Obama seems bent on escalating the war in Afghanistan. How exactly are hundreds of years of cultural flavoring going to be changed with guns, bombs, and money.
The people that make policy decisions are very intelligent people. They have access to superior information of all types.
I still maintain that this escalation is designed by energy and raw materials corporations in order to develop Afghanistan as a route into asset rich Central Asia.
I also maintain that it is essentially profit that is at the center of all modern transactions and especially wars.
ZNET: Get Ready for the Obama/GOP Alliance
For those who elected Obama, it's important to remember the downward spiral that was accelerated by Clinton's GOP alliance to pass NAFTA.
Today, it's crucial to ask where Obama is heading. From the stimulus to healthcare, he's shown a Clinton-like willingness to roll over progressives in Congress on his way to corrupt legislation and frantic efforts to compromise for the votes of corporate Democrats or "moderate" Republicans.
If Obama stands tough on more troops to Afghanistan (as Clinton fought ferociously for NAFTA), only an unprecedented mobilization of progressives - including many who worked tirelessly to elect Obama - will be able to stop him.
4 comments:
Disturbing article. Why is this man staking his President on the good faith of Hamid Karzi and his utterly corrupt so called Gov't? He's alienating his own base by his actions and not just on Afghanistan. Why? For whom? What is going on here?
Yeah, I firmly think it has to do with access to Central Asia for energy and raw materials. Obama has made a bargain with corporations and Wall St. He sends in the military which also keeps the military budget cranking and which maintains thousands of jobs along with keeping weapons corporations hopping. Plus they maintain US corporate interests in Afghanistan - pipelines, communications, roads, etc etc so that access to Central Asia is viable. They can't go through Iran because its still out of US corporate control.
This has nothing to do with changing the lives of the people or anything like that. The big problem is that the enemy, the Taliban is hell bent from centuries of religio-cultural conditioning to not allow any of this to happen. So they are going to continue to fight like the universe depends on it. Enemies of American corporate interests will provide material support for the Taliban. The whole thing is a gamble, its based on overwhelming force again and strategic incursions along with "winning the hearts and minds."
The thing that bugs me is that you get all these young, amazing soldiers in there to do the dirty work and some will get the brunt of the war. This is not good.
In the end Obama will not get the support of the GOP. The GOP has lost its own ideological base and has succumbed to the extremist end. That would be the Palin, Beck, tea bag crowd. The neocons are fanning that fire because the neocons are essentially a parasite on the underbelly of the Republican party. They don't care which version of the Republican party succeeds as long s as they can go along for the ride and assume foreign policy control AKA more endless war and less American dissent.
I mostly agree with you analysis but not of the Gopers. I think the Gopers have a solid base of millions just like the Nazis did in Germany. The more radical to the right the happier this base is. Obama is making a mistake tacking to the right, he's losing his own base and the Independents as well.
The GOP really has only one interest, they have to discredit Obama and/or convince middle America that they can do better.
Its essentially a media war and pushing the limits on framing debate, re-contextualizing policy in a negative light and just being noisy asses.
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