Hamid Karzai: U.S. Taxpayer-Funded Private Contractors Engaging In Terrorist, Mafia-Like Activity

This, by the way, is a practical and tangible method for judging Obama and whether he's just another Iying, corrupt politician. This plan for how US taxpayer money is being spent in Afghanistan, the policy "for winning hearts and minds", is completely within Obama's power. This isn't something that's been left to the military to come up with on the fly. This is a policy that was thought through, worked out with top US think tanks and the Pentagon, the Defense Policy Council, with input from Congressional leadership, SoD, Sos, the VP, the NSA, the CIA, etc., and then pitched to Obama, and signed off on by him.



Obama doesn't even have the luxury that other presidents have had, of deniability due to ig.no.rance about life for the average citizen in a developing, impoverished muslim country that's being exploited by superpower (the US). Unlike our other presidents who come from lives of privilege or comfortable middle class, Obama lived the life himself in Indonesia.



So Rachel Maddow, Richard Engel (as well as the US military in Afghanistan) didn't stumble on an American plan for Afghanistan gone awry. This was always the plan meant to be implemented. It's only been secret to the American people.
About Afghanistan
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Hamid Karzai: U.S. Taxpayer-Funded Private Contractors Engaging In Terrorist, Mafia-Like Activity

The parallels between what's happening there with US taxpayer money and what's happening here in the US is just ironic to ignore.



We Americans are a generous lot, but we make too many assumptions without follow-up about what's being done in our names & with our money.



US policy for Afghanistan has been to win hearts and minds, create working democracies which are to make us in the US (& the whole world) safer through (re-)building their country, creating cities modeled on western ones, with infrastructures for supporting comfortable day-to-day living; roads, highways, homes, schools, hospitals, clean water, indoor plumbing/electricity, etc. Freedom from tyranny, with democratic governments & leaders of their choosing.



But in practice, we impose our preferred leaders/candidates on them. And we're using US taxpayer money to build McMansions for rich Afghans who don't even live in Afghanistan, who refuse to pay taxes in Afghanistan (which would go for building city services, like paved streets, street lights, public schools, police and other civic services). These rich Afghans, in turn, rent the McMansions out to western contractors, & then take the rent monies out of Afghanistan, spend it/deposit it in the countries where they're living (Dubai, UAE, etc.).



The average Afghan gets no benefit from US taxpayer aid, just the usual grief from being occupied by a foreign power (constant danger of being k!lled, maimed, uprooted, jailed, t0rtured, etc.).



They come to hate us, they join Al Qaeda, for good reasons.
About Afghanistan
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Memo to America's Middle Class: Obama Is Just Not That Into You

Obama has caved on everything.



Instead of putting strings on TARP monies, on pushing Congress for serious stimulus monies to get Americans working, or on real finance reform, Obama caved right off the bat.



Obama abandons the bully pulpit, refusing to take stands on significant issues affecting all Americans, populist issues, but weighs in in his typical 'speaking out of two-sides of his mouth' on an irrelevant issue like the building of an islamic recreational center near the WTC site usurping all other news in the days leading up to a momentous election in the US.



The few times that the left has been able to speak their displeasure in one strong voice to this president, it hasn't moved him at all; he's dug in and stayed the course laid by his DLC & corporate masters.



Once you get Obama's number, what he's really all about (the success of his own personal career, which he's determined can only happen through satisfying the Establishment Elites), it's impossible to consider voting for him again.
About Barack Obama
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Memo to America's Middle Class: Obama Is Just Not That Into You

Democratic voters have mistakenly believed that Obama&Democrats want what they want. The DLC-controlled DemocraticParty gives lip service to all populist issues (like civil rights protections, restoring habeas corpus, ending the wars, PublicHealthcare, Wall Street reform, environmental & energy issues, etc.).



If the Bush years taught us nothing else, it's that anyone can sell anything to Americans, if you're stolid & relentless in your sales pitch & tactics. It's not that Bush&R0ve were geniuses & knew something that nobody else knew; Bush&R0ve were just more ruthless (clumsy & careless many political graybeards would say) in doing what politicians & the parties had gone to great lengths to hide from Americans.



Obama didn't get to be the first black president, vanquish the Clinton machine (to get the nomination) & the oldest, most experienced politicians in our nation's history (including the Rove machine) by not having mastered these skills. Nor do Democratic politicians (more incumbents than ever, in office longer) not know how to do it. How do you think Democrats managed to keep impeaching Bush&Cheney off the table & have us still reelecting them, not marching on Washington with torches&pitchforks?



Obama&Democrats know how to do it -- They don't want to do it.



The trick for them has been to keep the many different populist groups believing that they really do support our issues, but they're merely inept. And to get us to keep voting for them despite their failure to deliver on any of our alleged shared objectives.
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Lindsey Graham Supports Drawdown Of U.S. Troops In Afghanistan Next Summer

http://www.oilempire.us/iraqoil.html
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Hamid Karzai: U.S. Taxpayer-Funded Private Contractors Engaging In Terrorist, Mafia-Like Activity

I think now is a good time to see this clip from last month's Rachel Maddow Show, where Rachel and Richard Engel walk through the streets of Afghanistan to see where US reconstruction money has gone.



It dramatically and easily explains why Afghanistan is a losing cause and "why they (people who join Al Qaeda) hate us", and should have all Americans marching on Washington with pitchforks and torches.



What Obama is doing, what Obama can stop doing with the stroke of his pen to an executive order, is crime against humanity. US policies in Afghanistan are a microcosm of US domestic policies, with rich Afghans getting the US aid money, refusing to pay taxes, and income that rich Afghans are making from the building in Afghanistan with US taxpayer dollars goes directly into offshore bank accounts. The rich get richer and the poor get k!lled by US military and private contractors.
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Our Shared Humanity Moves Us to Help Pakistan

And, you most unfairly criticize Secretary Clinton who has already proven to be one of the best and most effective Secretary of State in US History.

====================================



On what do you base that assessment?



Seriously.



Hillary Clinton has been no better or worse than any other CFR-approved SoS in modern history.
About Pakistan
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Lindsey Graham Supports Drawdown Of U.S. Troops In Afghanistan Next Summer

I support the REAL drawdown of US troops in Iraq NOW.



56,000 troops remaining in Iraq is not "ending combat" -- All US troops are combat trained and ready.



Bring ALL of the troops home, in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Now.
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McConnell: I Take Obama 'At His Word' That He's A Christian

This isn't any different than what Republicans said during the 2008 campaign, or what Hillary Clinton said during the 2008 primaries.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7eAnx6Vxrs



Instead of discussing real issues during this campaign season that are affecting us, the media keeps this in play.
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Blackwater Fine: $42 Million Deal On U.S. Export Violations

The men from Blackwater USA arrived in NewOrleans right after Katrina hit.



About 150 heavily armed Blackwater troops dressed in full battle gear spread out into the chaos of NewOrleans. Officially, the company boasted of its forces "joining the hurricane relief effort." But its men on the ground told a different story.



Some patrolled the streets in SUVs with tinted windows & the Blackwater logo splashed on the back; others sped around the FrenchQuarter in an unmarked car with no license plates. They congregated on the corner of St.James & Bourbon in front of a bar where Blackwater was establishing a headquarters. From the balcony above the bar, several Blackwater guys cleared out what had apparently been someone's apartment. They threw mattresses, clothes, shoes & other household items from the balcony to the street below. They draped an American flag from the balcony's railing.



They characterized their work in NewOrleans as "securing neighborhoods" & "confronting criminals." They carried automatic assault weapons & had guns strapped to their legs. Their flak jackets were covered with pouches for extra ammunition.



What authority were they operating under?



"We're on contract with the DepartmentOfHomelandSecurity. We can make arrests & use lethal force if we deem it necessary."



"This vigilantism demonstrates the utter breakdown of the government," says MichaelRatner, president of the CenterForConstitutionalRights. "These private security forces have behaved brutally, with impunity, in Iraq. To have them now on the streets of NewOrleans is frightening & possibly illegal."



http://www.alternet.org/katrina/25858/
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