Activism Is Not a Crime: Why I Will Not Testify Before This Federal Grand Jury

Peacenik will not be watching the State of the Union speech tonight. Peacenik doesn't want to puke. There seems to be little doubt that Obama is on board with the dismantling of Social Security and the last shreds of the social safety net. But he probably won't say anything tonight for or against. It should be astounding that the Tea Party is running the agenda. But it isn't. Meanwhile Obama's justice department continues to harass anti-war activists, just like George Bush's justice department harassed activists. Obama is not defending civil liberties, the poor, the unemployed or the sick. Peacenik doesn't care how eloquent Obama might be. The message is bad. No amount of eloquence will improve it.

by Maureen Murphy

I have been summoned to appear before a federal grand jury in Chicago on January 25. But I will not testify, even at the risk of being put in jail for contempt of court, because I believe that our most fundamental rights as citizens are at stake.

I am one of 23 anti-war, labor and solidarity activists in Chicago and throughout the Midwest who are facing a grand jury as part of an investigation into "material support for foreign terrorist organizations." No crime has been identified. No arrests have been made. And when it raided several prominent organizers' homes and offices on Sept. 24, the FBI acknowledged that there is no immediate threat to the American public. So what is this investigation really about?

The activists who have been ensnared in this fishing net work with different groups to end the US wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, to end US military aid for Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and US military aid to Colombia, which has a shocking record of repression and human rights abuses. All of us have publicly and peacefully dedicated our lives to social justice and advocating for more just and less deadly US foreign policy.

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Obama administration defends Bush era abuses of power

punditman says...Here's Keith Olbermann interviewing Jonathan Turley about the Obama administration's Department of Justice protecting former Bush administration officials like Attorney General Ashcroft against liability for their War on Terror abuses—such as arbitrary detention of Muslim immigrants. It gets worse: the present administration wants to enshrine in law their ability to do exactly the same things. In the words of Turley, "This precedent will bare a horrible fruit."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Scary People, Scary Times

Yes the scary people are coming out of the woodwork in the U.S.A., aided and abetted by right wing media. The most wild accusations about Obama, whether he was born in the U.S., whether he is a socialist, whether he is a muslim, whether he is a christian, etc., etc., all get major play. Is Obama afraid of the scary people? Peacenik thinks so. Obama is afraid to put solar panels on the roof of the White House for fear of offending the nutjobs. Obama is afraid to fight for extended unemployment benefits. Obama is afraid to fight for social security. Obama is afraid to fight for fair taxation. Obama is afraid to close Guantanamo. Obama is afraid to end the wars and bring the troops home. Yes the scary people are in charge. It is laughable that someone who has offered so little to the public discourse, such as John Boehner, can rise to be the Speaker of the House. But when the president is a scardy cat, when the supposed leader of the progressive movement is a scardy cat, this is what happens. Sarah Palin as president, becomes imaginable.

By James Howard Kunstler
on September 13, 2010 7:24 AM

In that order. The scary people have already started coming out of the woodwork. The times lately have been mostly uncertain, but soon they'll turn scary, too, as it becomes clearer that the people running things in the USA have no idea what's going on or what they're going to do about it -- and what's going on is an involuntary permanent re-set of the terms of everyday life, from a wet-dream robotic "consumer" techtopia to something more like the first chapter of Tobacco Road, with a family of half-wits reduced by hard times to fighting over a sack of turnips in a roadside ditch. That's the story-arc anyway, and lots of people won't like it. But the theme of dwindling resources is not a pretty one.
The most striking feature of the current scene is the absence of a coherent vision of our multiple related predicaments and how they add up to a valid picture of reality. To be precise, I mean our predicaments of 1.) energy resources, 2.) vanishing capital, and 3.) ecocide. This inability to decode the clear and present dangers to civilized life is a failure of leadership and authority without precedent in the American story.

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Obama Wants Us To Forget the Lessons of Iraq

Peacenik couldn't even bring Peacenik to watch Obama's speech last night. This overview of the debacle is ok.....but no overview can really capture the folly of the Iraq war. It was/is a waste of lives, money and honour. And to suggest that it is over is simply bullshit.

by Andrew Bacevich

The Iraq war? Fuggedaboudit. "Now, it is time to turn the page." So advises the commander-in-chief at least. "[T]he bottom line is this," President Obama remarked last Saturday, "the war is ending." Alas, it's not. Instead, the conflict is simply entering a new phase. And before we hasten to turn the page-something that the great majority of Americans are keen to do-common decency demands that we reflect on all that has occurred in bringing us to this moment. Absent reflection, learning becomes an impossibility.

For those Americans still persuaded that everything changed the moment Obama entered the Oval Office, let's provide a little context. The event that historians will enshrine as the Iraq war actually began back in 1990 when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, Iraq's unloved and unlovable neighbor. Through much of the previous decade, the United States had viewed Saddam as an ally of sorts, a secular bulwark against the looming threat of Islamic radicalism then seemingly centered in Tehran. Saddam's war of aggression against Iran, launched in 1980, did not much discomfit Washington, which offered the Iraqi dictator a helping hand when his legions faced apparent defeat.

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As the Commander in Chief Deliberates, Frustration Builds Within the Ranks

This article is an example of the mainstream media's modus operandi. It serves no purpose other than to advance the warmongerer's agenda and pressure Obama into making a bigger committment to Afghanistan.

The article only really cites anonymous sources, who supposedly don't want to be identified for fear of reprisals. If military leaders really cared about the troops they would be happy to get out of an ill defined war, where the army is getting chewed up and where success is unachievable. But face it, the military likes war. So does the New York Times. So does Don Cherry. Peacenik says it is time for Canada to pull the plug on Canada's participation. Bring the troops home now.

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

Brennan Linsley/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Only nine months ago, the Pentagon pronounced itself reassured by the early steps of a new commander in chief. President Obama was moving slowly on an American withdrawal from Iraq, had retained former President George W. Bush’s defense secretary and, in a gesture much noticed, had executed his first military salute with crisp precision.

But now, after nearly a month of deliberations by Mr. Obama over whether to send more American troops to Afghanistan, frustrations and anxiety are on the rise within the military.

A number of active duty and retired senior officers say there is concern that the president is moving too slowly, is revisiting a war strategy he announced in March and is unduly influenced by political advisers in the Situation Room.

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The Labor Day Blues

Here is Jim Kunstler's take on the state of the media world: "Whatever the politics of the moment may be, national attitudes are surely changing. A psychology of hardship is overtaking even the bread-and-circus blandishments of the Cheez Doodle / infotainment / professional sports matrix of idiocy that the sociopathic corporate axis-of-evil operates to take advantage of ordinary human weakness."

Read his whole article. As usual it is entertaining. And kind of frightening. Meanwhile Obama gives a speech to school kids today. The media is painting it as wildly controversial. When George Bush went into classrooms to read his favorite book to the children, "The Hungry Caterpillar" it wasn't controversial. Peacenik says some things never change.

by Jim Kunstler

One national moment-of-nausea this Labor Day weekend struck Sunday morning, when CNN's John King led off his 10 a.m. State of the Union show with a valentine to ABC's Diane Sawyer, on her becoming anchor of that network's evening news. (This was the most important news of the week???) The old legacy networks have taken on the role of dishing out reassurance to an anxious and insecure public as job number one, and the subtext of the Sawyer lede was that a Mommy figure would soon be in place to soothe the multitudes even as the nation free-falls into bankruptcy and disorder. This is supposed to be a counterpoint to the chorus of smug, braying rabble-rousers who inflame the crowds on Fox News and MSNBC, and CNBC -- the Glen Becks and Keith Olbermans and Dennis Kneales -- who work the anger regions of the brain.

The inherent conflicts arise from a nation that simply cannot bring itself to try getting its house in order. Instead of adult leadership, we prefer good parent / bad parent therapy -- a psychodrama of alternating messages of reassurance and punishment that provides distraction from problems and conundrums too horrible to face. One unfortunate result is the evaporating legitimacy of anyone or anything in authority, and that is extremely dangerous at a time like this because it creates the perfect opportunity for the rise of a corn-pone Hitler who will beat a path straight into a national ordeal-by-fire, and make everybody feel better by telling them clearly what to do.

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Bush's Third Term? You're Living It

This article is almost too depressing to read. But Peacenik read it. Peacenik just wants to go away for the long weekend and look in campfires and forget about Bush's third term. Peacenik hopes you can enjoy the long weekend as well. Have a good one.

by David Swanson

It sounds like the plot for the latest summer horror movie. Imagine, for a moment, that George W. Bush had been allowed a third term as president, had run and had won or stolen it, and that we were all now living (and dying) through it. With the Democrats in control of Congress but Bush still in the Oval Office, the media would certainly be talking endlessly about a mandate for bipartisanship and the importance of taking into account the concerns of Republicans. Can't you just picture it?

There's Dubya now, still rewriting laws via signing statements. Still creating and destroying laws with executive orders. And still violating laws at his whim. Imagine Bush continuing his policy of extraordinary rendition, sending prisoners off to other countries with grim interrogation reputations to be held and tortured. I can even picture him formalizing his policy of preventive detention, sprucing it up with some "due process" even as he permanently removes habeas corpus from our culture.

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Obama: 'Absolutely' no green light for Israel to attack Iran

Peacenik wonders what goes through Joe Biden's skull some days. Peacenik read Biden's interview on the weekend when Biden appeared to give Israel the green light to attack Iran. Now Obama says no way. Peacenik doesn't know who to believe. Correction. Peacenik doesn't believe either of them. Debating something that should be sacrosanct creates the possibility that it might happen. There should be no debate about the wisdom of starting World War Three. But idiots govern the world.

JPost.com

US President Barack Obama strongly denied that the United States had given Israel an approval to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, in an interview given to CNN television on Tuesday.
US President Barack Obama...

Asked by the network whether Washington had given Israel a green light to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, Obama answered: "Absolutely not."

In the interview, which was broadcast from Russia, where Obama is on an official visit, he added: "We can't dictate to other countries what their security interests are.

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Must Read from Bob Herbert - How Long Is Long Enough?

The other day Peacenik read about how the Obama administration was preparing an executive order to allow indefinite detention. Today we find out that torture is ongoing. That justice continues to be denied at Guantanamo.

Peacenik is having a hard time understanding Obama's positions on justice and torture. It was a slippery slope that George Bush led the country down. Now the concept of torture is enshrined in the American psyche. They support it. They like it. They want to torture people. And the rule of law? Its seems to Peacenik that a big chunk of the American public could care less. The drumbeat of neo con propaganda has brutalized a nation. And now Obama can't seem to turn the clock back. Even if he wanted to.

by teacherken

Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 09:07:21 PM PDT

It begins like this

No one seems to know how old Mohammed Jawad was when he was seized by Afghan forces in Kabul six and a half years ago and turned over to American custody. Some reports say he was 14. Some say 16. The Afghan government believes he was 12.

The penultimate paragraph

There is no credible evidence against Jawad, and his torture-induced confession has rightly been ruled inadmissible by a military judge. But the Obama administration does not feel that he has suffered enough. Not only have administration lawyers opposed defense efforts to secure Jawad’s freedom, but they are using, as the primary basis for their opposition, the fruits of the confession that was obtained through torture and has already been deemed inadmissible — without merit, of no value.

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Time to Take the Gloves off with Obama

Last week Peacenik was wondering if the staus quo could ever be re-established in Iran. Peacenik didn't think so.

This article in Culture Change raised the flip side of that question in the U.S. Can the status quo ever be overturned in the U.S? Yes the president who ran on change turns out to be a talented defender of the status quo. But Peacenik would argue that just like the status quo in Iran no longer exists, the same is true of the U.S. It is just taking a while for the reality of the new normal in the U.S. to take hold. And what is the new normal? Chaos and Collapse. All the politicking in the world won't change that.

by Jan Lundberg and Jeff Gerritsen
18 June 2009

ImageThe clock is ticking, and we are not building life boats. As the population's options close and a harder ecological and socioeconomic fall is assured more each day, Barack Obama is leading the thumb twiddlers, albeit with eloquence and charm. What passes for policy debate today seldom reckons with the life and death issues of climate extinction, petrocollapse, and the social chaos ahead.

Obama is dealing with a heck of a lot, granted. This alone is supposed to quiet the people quite a bit, and despite the Depression, ecocide and unending war, it has worked rather well. With his likability and intelligence – after the "Führer Bushler" -- Obama is thus the perfect man for our times if you're basically clinging to the status quo.

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Obama’s Wrong Turn on Detention

punditman says...Obama has proposed some changes to the Guantánamo detainee situation. But some criminal trials along with some kinder, gentler military commision trials, along with continuing the Bush/Cheney policy of imprisonment-without-trial (within the confines of the US instead of Guantánamo Bay, for what that's worth ), are not exactly the sort of reversals of the Bush disasters that those who voted for him wanted. I think. Then again, how many Obama fans look past his nice sounding speeches? Punditman tries to. Peacenik tries to. Do you?

By Robyn Blumner

As he was taking leave of Louis XIV, the French commander Marechal Villars is believed to have said: "Defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies." This is how I feel right now about President Barack Obama. As Obama tries to clean up the Bush administration mess surrounding the terror suspects housed in Guantánamo, he is flirting with cementing in law some of the worst excesses of the Bush/Cheney regime.

The thought of this makes me weep into my Yes We Can coffee mug.

The betrayal came in Obama’s speech last month at the National Archives, generally a superb speech that reaffirmed his understanding that the Constitution and Bill of Rights contain our "most cherished values" and must never be set aside "for expedience’s sake."

Then he set about explaining why he plans to set them aside for expedience’s sake.

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Do You Really Think Arabs in the Middle East Clapped for Obama's Speech?

Right wing pundits and politicians hated Obama's Cairo speech. That may be the only reason to recommend it. Peacenik thought Obama would wind down the Iraqi occupation. Peacenik thought Obama would wind down the Afghanistan occupation. Peacenik thought Obama would close Guantanamo. Peacenik thought Obama would stop torture by U.S. soldiers and agents. Was Peacenik naive. Did Peacenik forget a question mark there? Peacenik thinks Peacenik was optimistic. Overly optimistic. Now, Peacenik thinks Obama is going to change very little. The US is stuck in the Middle East. Inertia. Imperialism. Pride. Oil. Foolishness.

Just like the US couldn't imagine the consequences of not being in Vietnam, the U.S. is incapable of imagining not being in the Middle East. But the day will come. The empire is collapsing. The empire has collaspsed. You know it. Peacenik knows it. Obama will know it.

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig. Posted June 9, 2009.

What do words of peace and cooperation mean from us when we torture -- yes, we still torture -- Muslims?

Did they play Barack Obama’s speech to the Muslim world in the prison corridors of Abu Ghraib, Bagram air base, Guantanamo or the dozens of secret sites where we hold thousands of Muslims around the world? Did it echo off the walls of the crowded morgues filled with the mutilated bodies of the Muslim dead in Baghdad or Kabul? Was it broadcast from the tops of minarets in the villages and towns decimated by U.S. iron fragmentation bombs? Was it heard in the squalid refugee camps of Gaza, where 1.5 million Palestinians live in the world’s largest ghetto?

What do words of peace and cooperation mean from us when we torture—yes, we still torture—only Muslims? What do these words mean when we sanction Israel’s brutal air assaults on Lebanon and Gaza, assaults that demolished thousands of homes and left hundreds dead and injured? How does it look for Obama to call for democracy and human rights from Egypt, where we lavishly fund and support the despotic regime of Hosni Mubarak, one of the longest-reigning dictators in the Middle East?

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A Redneck View of Obama's Presidency

By Joe Bageant, JoeBageant.com. Posted May 27, 2009.

"It don't matter who gets to warm his butt in the White House chair. The top dogs eat high on the hog and the little dogs eat the tails and ears."

When it comes to expressing plain truths, few are as gifted as American rednecks. During recent travels in the Appalachian communities of West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky I've collected scores of their comments on our national condition and especially President Barack Obama.

In America, all successful politicians are first and foremost successfully marketed brands. In fact, the Obama campaign was named Advertising Age's 2008 marketer of the year. George W. Bush's brand may have "collapsed," as they say on Madison Avenue, but things don't change much. Rednecks instinctively know this:

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Peacenik wishes Joe Bageant sounded a little more outraged in this piece, rather than sounding resigned to what is going on. Meanwhile, in Canada, Flaherty announces that the deficit will be $50 billion. $50 billion. Flaherty has all the credibility of Dr. Evil in Austin Powers. By the way, no mention of bank bailouts in the deficit story in the Globe. The suggestion is that all those bad unemployed people are causing the ballooning deficit. Joe Bageant may be happy going out and getting tanked but Peacenik wishes someone would grab a pitchfork and start the revolution.

Don't forget the Bush Protest at Metro Toronto Convention Centre on Friday at 3p.m. www.protestbush.com

John Cusack's Email to Obama's Blackberry: You're in Power, Don't Let Cheney's Torture Crew off the Hook

By John Cusack, Huffington Post. Posted May 19, 2009.

We can't whitewash institutionalized torture, trash any conceivable notion of the rule of law, and call that 'looking forward.'


If I had the President's Blackberry, I would send this.

President Obama,

On Wednesday you reversed your administration's promise to finally release pictures of detainee abuse.

The release of the photos was won by ACLU lawyers who have fought to bring to light the full extent of the brutality and torture that U.S. Army and intelligence services have perpetrated against human beings in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and at CIA "black sites" around the world. Torture that was sanctioned and effectively legalized under the former administration, and that, if we are to be honest, most Americans knew -- or should have known -- was being carried out in our names.

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Peacenik is not keeping Peacenik's disappointment with Obama and the Democrats a secret. And the issues just keep piling up. Peacenik watched some of the Sunday morning talk shows...and Peacenik wanted to puke. The primary topic of discussion wasn't torture or the tribunals. It was all about what Pelosi knew about the torture and when she knew it. Even this is old news. The media continues to be an arm of the Bush/Rove/Cheney media machine. The gambling addicted Bennett was on, being his usual hypocritical self. And of course Newt, who the media is grooming for a run for the presidency, was being his usual sanctimonious, hypocritical self.

The Democrats don't seem to know how the frame any issue. The can't even effectively condemn torture. They can't even effectively counter Bennett and Gingrich, two of the tiredest most irrelevant pundits around. Why is anyone tiptoeing around the torture story? Is torture wrong? Yes. Should torturers be held accountable? Yes. Should there be a special prosecutor? Yes. Its simple.

Barack Obama: Crime Boss

by Stephen Lendman / April 18th, 2009

Since taking office, Obama, wittingly or otherwise, has headed the largest criminal enterprise in history — the mass looting of national wealth to enrich his Wall Street benefactors. He assembled a rogue economic team of Clinton/Robert Rubin retreads — to fix the current crisis they engineered.

In a March 13 article, (author and former Republican strategist) Kevin Phillips called them “recycled senior (Clinton administration) Democrats (responsible for the) tech mania, deregulation binge and (1997-2000) stock market bubble and crash. (Obama) extend(ed) the (disastrous) mismanagement and pro-Wall Street bias of the 2008 Bush regime bailout.”

He called Geithner and Bernanke “hapless,” the result of their ruinous misjudgments (and, along with Alan Greenspan, complicit) with finance-sector malfeasance.”

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Peacenik is a fan of Obama. Or Peacenik was a fan of Obama. Peacenik is all mixed up. Peacenik thinks Obama is screwing up the finanacial rescue for the benefit of the crooks on Wall St. But maybe Obama knows something Peacenik doesn't know. Obama does a few things that seem reasonable...overtures to Iran and Cuba; then Obama does outrageous things....financial bailout for the banks....screwing the autoworkers union....and turning a blind eye to torture. Peacenik thinks there should be a special prosecutors for torture and Wall St. Can you be president and not be a crime boss? Maybe not.

Obama's Domino Theory

by Juan Cole

President Barack Obama may or may not be doing the right thing in Afghanistan, but the rationale he gave for it on Friday is almost certainly wrong. Obama has presented us with a 21st century version of the domino theory. The U.S. is not, contrary to what the president said, mainly fighting "al-Qaida" in Afghanistan. In blaming everything on al-Qaida, Obama broke with his pledge of straight talk to the public and fell back on Bush-style boogeymen and implausible conspiracy theories.

Obama realizes that after seven years, Afghanistan war fatigue has begun to set in with the American people. Some 51 percent of Americans now oppose the Afghanistan war, and 64 percent of Democrats do. The president is therefore escalating in the teeth of substantial domestic opposition, especially from his own party, as voters worry about spending billions more dollars abroad while the U.S. economy is in serious trouble.

He acknowledged that we deserve a "straightforward answer" as to why the U.S. and NATO are still fighting there. "So let me be clear," he said, "Al-Qaida and its allies -- the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks -- are in Pakistan and Afghanistan." But his characterization of what is going on now in Afghanistan, almost eight years after 9/11, was simply not true, and was, indeed, positively misleading. "And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban," he said, "or allows al-Qaida to go unchallenged -- that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can."

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Peacenik would rather be writing about the total meltdown of Wall Street that may be happening as Peacenik types this. Peacenik likes Obama. But Peacenik thinks Obama is totally screwing up trying to fix the financial crisis. It can't be fixed. And Peacenik thinks Obama is well on the way to screwing up his foreign policy. He's back to talking about those bad boogymen hiding in caves. A domino theory forchrissakes. The frigging speech about Afghanistan could have been given by George Bush. The growing recognition that it is all a house of cards, finance policy, foreign policy, social policy, makes it harder and harder for Obama to keep insulting the public's limited intelligence. Trouble, big trouble is brewing. Optimists are saying to watch out this fall. Peacenik says watch out....today.

Welcome To Obama’s War

by Eric Margolis

As Santayana observed, those who forget history are doomed to relive it. However overused, his maxim is as true today as when he made it.

On 15 February, 1989, the 40th Soviet Army pulled out of Afghanistan, marking the end of Moscow’s bloody and disastrous occupation. Its able commander, Gen. Boris Gromov, was the last Soviet solider to leave Afghanistan, leading his men over a bridge spanning the Amu Darya River (Oxus, in Greek) – which Alexander the Great had crossed on his ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan (327–325 BC).

In a decade of savage fighting, the Red Army and its Afghan Communist allies killed at least 1.5 million Afghans and drove 2.5 million into exile in Pakistan and Iran.

The new Soviet chairman, Mikhail Gorbachev, determined the Afghan war, that was begun by his dimwitted predecessor, Leonid Brezhnev, and a cabal of party and KGB hardliners, could not be won.

Fortunately for the world, Gorbachev, proved a leader of profound humanity, decency, and intellect. Gorbachev courageously accepted defeat and brought his soldiers home. Soon after, the Soviet Union, a bankrupt empire held together by fear and repression, began to crumble. To his eternal credit, Gorbachev refused to employ force to hold the Soviet Empire together.

Many Russians detest Gorbachev to this day, blaming him for the end of the Soviet Union. But using the Red Army to crush rebellion in the Baltic republics and East Germany could easily have ignited World War III. The world owes Gorbachev an enormous debt for averting this horror. He put humanism ahead of nationalism and imperialism.

The new president of the bankrupt American imperium should heed Gorbachev’s wisdom. Barack Obama’s inauguration offered a perfect opportunity to pause the US-led Afghan War, and open talks with Afghan groups resisting foreign occupation (both the Soviets and US branded them "terrorists"). Instead, Obama vowed to intensify the eight-year war which has so far cost the US $ 62 billion.

Keep Reading...

punditman says...

President Obama is a smart guy, or so we thought. Surely he knows that the Taliban did not attack the US on 9-11; surely he knows the plot was hatched in Germany and Spain, allegedly by Saudis and Pakistanis.
How long before Obama learns that all his own assumptions were wrong and that the Afghanistan catastrophe has no military solution? Even Stephen Harper apparently now knows this. Unfortunately, many stand to die while the President gets up to speed.

PS: maybe he should call up Gorbachev for some tutoring?

Very Bad News: Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base Will Be Obama's Guantanamo

By Stephen Foley, Independent UK. Posted February 22, 2009.

The Afghan air base is to undergo a $60 million expansion, allowing it to hold five times as many prisoners as remain at Gitmo.

Less than a month after signing an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, President Barack Obama has quietly agreed to keep denying the right to trial to hundreds more terror suspects held at a makeshift camp in Afghanistan that human rights lawyers have dubbed "Obama's Guantanamo."

In a single-sentence answer filed with a Washington court, the administration dashed hopes that it would immediately rip up Bush-era policies that have kept more than 600 prisoners in legal limbo and in rudimentary conditions at the Bagram air base, north of Kabul.

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While Peacenik watches the world economy crumble, Peacenik also unfortunately is watching Obama adopt more and more of Bush's policies. Obama gets props for saying he will close Guantanamo, then he blythly turns Bagram air base into a new Guantanamo. And remember, no one really knows who the enemy is in Afghanistan. The enemy is anyone unlucky enough to get picked up by the U.S. or its allies, which unfortunately includes Canada. Is due process being followed? What kind of interrogations are taking place at Bagram? Afghanistan is a quagmire. It is time for Canada to bring the troops home.

Economic Brushfires for a Planet at the Brink

by Michael T. Klare

The global economic meltdown has already caused bank failures, bankruptcies, plant closings, and foreclosures and will, in the coming year, leave many tens of millions unemployed across the planet. But another perilous consequence of the crash of 2008 has only recently made its appearance: increased civil unrest and ethnic strife. Someday, perhaps, war may follow.

As people lose confidence in the ability of markets and governments to solve the global crisis, they are likely to erupt into violent protests or to assault others they deem responsible for their plight, including government officials, plant managers, landlords, immigrants, and ethnic minorities. (The list could, in the future, prove long and unnerving.) If the present economic disaster turns into what President Obama has referred to as a "lost decade," the result could be a global landscape filled with economically-fueled upheavals.

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Peacenik listened to Obama last night. The cadence of his speech was great. Content, not so much. Obama is stuck in the role of cheerleader. He can play that role very well. But the world needs leadership and solutions, not cheerleading. Oh, and did Peacenik forget to mention that there are no solutions? Equally absurd was Bobby Jindal's Republican response. Bobby is oblivious to the fact that 30 years of Republican/Neo-Conservative policies led us to today. And the TV pundits? Peacenik thinks they may be really crazy as they continue to attempt to frame the present crisis in the context of their limited grasp of past crises. Globalization, the global economy, global trade, the global financial system is no more. Wake up Obama. Look at Klare's list of economic hotspots. Missoula Montana is next, along with the rest of America. The DOW, perversely was up 250 points yesterday. Lots of window dressing and cheerleading coming down the pipe today. Will the world buy it? Will the DOW soar? Is that really all the world needed, some confidence and cheerleading? Peacenik thinks not.

Message To The President

Dear Sir:

You and your team have very little time left to pull an "about face" on your fatally flawed plans to save the world. Your tactics, including spending trillions "stimulating" a dying economy, doing anything in your power to save the insolvent corpse of a banking system and to prop up a failed automobile industry, feigning confidence and strength in the face of devastation, will not work. They cannot work. The numbers, unlike you and your team, cannot conceal the truth for much longer. You are the President of the United States of America, and yet you are behaving, as all of your predecessors seem to have behaved before you, like the President of Bullshit Nation. Unfortunately for you, the bullshit cannot alter the coming realities.

Sir, virtually all of the banks of the world are, essentially, bankrupt. They have no capital. Capital has been summarily destroyed over the years by falling interest rates, rampant bond speculation and governmental check-kiting, fraudulent accounting, fraudulent valuation, the elimination of reserve ratios, the creation of money by federal decree (fiat currency), hidden off-book "assets" in the tens of TRILLIONS of dollars, a shadow banking system driven by derivative betting scams that globally reach toward half a QUADRILLION dollars in scope, etc. As Secretary Geithner embarks on his supposed banking "stress tests", and if he does so in earnest, you'd best be fully prepared for what you must uncover: Trillions upon trillions of pieces of worthless paper. If Assets = Liabilities + Equity---and in a world where many if not most of these institutions are leveraged 30:1, 40:1 and beyond---then the majority of assets currently held by the world's banks are worthless. Are you ready to tell the people the truth, sir? I fear not.

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Peacenik wonders what would happen if Obama stepped up and stated the truth. The truth as Dan W. sees it in this post. Dan W. and Illargi, and Mish and Soros are talking about the need to create a whole new system. Scary times. Who do you trust to create a new system? And how wrecked does the present system have to be before you can start building a new system? The fringe bloggers are talking about systemic collapse happening very quickly and soon. Obama and his advisors are acting like they believe the same thing. Obama and our leaders are acting like they are holding on to the edge of the abyss by their fingernails. They are not making Peacenik confident about tomorrow....or today.