Barack Obama Makes Surprise Visit To Afghanistan

We're in Iraq (and Afghanistan)  to protect the oil fields which we have privatized for the profits of Western multinationals. We have invested not in hospitals nor schools nor infrastructure, but in fortresses and military compounds. Neither Republicans nor Democrats will abandon our military installations in Iraq, so long as they remain beholden to these same oil companies. 

When American forces leave, battles will be fought for control of these oil resources. Ultimately, they will be re-nationalized to which faction cannot be predicted. 

We were all sidetracked into a debate over whether there will be a civil war after our troops depart; that turned to a discussion whether the currently-raging civil war will be better or worse after American troops are out. Is our military presence a support for fledgling democracy, or a divisive irritant? 

Such questions are beside the point. We have seized Iraq's enormous oil wealth and handed it to private interests. It is those interests that are keeping us in Iraq, not any commitment to 'democracy'. 

The War on Terror will not end so long as we continue to debate questions of democracy, stability, and human rights. We need to build public awareness of the economic crime that has been committed, to make the moral case for restoring Iraqi assets to the Iraqis (and Afghan assets to Afghans), relinquishing the booty of our conquest. 

This is a tough sell to the American people, however solid is its moral basis. The day that we are crying in the streets, 'Give the Iraqis back their oil!' is the day Congress will compel the Administration to effect a military withdrawal and an end to the 'War on Terror' and the restoration of Americans' civil liberties..

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Barack Obama Makes Surprise Visit To Afghanistan

We're not out of Iraq.  That cutback at the Pentagon?  Doesn't apply to State.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/world/middleeast/iraq-is-angered-by-us-drones-patrolling-its-skies.html

In addition to some 5,000 private security contractors now protecting the embassy’s 11,000-person staff, Iraq is rife with American-paid contractors, mercenaries, and is a war zone, with the dead piling up day in and day out.

Neither Iraqis nor Afghans want us there.
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Barack Obama Makes Surprise Visit To Afghanistan

Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

Americans are losing our jobs, our homes, our Social Security, Medicare, police, firemen, teachers, and going into debt to China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, (even our grandchild­ren won't be able to pay it off), for wars to protect and increase riches for the top elites (an oil pipeline and mineral riches in Afghanista­n, not to mention the oil contracts in Iraq and now Libya).  These are riches that ordinary Americans don't get profits from, but that the Establishm­ent Elites (Dick Cheney & the Bush family among them) all are getting rich(er) from.

The American people derive only increased risk to our personal safety because those Afghans and Iraqis (and Pakistanis, Somalis, Yemens, et al, ) frustrated over the k!lling of their families and friends and of being occupied turn terror!st because they can't get at the political leaders ordering the bombing and occupation of their country (Obama doesn't fly commercial­, doesn't have to be gr0pe-sear­ched or exposed to X-ray radiation to travel for his job or visit family on Thanksgivi­ng).

Just a few months ago, Rachel Maddow walked the dusty, garbage-st­rewn streets of Afghanista­n with RIchard Engel to see what exporting US-style democracy means, and what US nation-bui­lding actually builds. Watch this to see where are our tax dollars going, and learn how we are not "nation-bu­ilding", not making us safer, and not helping the Afghans or building their nation at all (or a democracy)­. Learn how this has all been just a huge rip-off of the American people:

http://www­.youtube.c­om/watch?v­=eR5BHnN__­5M

The US as 'Empire' has been continuing under Obama and a Democratic­ally-contr­olled Congress that has had a bigger arsenal of tools available to them as the majority in power, controllin­g both chambers of Congress and the White House, than Republican­s had as the minority.
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Barack Obama Makes Surprise Visit To Afghanistan

If that was true, we never would have attacked Iraq, destroyed its infrastructure, killed Saddam Hussein.

The war in Iraq was very very clearly about oil, as was the war in Afghanistan. The oil pipeline that was planned (in Afghanistan), the best security for that was an occupation." 


"If you map the proposed pipeline route across Afghanistan and you look at our bases? Matches perfectly. Our bases are there to solve a problem that the Taliban couldn't solve. Taliban couldn't provide security in that part of Afghanistan -- Well now that's where our bases are. So, does that have to do with Osama Bin Laden? It has nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden. It has everything to do with the longer plan, in this case a strategy which I wouldn't necessarily call neoconservative, however it fits perfectly in with the neoconservative ideology which says, 'If you have military force and you need something from a weaker country, then you need to deploy that force and take what you need because your country's needs are paramount'. It's the whole idea of unilateralism, of using force to achieve your aims."

-Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel whose assignments included a variety of roles for the National Security Agency and who spent her last 4 1/2 years working at the Pentagon with Donald Rumsfeld 



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUxI3rSLDO8



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SltOy_F6ZII

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Barack Obama Makes Surprise Visit To Afghanistan

What's the objective, how is the military going about achieving it, and where are our tax dollars going?

Not long ago, Rachel Maddow walked the dusty, garbage-strewn streets of Afghanistan with RIchard Engel to see what exporting US-style democracy means, and what US nation-building actually builds. Watch this to see where are our tax dollars going, and learn how we are not "nation-building", not making us safer, and not helping the Afghans or building their nation at all (or a democracy). Learn how this has all been just a huge rip-off of the American people:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR5BHnN__5M
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Housing Finance Boss Blocked Principal Reductions, Hid Data Showing They Work, Dems Allege [UPDATE]

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Housing Finance Boss Blocked Principal Reductions, Hid Data Showing They Work, Dems Allege [UPDATE]

Obama has had the ability to recess appoint Joseph Smith, just like he had the ability to recess appoint all the rest of the nominees (from judicial nominations to the OLC) that Republicans have blocked since the beginning of his administration.  

But Obama refuses.

Despite Republicans' blocking, Obama could have gotten Smith through, along with the others in 2009, but didn't.  As was the case with Dawn Johnsen when Obama kept nominations of liberal/progressive candidates in limbo for more than a year after entering the White House, it served to keep these powerful proponents of leftist policy on the bench, not criticizing Obama's treacherous and deceptive alliance with banks, Wall Street, corporations, military, anti-privacy, etc., interests.
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