We have no popular name for the war we are fighting.  

It used to be called the Global War on Terror.
They retired the label, but kept the war going.
It was briefly replaced with The Long Slog.
That didn't test well with focus groups
so they dropped names altogether
and just kept the war.

1. Can we win the war in Afghanistan (what exactly is 'winning' anyway)?

2. Will we ever have an economy that is more than a shadow of it's former self?

3. Can America trust it's political system and the people that occupy the seats of power?

These 3 hard questions are ones which the White House has not addressed - yet they are the questions which will define Obama and our country for the foreseeable future.

Why are the questions so hard to acknowledge?  Why can't they be publicly uttered?

To be quite sure, Obama is making a presentation of the issues in a way which brings to mind the immortal line "you can't handle the truth".

Update: I could be convinced that Obama is handling the truth. He would simply have to block out 15 minutes of each day to meet with a group of the ill, maimed, homeless, unemployed, and undereducated. Then, when Summers talks about Wall Street's 'balance sheet challenges', or the Joint Chiefs talk about 'defense challenges', perhaps Obama will have some of the perspective on 'real challenges' I thought his community organizing gave him.

Cross posted from Life, The Universe and Everything

Andrew Bacevich has a post at the American Conservative magazine website (not at all my usual reading) decrying the failure of the United State's foreign policy elites to comprehend the limitations of military force as a tool of foreign policy.

Yemen.  Who wants to bet there is more to Yemen than meets the eye?  Come on, it's easy money.  Bet me!  

Winner!  A cupie doll to those who bet. I can't give you anything better because, after all, it was an easy bet.  

"The strategic significance of the region between Yemen and Somalia becomes the point of geopolitical interest. It is the site of Bab el-Mandab, one of what the US Government lists as seven strategic world oil shipping chokepoints. The US Government Energy Information Agency states that "closure of the Bab el-Mandab could keep tankers from the Persian Gulf from reaching the Suez Canal/Sumed pipeline complex, diverting them around the southern tip of Africa. The Strait of Bab el-Mandab is a chokepoint between the horn of Africa and the Middle East, and a strategic link between the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/...

Think about this scenario: A low-level armed conflict in the streets of America, in multiple cities, causing an average of fifty to one hundred casualties per day.  Successful hits against infrastructure, causing additional casualties, and keeping national security, law enforcement, and rescue personnel very busy.

Given the scenario above, I'm going to ask you a trick question: How many constitutional rights are you willing to give up, or allow to weaken?  Think hard about the right answer.... I'll give you thirty more seconds.

Ok, time's up!  The correct answer is zero.  But I'm sure you knew that, right?  What is happening in America today Tuesday, December 29th, 2009, is an accelerated move towards the establishment (or expansion) of militaristic empire that mainly benefits the Military Industrial Complex, at your expense.  On New Year's Eve, remember to make a toast to the M.I.C., since obviously this is being done with the full approval of the citizenry.

Since the Bush years, progressives who emphasize opposition to war and support for civil liberties have developed into what might be called a "left-libertarian" faction of the Democratic Party.  Young progressives especially are likely to have libertarian tendencies, and it was these voters -- the Democratic version of the Ron Paul voters in the Republican Party -- who in large part propelled Barack Obama to victory in 2008 and secured large gains for Democrats in Congress.

Since then, however, Democratic leaders have spurned this part of their party's big-tent coalition.  First there was the acceptance and continuation of the warrantless wiretapping policy launched during the Bush administration rather than serious reform of FISA.  Next there was the refusal of the Obama administration to seek investigations and prosecutions of high level Bush administration officials who authorized torture.  Then there was President Obama's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan rather than bringing the war to a close.

Now, the removal of the public option from the Senate health care bill while keeping the mandate to buy private health insurance seems to be the last straw for libertarian-leaning progressives.

You haven't seen nothing yet.  When history is written, this so-called worst economic recession since the Great Depression will look like child's play.  This was just a prelude to what was to come.  And it's all pretty much by design (a very careful, and well-planned design).

All this passion and energy dealing with the current health care debate is a diversionary tactic; almost meaningless.  Alea iacta est.  The outcome is already preordained: Just like war criminals in the Bush administration acted with impunity.  Just like Wall Street bankers who stole trillions of dollars acted with impunity (and collaboration from the government).  The corporatist will win.  You (liberals and progressives) are not taken seriously, and actually make these people exploiting the country laugh at you (at us).

There is only one course of action you can take in order to be taken seriously.  Unless the progressive movement takes these steps, we are doomed: Both, figuratively, and in actuality.

Okay, one thing I've never understood about our current culture is how, when someone tells the truth, they're called "too liberal".   You see it all the time.   You really see it with someone like Dennis Kucinich:

History proves that third parties don't work, but recent developments prove that the Democratic Party is not working for progressives and change-oriented voters -- especially those of us who would like to see the U.S. government shift its priorities away from the military-industrial-corporate complex.

The level of anger on progressive blogs such as Daily Kos seems to be reaching a boiling point.  After President Obama's decision to escalate the War in Afghanistan and Senate Majority Leader Reid's decision to remove the public option from the health care reform bill, there have been many comments on this blog by people who seem ready to give up on the Democratic Party.

The question is: Is there anything productive that frustrated progressives can do, rather than throwing away what little clout we may have in politics by deciding to stop voting or stop participating in electoral campaigns?  Follow me below the fold for a proposal that we might consider.

copyright © 2009 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

It is said, as individuals, we can achieve all we conceive, if only we truly believe.  President Barack Obama once knew this.  He lived this veracity.  Indeed, candidate Obama’s audacity and accomplishments gave Americans hope.  When Barack Obama reached for the sky he realized what no one thought he could. The electorate was energized.  People came to expect the country was in for a change.

Yesterday I watched Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the UN, almost turn into a pretzel with her contorted answers to Rachel Maddow's questions about the justification for president Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan.  I have to admit I enjoyed watching Ms. Maddow's bewildered look when trying to comprehend the answers and explanations being given by Ambassador Rice.  Ms. Maddow's questions were right on point and relevant: Why not invade Yemen, and Somalia?  Isn't al-Qaeda operating in those countries as well?  How's Obama's approach different from the Bush doctrine of preemption?

The answers by Ambassador Rice (for whom I've always had great respect), of course, didn't make any sense (IMHO).  And that got me thinking about writing this diary I've been wanting to write for a while now, about the massive and effective manipulation of the citizenry by a corporate-controlled media.  And it works not only on the FoxNews-type viewers, but more insidiously, on many of those who consider themselves liberal progressives.  {More below...}

In 1967, in the midst of the Viet Nam War, Dial Press, published a much discussed book, entitled, Report from Iron Mountain. At the time it was published, it was described as an official, US  government study, written by a Special Study Group that was described as a secret commission of scholars. The report covered the problems that the United States would face if a permanent peace was ever established. Although there was a public debate about whether the Report was a hoax, a leaked version of a legitimate government effort that was called a hoax to hide its legitimacy, or something in between, the Report did generate much discussion about the issue of whether it is good ecconomic policy to wage war for the sake of the ecconomy.

Cross-posted at Facing South.

President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver a speech to the nation tonight from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in which he's expected to announce he's sending up to 35,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

The Department of Defense told the watchdog Project on Government Oversight Thursday that it won't let the public see a congressionally mandated revolving-door database of Pentagon employees.

POGO wonders what the harm is in seeing a list of former government officials who are now working for defense contractors. We have campaign finance and lobbying disclosure – why not expose those circulating between the public and private sectors who might be a driving force behind government decisions and policies?

"Public access to the revolving door database represents the kind of open government that the public wants and deserves. If this Administration is serious about open government, it needs to provide public access to the database about the well-oiled DoD revolving door," said POGO's General Counsel, Scott Amey.

Indeed. But exposing bits of the interlocking directorate of the military-industrial complex can be, at the very least, embarrassing to the uniformed powers-that-be.

In a Wednesday story that Thomas Ricks says should get a Pulitzer, Tom Vanden Brook, Ken Dilanian and Ray Locker of USA Today reported:

Six months after Marine Lt. Gen. Gary McKissock retired in 2002, he did what many other ex-military leaders do: He joined the board of directors of a defense contractor, a company doing business with his former service.

McKissock also had a second job. The Marines brought him back as an adviser, at double the rate of pay he made on active duty. Since 2005, the Marines have awarded McKissock contracts worth $1.2 million, in addition to his military pension of about $119,000 a year.

McKissock is one of at least 158 retired admirals and generals the Pentagon has hired to offer advice under an unusual arrangement. Most of the retired officers, one to four stars in rank, have been paid hundreds of dollars an hour by the military even as they worked for companies seeking Defense Department contracts, a USA TODAY investigation found. That's in addition to pensions of $100,000 to $200,000 a year for officers with 30 or more years of service. ...

Of the 158 retired generals and admirals identified as having worked for the military as senior mentors, 80% had financial ties to defense contractors, including 29 who were full-time executives of defense companies. Those with industry ties have earned salaries, fees or stock options as consultants, board members or full-time employees of defense firms.

Nothing illegal in any of that. And good arguments can be made for its beneficial effects.

Those benefits are outweighed by the steep downside, however. Bad enough when retired officers now working for defense contractors show up to lobby among their previous subordinates - men and women who took orders from them not so long ago. It's no easy matter to break the entrenched habit of saying "yessir." This revolving-door practice has been going on since before Dwight Eisenhower delivered his farewell address nearly half a century ago.  

But when the Pentagon and a contractor are both paying these former officers, the line becomes even more blurred.

In some cases, mentors also work for weapons-makers who have an interest in the military planning the mentors are assisting. A Marines exercise last year, which explored how to launch operations from ships, employed mentors who also had financial relationships with companies that sell products designed to aid those operations.

"This setup invites abuse," says Janine Wedel, a George Mason University public policy professor and author of a forthcoming book on government contracting. "Everyone in this story is fat and happy. Everyone, of course, except the public, which has virtually no way of knowing what's going on, much less holding these guys to account."

If retired generals advising the Pentagon also are "being paid by somebody who wants to make money off the government, I think it's important the public know that," says Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who chairs the subcommittee on contracting oversight. "The reason ... is so the people have confidence that the decisions are being made based on merit, and not based on inside baseball."

 
That ought to qualify for the understatement of the year. At its least damaging outcome, seeking to please former commanders who now hold jobs with defense companies is bound to be on the minds of those officers who someday hope to retire and bring in the big bucks from those companies themselves.

Far worse is the effect such "mentoring" may have not merely on weapons and software acquisitions but also on the shaping of war planning itself. Combine that with retired generals and admirals being specially briefed by the Pentagon for their appearances on Foxaganda and other media masquerading as "independent experts" and you've got a noxious brew.

Despite the shrieks of alarm that will emanate from the armchair patriots over any call for monitoring, much less ending, these relationships, a reform injecting a smidgen of accountability and transparency would amount to barely a baby-step toward curtailing the military-industrial complex. But at least it might demonstrate to the still unaware just how deeply rooted the MIC has become.    

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

Murder Inc, and the New World Disorder

At first blush, one would think that the Republican Party is making much ado about nothing with their staged outrage over the decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his 9/11 conspirators in the U.S. Federal court. Considering the macho stance that they generally take against Al Qaeda, one would think they'd say "bring it on", and be anxious to drag the conspirators back to the scene of the crime to face the consequences of their horrific act. After all, being forced to answer for their crimes before the people of New York represents the epitome of poetic justice.

There is an episode of Star Trek DS9 where the Bajorans (Democrats) are engaging in a civil war secretly instigated and supported by their former occupiers the Cardasians (Right Wing, MSM, Pumas in the fold). See the bajorans gained their independence from the Cardasians recently and have since asked the Federation for help. The people behind the war want the federation out. they want Bajor for Bajorans. What these people don’t realize is that their arch enemies the Cardasians are actually providing the weapons and support covertly through a third party. The Bajorans are being manipulated so the federation is removed leaving Bajor ripe pickings for the Cardasians to reoccupy their world. Bajoran vs. Bajoran, secretly manipulated by the cardasians. To make a long story short the Cardasians are exposed and the Bajorans reunite to further their agenda the rebuilding of Bajor.

Sirota of Salon only gets it half right.  Here's the rest of the story on why we hear so little on the price tag of the Military Industrial Complex.

This is going to be brief.  There are two pieces of news today, with respect to The President and their juxtapositions are noteworthy.