches -- and inside the rule of law, which was progressives' goal all along. Without civilian trials, no pathway to the rule of law exists. *Sometimes, the devil really is in the details. And these are devilish on both national security and human rights grounds. I don't want word getting out on where detainees are going 45 days in advance. Downgrade this to 'waiting to see the next move.'"

Hmm. Reason number 2 for the war money, again has nothing to do with that $97 billion for war. And what it does have to do with it gets completely wrong. The priority pathway for Guantanamo detainees is release and ought to include compensation and apology, because most of them are completely innocent of terrorism, having been purchased on the basis of no evidence or seized as soldiers, with no evidence against them ever having been found. The small minority of prisoners in Guantanamo -- not to mention Bagram and all the other sites -- who are not released, ought to be given fair and speedy trials and be released or punished according to the outcome. That ought not to be the "priority pathway." It ought to be what it has always been: the law. The law doesn't need Congress's endorsement. Congress should make laws, not endorse compliance with them. And citizens should act, not "wait to see the next move."

"3. It will move money to prevent meltdowns in countries hit hardest by the economic crisis. That's what the IMF money is for -- Pakistan, Hungary. And no, this isn't your 1990's 'Washington consensus' lending, with the kind of conditionality that the left loves to hate. This is in some ways the IMF returning to its original core mission -- stepping in as a temporary lender-of-last resort to economies in dire straits. The countries in question want the money. And, fiscal conservatives, it's a loan from us to the IMF. Backed by gold reserves. We get it back."

Well, what do you know. Reason number 3 to fund wars has nothing to do with war funding either. If I didn't know better, I'd say Heather was avoiding the subject. And once again, what Hurlburt does focus on, she gets upside down. A huge coalition of actual progressive groups did the same thing that 41 progressive Congress members did: demand that the bill be altered to prevent the usual destructive policies by the IMF. These progressives (oh, excuse me, leftists who love to hate things) were turned down flat. This IS the same old IMF that the nations it has "helped" in the past tend to hate. And the argument of the conservatives is that we don't have any money to lend even if we dream of getting it back. We'd still have to pay it back with interest to China or wherever it came from.

"4. It builds Obama's credibility overseas. Obama jammed a major increase in IMF support for poor countries hard-hit by the economic crisis into the April G20 Summit, over the objections of Europeans who wanted to focus only on re-writing market regulations and leave struggling countries (like Pakistan) to fend for themselves. Moving this money to the IMF in just two months will make it clear globally that Obama can deliver on his promises and heighten the likelihood that others deliver on theirs as well. And, as CAP's Nina Hachigian points out, this will increase our credibility at the IMF at a moment when China is building its own oomph."

Um, still no mention of the war funding in the war funding bill, and only two more loaves and fishes left to go. I, for one, do not think Congress should be in the business of passing catastrophic policies because the guy who is supposed to execute the will of Congress already ran around the world promising that Congress would do so. That's exactly backwards.

5. It's smaller. In a break from Bush Administration practice, the Obama Administration shifted a significant proportion of the Iraq and Afghanistan warfighting expenses back into the regular budget -- where they can be analyzed and debated and held up against other priorities.

Well, there you have it. The war funding is good because it's not as much war funding. Well, guess what, Hurlburt, progressives have a plan to make it even smaller and therefore even better. The plan is to pin down the 51 members who voted against it last time when it was guaranteed to pass, the 89 members who promised not to vote for war funding anymore, the 85 members who claim to want an exit from Afghanistan, and the 73 members who call themselves part of the Out of Iraq Caucus. We want at least 39 of these people to finally once and for all put our money where their mouths have been. We are close to having that many commitments.

6. It could be the last of its kind. The Obama Administration has also pledged to move all of the war-fighting expenses that are actually regular and foreseeable into the regular budgets. So there's a decent chance that, in future, members of Congress from all sides will lose the ability to push unpopular projects through by tying them to money for the troops on the ground.

Oh, well that settles it. Because the whole practice of passing this sort of bill is offensive and counterproductive, and there's not a single good word to be said about funding these wars, and because unpopular projects like bailouts for foreign banksters get loaded into bills like this one, the proper -- nay, the PROGRESSIVE -- thing to do is to let this bill pass, go home, and wait for the next move. How's your stomach?

Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union by David Swanson

davidswanson — Sat, 02 May 2009 15:03:55 -0400

Book Can Now Be Ordered, Book Tour Being Planned

You can now pre-order my book at Amazon.com at http://tinyurl.com/daybreakbook

It's a thick book containing everything I know - and then some - for $10 (pre-order discount price). And you can support a good cause by pre-ordering it now.

You can also call or visit your local bookstore right now and ask them to be sure to stock the book.

If you're in California, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, or Ohio please see below. I'm only coming once to any given state, so please schedule more events for the times I will be in yours! Please don't ask me later why I didn't come to your town!

If you're in another state, please contact me re dates in 2010. -- David Swanson

Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union will be published by Seven Stories Press on September 1, 2009.

"[Daybreak is] a useful guide to restore the balance of powers and reclaim our constitutional system of government."-Majorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild

"Daybreak urgently reminds us that good political intentions are not sufficient to ensure the continuation of our democracy; informed vigilance is vital to that task."-Mark Karlin, editor of Buzzflash.com

Pre-order now: http://tinyurl.com/daybreakbook

Bring the Tour to Your Town

I'm planning events around the country. If you'd like me to come to your town or can help with planning an event, please check out this info and let me know.

Here's the schedule so far:

Sept. 1-6 unavailable

Sept. 7 Kent, OH
Sept. 10 Toledo, OH
NEED MORE OHIO DATES Sept 8 and 9 These are the only days I will come to any part of Ohio!!!

Sept. 11-15 unavailable

Three dates with United Progressives:
Sept. 18 Tulsa, OK
Sept. 19 Oklahoma City, OK
Sept. 20 Stillwater, OK
NEED MORE OK or KS or TX DATES SAME WEEK

Sept. 23 to Oct. 8 unavailable

NM Tour with Ann Wright, Ray McGovern, Cindy Sheehan, Elliott Adams:
Oct. 9, 10, 11
Albuquerque, Santa Fe, & Taos.

NEED MORE EVENTS Oct. 12 to 13

October 14 Miami, FL at 8 p.m. at
http://booksandbooks.com
October 15 Orlando, FL

Oct. 16 to Nov. 1 unavailable

November 4 Kutztown, PA
NEED MORE PA DATES FOR NOV. 5, 6, 7. Pittsburgh? Philly? These are the only dates I will come to any other part of Pennsylvania!!!

November 19 Davis, CA
Need more California dates November 20, 21, 22, 23. This is only time I will come to California. SF? LA? SD? Speak up now!!!

December unavailable.

Pre-order now: http://tinyurl.com/daybreakbook

Up Is Down: The Military Budget

davidswanson — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 10:53:04 -0400

By David Swanson

The largest military budget in the history of the world is being increased. Certain weapons are being cut back, others expanded. But the overall budget is going UP. However, you don't need me to tell you that. You've learned it from these fine news sources:

FoxNews.com:

"With Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposing broad cuts in Pentagon spending, a new war over the president's budget has begun. While critics already are warning that the plan could compromise U.S. security, the greater resistance appears to be coming from lawmakers worried that the cuts threaten thousands of jobs in their states."

There really are cuts and critics and chicken littles, but nowhere does Fox tell you that the overall budget is INCREASING. Then again, if Fox didn't lie, how would we know what was true?

Rachel Maddow:

"Defense Secretary Robert Gates today proposed a massive overhaul of Pentagon spending. Since the year 2000 the already huge defense budget has risen 72 percent. Gates' new budget would pry the Pentagon away from its preparations for big conventional you-line-up-here we'll-line-up-here wars ... Anticipating criticism that he is making too big a change away from things that the Pentagon has traditionally LOVED spending money on, Mr. Gates said this: 'Every defense dollar spent to to overinsure against a remote or diminishing risk ... is a dollar not available to take care of our people.' ... And that was the head of the Pentagon acknowledging that there isn't infinite money available for his department, that there have to be tradeoffs. And that thump-thump-thump sound that you heard in the distance as he was talking was the sound of executives at all the big defense contractors passing out."

Love ya three-quarters of the time, Rachel, but you really should have waved blue pom-poms for this one. As noted below, many "defense" contractors are cheering for Gates' budget.

The New York Times:

"WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced a major reshaping of the Pentagon budget on Monday, with deep cuts in many traditional weapons systems but new billions of dollars for others, along with more troops and new technology to fight the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. … Representative Tom Price, a Georgia Republican, reacted strongly against Mr. Gates’s proposal to end spending for the F-22, which employs 25,000 workers in Georgia and across the country. 'It's outrageous that President Obama is willing to bury the country under a mountain of debt with his reckless domestic agenda but refuses to fund programs critical to our national defense,' Mr. Price said in a statement. In addition, a bipartisan group of six senators urged Mr. Gates not to make large cuts in missile defense programs. In a letter to Mr. Obama, they said the reductions 'could undermine our emerging missile defense capabilities to protect the United States against a growing threat.'"

If the New York Times didn't use "objective" (quote one war monger and a second war monger) reporting to back militarism, how would we know we weren't dreaming?

Air America:

"Regular Army No More? (Audio)
"By Ana Marie Cox
"Defense Secretary Robert Gates builds in unprecedented cuts to defense spending, especially on experimental and "next generation" weapons like the F-22 and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. What's next? Lower-tech, proven options such as intelligence and counter insurgency. What it has in common with the rest of the Obama program may surprise you."

I love Air America and was on it yesterday, but fluff is fluff and some of it I'm allergic to.

Center for American Progress:

"Gates Reins In Bloated Defense Budget
"Yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced his recommendations for the department's 2010 budget, offering 'deep cuts in many traditional weapons systems but new billions of dollars for others, along with more troops and new technology to fight the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.' The Los Angeles Times described his proposal offering 'the most sweeping changes in military spending priorities in decades.' The Wonk Room's Matt Duss wrote yesterday that Gates's recommendations represent 'an appreciable shift in the way that the United States approaches the issue of military acquisitions.'"

This went on at length without ever mentioning that the budget was going UP not DOWN.

True Majority:

"Tell Congress to support the Gates/Obama defense budget.
"Dear David,
"At last!
"Some of us wondered if this day would ever come. Today the Secretary of Defense explained to Congress exactly the points TrueMajority members have been making for years: wasting taxes on weapons which don't work and have no conceivable use against real-world enemies makes us LESS strong as a nation1.
Show Congress we're ready to invest in True Security -- sign the petition."

OK, I know this isn't a news source. But this is an activist group that drives giant displays of Oreo cookies around the country to illustrate the relative sizes of the military budget and budgets for schools and healthcare. An Oreo got added to the military stack, and "True" Majority wants us to cheer instead of vomiting.

You could find the news if you searched, of course. CNN included the news in its 39th paragraph. AP included the total cost in its second paragraph but not whether it was an increase or decrease. A New York Times editorial in favor of more cuts included the total cost in its ninth paragraph. A USA Today editorial admirably noted and lamented the huge size of the budget but praised the supposed cutting of it and did not note that the overall budget was increasing. The Washington Post's editorial claimed to approve the cuts but deemed them politically impossible, never noting the INCREASING military budget. And, of course, columnists in the Wall Street Journal screamed "Obama and Gates Gut the Military".

But business sources told a very different story. Here's Market Watch:

"Pentagon still a cash cow despite budget cuts
"Analysts weigh in on the winners and losers from Gates' spending proposal
"By Christopher Hinton, MarketWatch
"NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The proposed 2010 defense budget from the Pentagon had a lot of changes, but Wall Street analysts said Tuesday there's still plenty of funding for the country's top military contractors. 'Lockheed Martin had the best outcome from [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates' budget decisions, there was also strong support for Northrop Grumman's and General Dynamics' shipbuilding businesses,' said Douglas Harned, an analyst with Bernstein Research. 'Notably, there were no indications of plans to bring budgets down significantly in 2011.'"

Here's Jane's:

"US defence stocks surged on Gates' budget proposal
"Major US defence stocks were raised out of the doldrums by Defense Secretary Robert Gates' budget proposals thanks to the lifting of a degree of uncertainty and proposals that were not as dramatic as the markets expected. Fitch Ratings was among those who noted that although four of the top 10 US programmes face reductions or delays, several of the leading projects - including the F-35 and F/A-18 aircraft programmes - were to be increased. The proposal to increase intelligence and reconnaissance support by USD2 billion highlighted the new priorities of the Pentagon and threw up clear winners ranging from sensor and systems providers such as Raytheon (which closed 8.2 per cent up). Textron - which successfully divested its HR Textron unit the day before and increased its exposure to unmanned air systems through the buy of AAI Corporation - was the leader of the day, with a double-digit jump of 11.3 per cent."

The second round articles tended to be worse than the first:

ABC News:

"Will New Military Budget Prolong Recession?
"Many Cities and Towns Rely on Government Spending to Keep Their Economies Strong
"By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ, ABC NEWS Business Unit
"April 8, 2009—Many cities and towns across this country rise and fall with military spending. And with Defense Secretary Robert Gates' announcement earlier this week of new defense spending priorities, many communities are bracing for drastic cuts or a windfall."

This article mentioned that the budget was actually increasing in its 35th paragraph.

My point is not that the reported cuts aren’t real, that jobs won't be lost, or that congress members aren't bought-and-paid-for schmucks. And my point is not just that the military should be cut and that non-military investment produces more and better paying jobs. My immediate point is that we are not getting the news, even from sources that would be screaming it from the rooftops if Obama had an "R" after his name.

Now, the last time I claimed that everybody had something wrong, Hullabaloo complained that they had got it right, so I checked and sure enough Hullabaloo got this right by quoting TPM which got this right. My advice is to follow such sources closely if you want to know you can believe what you're reading.

As you may have figured out, Republicorporate news sources will disguise and promote military spending even if done by a Democratic president, and Democratic news sources will do so only if done by a Democratic president. Democrats in Congress will play along whoever is in the White House, but at least when it's a Republican, SOME news sources will fill us in on what's happening. Practice eternal vigilance.

Who's Calling the Shots Now: The Death of American Empire

dlindorff — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:59:11 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

It may not be obvious today, and certainly it’s not how the corporate media reported it, but future historians are likely to look back at March 13, 2009 as the day that American imperialism began it’s inexorable decline. That’s the day that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced that his country was “worried” about its holdings of over $1 trillion in US treasury securities, and warned that he wanted the US to assure China that it would maintain its good credit and “honor its promises” and “maintain the safety of China’s assets.”

There is no way that the US can accommodate Premier Wen and still finance and operate a global military system with over 1000 overseas bases, massive aircraft carrier battle groups, and with hundreds of thousands of men and women armed to the teeth with the latest high-tech military hardware, not to mention fight endless wars on the far side of the globe.

What China is doing is pulling the rug out from under America’s six decades of global military dominance. It is no coincidence that the weekend before Wen’s statement, Chinese naval vessels aggressively harassed a US intelligence ship, the Impeccable, that was operating in the South China Sea.

The implied threat in Wen’s seemingly mild comment was that if the US doesn’t trim its deficit spending dramatically, and get its economic house in order—which means dramatically reducing the American standard of living, and reducing wasteful spending of its military, China will simply cut back on its funding of the US deficit, in the form of buying US Treasury issues, an act which would cause the collapse of the US dollar and what’s left of the US economy.

Now this decline of the US as an economic and military power is not going to be an overnight thing, because China needs to keep selling manufactured goods to the US market—the largest in the world—and in order to do that, it needs to keep recycling dollars spent on Chinese goods back into the US, which to date has meant buying US debt issues.

But there are other ways to recycle dollars back to the US, most notably by investing in actual US assets. To date, China has done this cautiously, in part to avoid arousing political concern in the US. Typically China, when it has purchased shares of US companies, has done so by buying small minority stakes, as it did in the case of the Blackstone Group, a private equity investment firm. But if China were to decide to stop funding America’s massive deficit, this could change. It could decide to just let the dollar slide, and take advantage of the slumping value of US assets to start buying the US up on the cheap.

There is already talk of Chinese auto companies buying up General Motors and Chrysler, and why not? They could have those companies, not to mention most of the national banks, for a song now. But China wouldn’t have to limit itself—nor would it—to buying up dying companies. It could also buy entities like General Electric, Boeing and IBM, or it could buy agricultural assets and mines—or oil companies and oil reserves.

In fact, China has been using its vast trade-surplus-fueled currency reserves of dollars and Euros to lock up at cheap prices on long forward contracts for oil and other critical commodities. This is just the beginning. (It would be ironic and incredibly foolish if the US, which has spent several hundred billion dollars in borrowed money, and as much as $3 trillion if interest costs are factored in, on conquering and controlling Iraq, really did so to gain control of oil, since China has accomplished the same thing peacefully for a small fraction of that cost, by just buying forward supply contracts.)

It is likely that India, whose economy is doing even better than China these days, will do much the same thing.

The end result will be a vast permanent weakening of America, as its economy becomes increasingly subservient to the interests of its new owners.

There is a delicious irony here, since the US, for decades, has done precisely this kind of thing around the world to developing nations, buying up their industries and their resources, and manipulating and controlling their political systems, to its own advantage, always with the backing, or threatened use, of America’s powerful military. Now the once-might US (remember Dick Cheney’s “world’s lone superpower” and George H.W. Bush’s “New World Order”?) is reduced to pleading with China to leave its warships alone, and to shamelessly begging, as Hillary Clinton did in one of her first public statements as secretary of state, for China to “keep buying” US Treasuries.

From the point of view of the majority of the world’s people, who have lived for too long under the American jackboot, this is all a good thing. But forcing the new “Rome” to retreat back within its own borders will also be good for us Americans, who have had to pay for all those military adventures in the name of empire and corporate profits over the years with our blood and taxes.

The problem, for us, however, is that all this military and economic comeuppance will also be accompanied by a dose of reality about our own real living standard. As long as China, India and the oil-producing states were willing to just keep buying American government securities to finance our multi-generational spending binge, it was possible for the US government to keep us citizens all fat and happy by creating a series of bubble economies, pushing up our salaries and the value of our homes to absurd levels, while interest rates remained comfortably low and the US dollar, as the world’s reserve currency, remained strong enough for us to continue to buy goods, the production of which was increasingly being moved overseas.

Suddenly, however, in one brief speech, Chinese Premier Wen has made it clear that the US is no longer calling the shots. Nobody’s saying it out loud here in America, but behind the scenes, it’s clear that increasingly US economic policy is going henceforth to be dictated by governments in places like Bejing, Tokyo, New Delhi and Brazilia. Those same places will also increasingly be telling us where and even if we can use our once mighty military forces.

Given our post-WWII history, that can’t be a bad thing.
_______________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. He spent five years reporting on China and Hong Kong for Business Week magazine in the 1990s and is author, most recently, of “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Pentagon Openly Disobeys President Obama

Bob Fertik — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:45:12 -0500

On TV, President Obama declared:

Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end... Through this period of transition, we will carry out further redeployments. And under the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.

President Obama may "intend" to order the removal of all U.S. troops," but the Pentagon has does not "intend" to follow their Commander-in-Chief's order.

NBC's Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszeswki (left - watch video) broke the news to David Gregory 5 minutes before President Obama's Iraq speech, and even Gregory was shocked:

Miklaszeswki: Secretary Gates, as early as 18 months to 2 years ago, was saying "look, everyone understands that we're going to have to start withdrawing from Iraq." But at the same time, Gates adds this caveat that he believes significant numbers of troops will remain in Iraq for years to come.

And in fact military commanders, despite this Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government that all US forces would be out by the end of 2011, are already making plans for a significant number of American troops to remain in Iraq beyond that 2011 deadline, assuming that Status of Forces Agreement would be renegotiated.

And one senior military commander told us that he expects large numbers of American troops to be in Iraq for the next 15 to 20 years, David.

Gregory: 15 to 20 years, I think that takes a moment to really sink in. With a mission that is primarily what over that kind of time horizon, Mik?

Miklaszeswki: Again it would evolve from a day-to-day combat mission, to more of an oversight mission. We mustn't forget the US is providing nearly 100% of all combat air support over Iraq, and the Iraqi military is not going to be ready to assume that mission within the next 18 months to 2 years, it's going to be impossible.

And there are some discussions, I know Richard Engel mentioned the area of Kirkuk up in the north recently, there are some discussions among Iraqis and I know some military commanders to establish what could end up as a permanent air base, US air base, in Kirkuk.

Gregory: Striking

Striking indeed - and the exact opposite of everything Barack Obama said 5 minutes later. It's also the exact opposite of everything George Bush said when he signed the Iraq Withdrawal Agreement.

So who's the Commander-in-Chief - President Obama or the Pentagon brass?

The Armed Services Committees of the Senate and House need to hold hearings immediately on whether the Pentagon plans to disobey President Obama's decision to "remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011."

And if so, some Generals need to be fired for insubordination before they launch a military coup like the Business Plot against FDR.

Update 1: Cernig says US credibility is at stake:

whether the US' word, as set down in the SOFA agreement with Iraq, is worth the paper it's printed on. There's a considerable body of opinion in military and neo-whatever circles that says it isn't.

Cernik links to Marc Lynch who reminds us the Iraqi people will have their say in July:

"Iraqis will be watching carefully to see whether the United States honors its commitments" in the months leading up to an Iraqi referendum on the SOFA agreement on July 31st and that if they don't see the right answer then the referendum will be a resounding "no" - at which point the US will have only 12 months to get everyone out of Iraq or occupy the country illegally again.

It could be a very hot summer in Iraq...

Update 2: Tom Ricks seconds Miklaszeswki:

I think Obama is listening to the military. Partly because this plan for this post-occupation force, down to 35,000 or 50,000, that's something the military has been talking about for over a year. It's right at the end of my book, reported in Baghdad last summer. I wouldn't pay too much attention to the Status of Forces Agreement. That was a bit of window dressing drawn to give [Iraqi Prime Minister] Maliki cover in Iraqi politics because it was necessary to take the divisive issue of the American forces off the table. It can always be renegotiated. I think we're there for many years to come—Gen. Odierno says he'd like to see 30,000 troops there in maybe 2015, well into Obama's second term, and I think that's probably a pretty accurate view.

Update 3: Gen. Odierno promised Kirkuk a permanent base:

Jala Naftji, a Turkmen member of the Kirkuk governing council, told Al-Zaman that he had been afraid of an increasing security vacuum in the province, but has been reassured since Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki sent an Iraqi Army unit up. He also expected that an enduring US base would be established in the city of Kirkuk. He said that in the last meeting of the governing council with Gen. Ray Odierno, the latter had pledged that the US would not give up the security mission before the Kirkuk issue was resolved.

Obama's Address: Smooth? Yes. Transformative? No.

dlindorff — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:34:32 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

Barack Obama’s first address to Congress provided Americans with
yet another example of competent speechmaking, and I suppose, given
that we’ve just endured eight painful years of oratorical farce, being
able to listen to your president without wincing is something.

The problem is that the way forward proposed by the president as
laid out in this address was almost always half-hearted, wrong-headed
or doomed.

Obama declared at the outset of his address that the economic
crisis was the major issue confronting the country, and while one could
argue that this crisis is merely a symptom of much bigger issues, like
the nearly completed deindustrialization of the nation, the death grip
of militarism, and the growing political power of corporations, one
could also concede that there is an urgent need to deal with the
deepening recession.

But clearly, the proposals offered by the president for tackling
the crisis are not up to the task. He spoke primarily of the need to
“get banks lending” again, explaining that this would require pouring
still more hundreds of billions of dollars into these failing
institutions. You’d think that with a whole stable of bankers at his
elbow, the president would by now have heard from at least someone that
this is nonsense, but apparently not. Nobody in the White House or the
Cabinet seems to want to point out to the boss that the reason banks
aren’t lending is because most people—and companies—aren’t interested
in borrowing. The economy is tanking and assets are sinking in value by
the day. Why would anyone want to borrow to invest in such an economy?
Furthermore, even if someone did? want to borrow, banks will
not want to lend unless they think there’s a reasonable prospect of
having the money repaid. That means they want to see income, they want
to see a full order book, they want to see, in the case of a mortgage,
an asset that is fairly valued. None of this exists.

That’s why the first $350 billion that was given to the banks last
fall was simply pissed away and lost, not lent out, and it’s why the
same thing is likely to happen to the next $350 billion Obama is
preparing to give away. It won’t matter if he establishes a monitoring
system for the second tranch of the Troubled Assets Relief Program
bailout funds, or a mandate that they be used for making loans.

What is needed to fix this crisis is job security, and the only way
to create that is by creating jobs. Obama talks of creating 3-3.5
million jobs, but most of these won’t even be created, even in smaller
numbers, until the end of this year, by which time the official rate of
unemployment could be above 9%, and the real unemployment rate above
20% (that would be including people who’ve given up looking for work,
or who are involuntarily working part time).

If the president really wanted to kick-start the economy, he would
have announced a massive government program to directly hire the
unemployed, by both the federal government and state and local
governments (through block grants to the states), which would put
people to work right now as teachers’ aides, park workers, school
crossing guards, library assistants, companions for the elderly, city
and rural clean-up crews, housing renovation project workers, mural
painters, etc. If he wanted to get really creative, he could establish
teams of people, working under skilled contractor supervisors, to serve
as an army of disaster relief workers, who could speed to the scene of
future disasters to help local residents rebuild. Millions of
out-of-work people could be put productively to work with far fewer
dollars than what is about to be shoveled out to contractors to
construct or repair bridges and highways a year from now or more.

But that’s just the start of the problem with Tuesday’s address to
Congress. Obama then turned to what he said were the nation’s three
great challenges—energy, health care and education. He’s right that
these are all serious problems, but his solutions are not up to the
challenge.

On energy, he proposed spending $15 billion on research and
development and for programs to improve efficiency. If he really wanted
to reduce US reliance on foreign energy, and to significantly reduce US
greenhouse gas emissions, though, instead of funneling money to huge
corporations and utilities, he would have called for a major national
program, through tax credits, to subsidize the retrofitting of homes
with geothermal heating systems. These systems, which use the earth’s
internal heat to warm water, can reduce the use of oil for home heating
to zero, could be installed for as little as $10,000 per home on
average if done in volume, and would pay for themselves over time. A
federal tax credit of $5000 would probably be enough to convince many
homeowners to do it, and the work would provide endless numbers of jobs
across the country to plumbers and plumbers’ helpers and well drillers,
besides massively reducing reliance on fossil fuels. Heck, he could
kill two birds by calling for a massive training program to train
unemployed people to do geothermal conversion work. Credits could also
be offered to massively expand the installation of home rooftop solar
water heaters, again a major potential source of employment for
laid-off workers.

Obama’s health care plans, as they’ve been explained, are a recipe
for failure. There is no way that this nation’s health care cost and
access problems can be solved that includes the insurance industry as a
part of it. The key to solving them is having the government become the
paymaster, as every other modern society in the world has long since
realized. While Obama was whizzing through Canada, he should have
stopped at a local Canadian health clinic and asked the locals how they
like their health care system. He would have gotten an earful! There is
no need for him to convent meetings of “business and labor, experts and
health providers” to figure out what to do. Instead of trying to
reinvent the wheel, he need only ask some Canadian health officials to
come down and set up a version of their system here. For that matter,
he could ask the executives at Canadian subsidiaries of US companies
operating in Canada—they love the Canadian health care system too!

Finally, on education, the president missed the point. It’s true
that education in the US is a disgrace, that it is grossly unequal in
both availability and quality depending upon the race and class of the
local students, and that the educational standard of the nation as a
whole is in decline. But simply pouring money into schools and into
college loan programs won’t solve all this. One answer is to end the
crazy idea of having local government be the primary source of funding
for education. A second problem is that Americans have been discovering
that getting an education is no ticket to success. Jobs are being
shipped overseas so fast these days—including good jobs like
engineering and math, and lately even law—that it makes no sense for
students to borrow a king’s ransom to pay tuition and learn a trade. If
they’re lucky people who earn a PhD in physics may end up managing a
Burger King outlet. Worse yet, those Americans who decide to pursue
education for reasons of passion rather than earning potential are also
often dismayed to learn that subjects like literature, art, music and
other “soft” subjects are not valued at all in our crass, commercial
society. In China, talented students fight to enroll in state-run
conservatories to study the arts. In Taiwan, the government just opened
a striking new high school and university of the arts. In Europe,
students study musical instruments as part of their state curriculum.
Here in the US, meanwhile, school districts are killing off their art
and music programs, and focusing on the “Three Rs” (forget creative
writing). Even history gets short shrift.

If the president wants to revive education, he should stop talking
about it as a job-training program, and start talking about it as the
essence of a civilization. Instead of men in uniform being honored in
the Capitol peanut gallery during his speech, or at least along with
them, he should have invited some teachers so he could ask them to
stand up and take a round of applause. (Even Connecticut Senator Joe
Lieberman, the turncoat Democrat who backed Obama’s opponent John
McCain last fall, and who looked like he was sucking on a lemon as the
president spoke, would have had to clap then.)

Finally, of course, there were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And here Obama was particularly disappointing, though this was no
surprise. He promised have most US troops out of Iraq by August
2010—but not all. US forces will continue to be there, fighting and
supporting fighting, indefinitely. Meanwhile, instead of coming home,
many American soldiers will simply be moved to Afghanistan, where Obama
is expanding the war, with plans likely to have 60,000 troops there by
this summer, and no doubt far more by the time Iraq has (hopefully)
wound down. If the president thinks he is going to help cut the federal
deficit by ending the war in Iraq, as he claimed in his address, he
doesn’t know much about accounting. The War in Afghanistan will
certainly eat up any savings he gets out of Iraq, particularly if it
leads to a wider conflict in Pakistan.

It was finally, both tragic and ironic that the most forcefully
delivered line of the evening was shamelessly and without citation
lifted by the president from his predecessor. His assertion that "The
United States of America does not torture" was a repeat of an identical
statement made by President George W. Bush, and since Obama has merely
told the military to abide by the military field manual in that regard,
and has declined to prosecute the torture crimes of the past
administration, it is just about as empty.

No amount of smooth talking gets around it: this was not the program of a “transformative” presidency.
________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and
now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Iraq May Force US Out by July 2010

Bob Fertik — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:21:49 -0500

President Obama caved in to pressure from the Pentagon to delay the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Obama campaigned on a promise of removing combat troops in 16 months (May 2010), but the Pentagon extended the withdrawal to 19 months (August 2010). And the Pentagon insists on keeping up to 50,000 non-combat troops until 12/31/2011, which is the final deadline in the Bush-Maliki Withdrawal Agreement.

But there's one crucial date both Obama and the Pentagon are ignoring: July 2010. That would be the final withdrawal deadline for all U.S. troops if the Iraqi people defeat a referendum scheduled for July 2009. This deadline includes all non-combat "residual" troops.

The delay in U.S. troop withdrawal - especially through transparent Pentagon tricks like redefining combat troops as non-combat troops - will increase the chances that Iraqis vote for a full U.S. withdrawal by July 2010.

Someone needs to ask President Obama and the Pentagon whether they want to produce such a backlash - and whether they will accept the will of the Iraqi people.