Here’s someone who understand of what he speaks. I have to take the opportunity to recommend a book Gorbachev wrote with Buddhist author Daisaku Ikeda caller Moral lessons of the 20th Century. It was the kind of conversation that couldn’t have happened before our time.
In his new book, the widely respected Ron Suskind charges that in run up to the war in Iraq, the Bush Administration ordered the CIA to forge a document that would support the claim that there was a connection between the al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s Government. If this is true, and there is every reason to believe that it is, then the smoking gun that justifies the impeachment of George W Bush and Dick Cheney may have just turned up.
John McCain just revealed to the media secret detail about Sen. Obama’s travel schedule in Iraqi over the next two days, potentially endangering Obama by tipping of the terrorist to his whereabouts
In what may be a positive sign for those hoping that Barack Obama will pick the dark horse in the vice presidential race, antiwar republican Chuck Hagel will join the democratic (presumptive) nominee on his upcoming visit to Iraq.
The Iraqi government has stepped into the debate over the future of American military presence there. All indications are that Barack Obama’s schedule for a phased redeployment of American troops from Iraq corresponds to a growing consensus with in the Iraqi Government, that an open ended military presence in the country is both unwelcome and counter productive.
The full title of the story was “Obama: bin Laden still free because of GOP”. In fairness to Drudge the author of the piece, the associated press’s Nedra Pickler used this title as well. Obama’s comments on the subject are important and shine light on a seldom spoken truth; the republican conceived war on terror has failed to bring America’s greatest enemy to justice. This is the debate that democrats have been to afraid to have for the last seven years, but it is the right one for the nation. In that spirit one has to commend Drudge for covering it, on the other hand, it is probably never a good idea to have the words “Obama: bin Laden” right underneath a huge picture of the Senator.
This story makes you wonder if the second amendment is just for show these days. Aside from the rights for hunters and sportsmen, and the right to self defense, the most quintessentially America justification for the right to bear arms has to do with an armed citizenry as a deterrent of tyranny. Makes you feel like George Washington is one of your good mates, doesn’t it? Not to knock the sportsman or the hunter, but that’s the real reason the second amendment is worth fighting for. However weapons like the aptly named “the reaper”, the new air force unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) which one CNN analyst called “the predator on steroids”, makes resistance futile. Unlike the predator that was is still in use by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, the reaper can fly higher and for longer stretches, and the “pilot” that controls the craft from miles away has 500 pound bombs at his finger tips.
Seeing it kind of makes you (unless you are an Iraqi) glad that the good guys are the only ones who have these things. The cool-headed truth is that our government has the checks and balances to peacefully coarse correct over time and chances are not uprising will ever be called for again in this nation, but can you imagine what North Korea or Myanmar or the Taliban controlled Afghanistan would be like if these weapons patrolled the sky for homosexuals or promiscuous women or band book readers. As the world should have learned from the out of control proliferation of nuclear weaponry around the globe, any weapon that you invent, you must also imagine it in your enemy’s hands.
Michael Moore is working on a follow up to Fahrenheit 9/11, a movie that dared to say what not even the democrats would; that George W. Bush is a phony and an opportunist.
Obama was against invading Iraq because he understood it would take our eye off the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Get your “If you want to catch Osama you’ve gotta vote Obama” bumper sticker here! Send an email to Chris@anewdaypost.com with your mailing address and the number of stickers you need!
This should add the all important radical-libertarian-constitutional-internet-fringe. I for one think that if we get to a point where Ralph Nader and Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan and Denis Kucinich all agree on Obama’s candidacy then he has to be the guy, or maybe that should disqualify him, (Isn’t this like one of those books that Thich Nhat Hanhwrites about how Jesus and the Buddha are really getting at the same thing?)
Keith Olbermann characterized Obama’s and Clinton’s criticism of McCain’s statement that he wouldn’t have a problem with keeping the troops in Iraq for a “maybe a hundred years”, as “truth slinging” And that’s what it is. “McCentury”, as he was called by the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson later in that MSNBC segment, has an uphill climb in front him this fall, as he tries to sell an open-ended military commitment to a public that has turned decidedly against the war in Iraq.
After decades of public service amassing considerable political credibility on both sides of the aisle, and more recently co-chairing the two most important governmental inquires since the Warren Report, Lee Hamilton brings significant national security weight to the Obama candidacy.
The department of defense confirms that four solders killed by a roadside bomb this morning in southern Baghdad move the United States death toll in Iraq to 4000. This is a moment to consider how much these young Americans and their families have sacrificed and to ponder what their lives were traded for. In this story the American wounded often get over looked by the media, and almost no one is even attempting to keep up with how many Iraqis have died in the five year conflict.
It has now been five years since the United States military invaded Iraq to stop Saddam Hussein from using weapons of mass destruction, which he didn’t have, to help terrorist who he wasn’t connected to. That’s not liberal spin, but the conclusion of the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group co-chaired by the former Sec. of State republican James Baker. Now, according to the Department of Defense 3992 Americans have died in the war. Despite Bush adviser Paul Wolfowitz’s prewar assurance that with Iraq, “We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction”, Estimates say that the cost of the war is between $700 billion to $2 trillion. Reporting on the issue of Iraqi civilian dead has been shamefully poor but 1000000 is an often pointed to figure. And of course, Osama bin Laden is still at large in Pakistan..
Five years on, with 97% of the US deaths coming since the president declaired declared “Mission Accomplished”, and with all the original justifications for the war proven false, and the Bush administrations unraveling credibility having left the American people with a true crises of leadership, we as a nation are no closer to an idea of what victory in Iraq would look like. The policy makers on the war still have no time tables and misses their own benchmarks casually. As Eric Kleefeld of talking points memo points out George Bush’s popularity has fallen 40 points over the five years of the Iraq war. Now as the race to replace Bush heats up, the republican nominee still doesn’t quite have the facts straight. While visiting the Middle East John McCain repeatedly states that Shia Iran is training Sunni Al-Qaida. Not one to be over shadowed, McCain’s Iraq traveling buddy Dick Cheney, when asked by ABC about polls that show two thirds of Americans think the war is not worth it said “so?” that before leavening to go fishing on the yacht of the Sultan of Oman.
In a few months it will be the three year anniversary of Dick Cheney’s assurance that the insurgence in Iraq was in it “last throws”, so today was as good a time as any for a Cheney to make Surprise visit to Baghdad with the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party. However, just as John McCain and Vice-President Cheney were making the visit to Iraq, heralding the progress in the security situation brought on by the surge, a woman blew herself up, killing 43 in Karbalaon Monday. The victims in this particular attack were Shiite worshipers; the violence, part of a larger series of attacks that killed at least 73 according to the Associated Press. All this coming as republicans back home are trying to convince Americans of a growing stability and coming political reconciliation in Iraq. It is also worth noting, in a gaff of monumental proportions, McCain who is staking his campaign on his readiness to deal with Iraq, mistakenly claimed that Shiite Iran is training Sunni Al-Qaida.
For years opponents of the war have warned that when the United States leaves Iraq, Turkey might invade Kurdish northern Iraq in an attempt to quell a growing Kurdish separatist movement that is spilling into southern Turkeys largely Kurdish areas. It seems the Turkish military isn’t waiting for American troops to leave after all.
“That’s right. Osama bin Laden hasn’t been captured, much less killed, and Gen. Musharraf’s reign over Pakistan is on the brink of chaos, but we still rely on him to find bin Laden in that nation, and still, until now nobody here has found time to mention it. And now, you’re supposed to be embarrassed for having suggested that if Musharraf won’t act, you will? Nonsense. Prior to your discussion of the subject, Sen. Obama, I reviewed the transcripts of the first seven presidential debates (almost 15 hours!) and could find only one substantive question about Pakistan put to any of the candidates, and that came from someone in the audience.That’s why I blame the other candidates for not talking in detail about what they would do to find bin Laden if elected, and shame on the media for giving those candidates a free pass.
I certainly don’t profess to have the answers about what we should be doing in Pakistan to finally find and kill bin Laden, and I don’t know whether you do, Sen. Obama. But I welcome your attempt at leading the discussion.”
