Wikileaks Hastened End of U.S. Occupation

Barack Obama wanted to keep some troops in Iraq past the 2011 deadline, but he also wanted those troops to have immunity from Iraqi prosecution. He might have worked out this deal with prime minister al-Maliki, but a Wikileaks revelation may have scuttled the back room deal. In 2006, "U.S. troops executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month old infant, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence, during a controversial 2006 incident in the central Iraqi town of Ishaqi."

There were numerous atrocities committed during the eight year long occupation, but this particular incident was revealed in the release of a Wikileaks cable and the resulting revulsion made it impossible for business as usual to take place.

If this revelation did keep the U.S. from continuing its occupation, the two men most responsible for ending the terror which America inflicted on Iraq are Julian Assange and Bradley Manning. Manning has been imprisoned without trial for over one year. He has not been brought to trial and yet president Obama has declared him guilty. Julian Assange will probably be extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault charges from the UK and will likely then be extradited to the United States.

These two heroes should be recipients of the nobel peace prize instead of Barack Obama, instead they have been caught in the maw of American law. Why should Moammar Gaddafi have been killed by a lynch mob when George Bush and Tony Blair live without fear of prosecution? He didn't do anything that American and European leaders haven't done, yet he was summarily executed. Bush, Blair and now Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy have killed thousands. They will be lionized, make millions when they leave office, and be allowed to die peacefully in their beds.

There is no justice in this world.

I Repeat, Bush Agreed to Leave Iraq by the End of 2011

Who can forget the wonderful moment when journalist Muntader al-Zaidi threw his shoe at President Bush? It was December 14, 2008 and Bush appeared in Baghdad with Prime Minister al-Maliki to highlight the security agreement which included a pledge for the U.S. to remove its troops by
December 31, 2011.

Al-Zaidi was having none of it, and hurled one of the best insults of all time. “This is the farewell kiss, you dog.”

In any case, I write this to repeat what I said earlier. Obama is doing nothing more than what he was obligated to do by his predecessor.

Bush Signed the Agreement to Get Troops Out of Iraq by the End of 2011

Obama should get no credit for taking combat troops out of Iraq. In 2008, the Bush administration signed a Status of Forces Agreement, SOFA, to get combat troops out by the end of 2011. Obama had no choice but to abide by this agreement. Also, like his predecessor, he is trying to finagle ways to keep military “advisers” in that country, in this case up to 5,000 military contractors. Obama has as much teflon as Reagan, getting credit when he deserves none.

Nothing to see here, keep it moving.

Obama Kills Again

The peace prize laureate has struck again. It was only a matter of time before Muammar Gaddafi would be killed. As always, my Black Agenda Report colleague Glen Ford was incredibly prescient when he said back in February that the Libyan president was “on the outs.” Actually that turned out to be an under statement, as Gaddafi is now very much dead.

There is nothing good, absolutely nothing good about the United States and NATO deciding to over throw a sovereign government. It is up to people throughout the world to have all the rights of self-determination. They must decide for themselves how or if they want to change a government. Not that the west really cares about who is or isn’t cruel to their own countrymen and women. The humanitarian power grab is the first line of defense in explaining the unspeakable. Now Libya’s oil is ripe for western plunder. On the outs indeed.

Demand the End of Wall Street

“There is no reforming Wall Street, only its dismantling and simultaneous replacement by public institutions for allocating capital for human needs and development.”
Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report

As usual, Glen gets to the heart of the matter. The question of what Occupy Wall Street should demand is more complicated than most people are willing to acknowledge. Capitalism has been in crisis for quite some time, and the post-2008 bail outs have proven that it is a system on life support. TARP and the federal reserve have not resuscitated the patient despite giving it CPR, that is to say public money, over and over again. Glen tells us what we must do rather than what we must demand because, “. . . there is no point in demanding anything from your enemy, except that he drop dead in a hurry.”

Chris Floyd on Occupy Wall Street

I started out as a skeptic. I wanted Occupy Wall Street to come up with an agenda, and to dump the democrats once and for all. I have been writing, speaking and thinking about issues for a long time now, and I realize that I am ahead of other people who are new at social action.

I have had second thoughts after attending the Times Square rally last week. I saw and felt the energy, and yes the joy created by people who are taking the first steps to doing something different. Chris Floyd, one of my favorite bloggers, puts it this way.

"It seems to me that the whole point of the Occupy movement, in its multiplicity of forms, is to MAKE A START. To not simply bow the head and bend the knee, and give up and say, Oh Lordy, the Man is too powerful for me, He controls everything, there's nothing anyone can do. The point, it seems to me, is just to show up and stand up and say out loud, as Thoreau said, "We disassociate ourselves from this rigged, corrupt, immoral system."

Isn't this what dissidents have been urging people to do for years now? I know this site has been full of commenters -- and my own blog posts -- calling for something exactly like this. Saying: Do it individually, if you have to, do it en masse -- but DO SOMETHING! Stand up, speak out and disassociate yourself from all this evil. Start looking for other ways: try this, try that, try the other, and if all that fails, try something else -- but DO SOMETHING."

I am still concerned about the lack of specificity and I'm not comfortable with the slow and amorphous nature of the consensus method of having discussions. Still I am glad that this movement has begun. I have to remember that I started out just wanting to end a war. I never thought I would be proudly saying that I have no intention of voting for another democratic president. I had to start somewhere.

Diet Soap Podcast

One of my favorite things to do is appear on Doug Lain's Diet Soap Podcast. This week we talked about Occupy Wall Street and the Obama administration threats against Iran. Listen up. It is a great way to spend an hour.

Occupy Wall Street Protest in Times Square Last Night

I was at Times Square last night as part of the Occupy Wall Street protest. I didn't see this particular incident, but there were nearly as many police as protesters. It was ironic, being in the seat of consumption and corporate promotion, but I guess that made it a great location.

I'm not sure what will become of OWS. I have concerns because their anger is a bit diffuse to me. The organization by consensus mode is not conducive for formulating a list of concrete demands, which is the foundation of all successful mass movements.

I think those of us who have ideas about where OWS should go ought to go and get involved. I have to put myself on the line a bit and make good on my own ideals just like the OWS organizers have done.

New York State Prison Population Declines

First the good news. New York state's prison population has dropped by almost 20% since 2000. The end of the Rockefeller drug laws, which gave judges no discretion in handing down some of the harshest sentences in the nation, has not only decreased the state's prison population, but decreased the rates of racial disparities as well.

These statistics prove that the war on drugs was meant to do nothing more than put as many black people behind bars as possible. Sentences were driven by drug convictions, and the drop in those convictions results in few people in jail. Now there are roughly 7,700 fewer black people in New York prisons than there were in 2000.

The bad news is that the United States still has more than 2 million people in jails and prisons, a larger number than any other nation. Budgetary constraints are forcing some states to release prisoners early, but every state is not like New York. Despite an overall drop in crime, some states continue to build prisons, many of them privately owned and with an obvious interest in putting and keeping more people behind bars. The New Jim Crow is still alive and well, but successes must be noted.

War Criminal President

I have been privileged to read the wonderful work of Arthur Silber for some years now. His blog, Power of Narrative, is one of my all time favorites. Despite the fact that I have never actually met Arthur, I consider him to be a mentor of mine. His words crystallized all that I had been thinking about the state of our country and the world. His analysis is clear and simple, we have a ruling class, and they use the quadrennial electoral extravaganza to fool us into thinking that we actually have democracy.

Back in 2008 when all but a handful of us collapsed like love sick groupies for Barack Obama, Silber was one of a group of writers who as they say, had Obama's number. As Silber put it, the choice of McCain or Obama was nothing but a choice of war criminals. He argued in favor of a McCain victory because progressives, in their faux activism, might oppose his policies. Silver was correct in his assessment. Progressives stood down when Obama won, and have accepted cuts to entitlements, endless war, and the biggest transfer of public wealth to the private sector ever in history.

In just the past few months, Obama assassinated Osama bin Laden, over threw the Libyan government, assassinated Anwar al-Awlaki and is now threatening Iran. The Iran threat has been ratcheted up by yet another terror plot which would never have existed if the FBI hadn't created it. This time we are told that Iranians made a pact with Mexican drug dealers to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. It is psy-ops at its worst, or perhaps its best, depending on how one looks at it.

All of the usual "serious" suspects, from establishment think tanks to wimpy pundits, accept this bizarre tale uncritically. Obama is doing with Iran what he did with Libya, getting NATO to co-sign his killing spree. The British foreign secretary had this to say, presumably with a straight face. The plot "would appear to constitute a major escalation in Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism outside its borders.” The New York Times repeats what the administration says, what better way to maintain its access.

When Obama assassinated al-Awlaki, the administration leaked classified information to the Times in order to justify its actions. I suppose the leakers should be treated like Bradley Manning, who is accused of a less serious release of classified information.

Obama has gotten away with policies that the right wing only dreamed about. Ronald Reagan gave up his efforts to kill Gaddafi and Bush demurred on making war against Iran. Bush wanted to cut social security, but democratic outcry made it impossible. No so with Obama, who has gotten his party to go along with his dirty deeds. John McCain may have sung Bomb Bomb Iran, but it will be Obama who gets away with carrying out the crime.

When he does, what will the peace movement do? It is clear that the protests leading up to the invasion of Iraq were more anti-Bush and anti-republican than they were truly anti-war. Will the same people who joined me in the streets of New York in 2003 join me again when bombs fall on Tehran or Isfahan?

The NATO backed "rebels" in Libya are slaughtering black people with impunity, a modern day lynch mob paid with cold hard cash from the west. Our voices are muted, and black Americans continue making themselves politically irrelevant by saying nothing about Obama's policies, even one as evil as this which targets a black population.

Today the administration announced that 100 American troops are headed to Uganda on a "humanitarian" mission. The missions are always humanitarian but they end up the same way, expanding imperialism and creating misery.

So my friend Arthur Silber was right. We have a war criminal at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and he will probably be there until January 2017, at which time he will be succeeded by another one.

Arthur has been in ill health and hasn't posted since August. I wish him well, mostly because he is a friend, but also because we need to hear from him at this time.

Obama Shows His Ass (and that is good news)

There are certainly more articulate ways of expressing myself, but why beat around the bush? When Barack Obama spoke at the Congressional Black Caucus annual event this weekend he showed himself to be the pompous jackass that he has always been.

"I expect all of you to march with me and press on. Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on. We’ve got work to do, CBC."

While this display of condescension initially made me angry, I now have second thoughts. I am glad that Obama insulted black people for the 100th time.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters, always among my favorites, made the case this way. She is savvy and knows that she will alienate her constituents if she directly criticizes Obama. She said as much publicly at a Detroit town hall.

" 'We don't put pressure on the president,' said Waters. 'Let me tell you why. We don't put pressure on the president because ya'll love the president. You love the president. You're very proud...to have a black man [in the White House] ...First time in the history of the United States of America. If we go after the president too hard, you're going after us... When you tell us it's alright and you unleash us and you tell us you're ready for us to have this conversation, we're ready to have the conversation.' "

Obama has now given Waters and others the cover they need in order to take him on.

“ 'I found that language a bit curious because the president spoke to the Hispanic Caucus and certainly they are pushing him on immigration and despite the fact that he's appointed [Justice Sonia] Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, he has an office for excellence in Hispanic education right in the White House, they’re still pushing him and he certainly didn’t tell them to stop complaining,' she said.

'And he never would say that to the gay and lesbian community who really pushed him on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Or even in a speech to AIPAC, he would never say to the Jewish community ‘stop complaining’ about Israel.' ”

I have always suspected that the huge black voter turn out from November 2008 would not be repeated in 2012. We have already seen that turn out in elections held since 2008 has been very low. Despite all the talk of renewed energy and interest in politics, the truth is far simpler. Black people were excited to see a black president and not excited about much else.

Now they have seen one and that initial thrill has gone. Obama has not even made token efforts to help black people and regardless of how much his critics are despised, his lack of action is noted and will have consequences. Most black people will not directly and openly criticize Obama, they will just stay home next November and I don't think that is a bad thing. The democrats have proven themselves to be no friends of black people, of labor or of the left in general. It is time for them to go. If we are going to have a president willing to cut social security, we may as well have a republican anyway.

Congresswoman Waters should cheer up. She can consider herself "unleashed."

9/11 Conspiracy

"That’s the real political world, in which Giuliani and others have never been held accountable. The conspiracists disdained the real world because they wanted to promote Bush, Cheney and the Neo-Cons to an elevated status as the Arch Demons of American history, instead of being just one more team running the American empire, a team of more than usual stupidity and incompetence (characteristics I personally favor in imperial leaders)." - Alexander Cockburn

No, there was no 9/11 conspiracy and Cockburn pretty much proves it. He answers the questions the "truthers" have raised and makes it easier to stomach the dreaded 9/11 anniversary celebrations. Yes, there are logical explanations for the towers falling, for WTC7 to appear to implode and yes a plane did hit the pentagon.

Now about that Israeli moving company...

"We don't know why on this trip that he [Obama] is on the United States now why he is not in any black communities."
Give him hell Maxine!

Does Obama Believe in Global Warming?

"Global warming caused by burning fossil fuels is melting the Arctic's ice. The melting of that ice makes it possible to exploit the region's reserves of fossil fuels, which will contribute even more to warming of the Earth's temperature.

And, remember, we will be trashing the Arctic for, at best, three years worth of oil."
Randolph Holhut

Liberal snootiness and snobbery is really and truly making me sick. These people care nothing about issues or ideology and will run like sclalded dogs rather than wage a political fight against the ruling classes. It makes sense I suppose. They don't call them rulers for nothing.

This week republican presidential candidate John Huntsman made news because he says that global warming is a fact. His rivals, most prominently Texas governor Rick Perry, say that it is unproven theory.

Progressives watch and laugh and stick their noses high in the air. They have yet another chance to proclaim their intellectual and moral superiority over conservatives.

Of course, this would have been a perfect week to point out that president Obama, just like Rick Perry, could give a rat's backside about global warming. The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has given preliminary approval for Royal Dutch Shell to begin drilling in the Alaskan arctic next year. Yes, I know, the EPA and Fish and Wildlife and heaven only knows who else must also agree. But seriously, do you really think that one agency said yes without knowing what the boss, Obama, wants the rest of them to do?

Are memories so short that the BP disaster in the gulf last year has been forgotten already? It took BP five months to figure out how to resolve the Deep Water Horizon disaster and the gulf is still paying the price.

Obviously every living creature on earth is paying the price for global warming. More fossil fuel accelerates the dangers and drilling in the arctic ocean is needlessly dangerous. But never mind. Perry is an ignoramous and Michelle Bachmann is stupid, so we need an ivy league smarty pants to send us on the road to hell. We'll feel better knowing that a constitutional law professor sent us there.

The United States Starves Somalia

The New York Times published a photo of a starving Somalian child in today's edition of that newspaper. As expected, the photo has elicited comment and deep emotion, as it should. Unfortunately, the Times headline states that the Shabab, Somalia's resistance group, is responsible for the starvation. What a difference one year makes. In February 2010 the Times said the following. "U.N. Officials Assail U.S. On Limiting Somali Aid ."

It is the United States which instigated Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia, destroying that country and killing thousands of people. Black Agenda Report has done great reporting on how the U.S. and Ethiopia are deliberately starving Somalians. Chris Floyd has also reported a story which has largely been ignored.

Don't believe anything our government says about its actions abroad. As in all other ways, the Obama administration continues the very worst policies of the Bush regime, and killing Somalians is no exception.

Quote of the Week

"The Tea Party held America hostage during "the debt debate"? No, you fool, you idiot; fucking rich people did it. The Tea Party is just some shit they cooked up to keep you busy, to keep you fuming at each other while they steal your tooth fairy money and grandma's dentures. Every policy that you abhor and mistakenly ascribe to the ersatz conservative revanchism of the so-called tea-party movement is a willful policy of oligarchic centralism with the end goal of extracting every last red cent from every last human being on the earth.

Yea verily, I have returned unto you to put it straight to yinz: there is no tea party; there are no Democrats; there is no America. There is only global capital. There is no keeping American competitive for the future against the Chinese children of the math-science learning gap to win tomorrow today with the power of innovation. There is a single transnational elite whose allegiance is to itself. They would've fucked you on Saturday; they'll fuck you next Wednesday instead. There was no debt crisis. THERE IS NO DEBT CEILING. You are like prisoners in a concentration camp, tearing each other apart over crusts of bread. The guards check their rifles. The kommandant shtups his mistress. The carrion birds circle against the concrete sky.

You must destroy the rich." - Who is Ioz?

Good News, Boehner Walks

Hallelujah! Boehner left the budget talks. Why is this good news? Glen Ford explained in Black Agenda Report.

"In other words, when the debt-limit showdown arrives, pray for gridlock, which would at least mean there is still resistance to Republican extortion."

So cheer up! Obama can't, in Glen's words, ". . . face down and brow-beat the remaining defenders of the social safety net in his own Democratic Party, who have always been the most immediate dangers to his grand center-right coalition."

Let's hope Boehner never comes back to the table.

Diet Soap Podcast

I love being a guest on Doug Lain's Diet Soap podcast. Here is the latest.

Debt Ceiling? Budget Cuts? Arthur Silber Explains It All

Arthur Silber is one of my favorite bloggers. His insights are amazing and make sense of the madness we are subjected to on a daily basis. Unfortunately, he has been very ill and doesn't always post on a regular basis. This week he is back and in great form.

While other commentators make the budget discussions seem confusing, Arthur spells it out simply. The ruling classes are behaving as they always do, terrifying us into accepting our own demise. Obama and his friends who have helped him raise $86 million, one full year before the election, are putting us in our places, convincing us that our safety net and anything else tht helps us ought to be expendable.

"Your national leaders are terrorists. Look on the bright side: they aren't shooting at you or sending drones into your neighborhood. Not yet. You still have that to look forward to, you fortunate idiots.

But most Americans can't or won't acknowledge the fact that terrorists rule them. The ruling class counts on that, and they're absolutely right. Are there millions of Americans camped out in Washington, or even thinking about it? Don't make me laugh."

Obama is telling us to accept cuts in medicaid and medicare so that he can make a deal with the republicans. He could fight back and tell his supporters he will defy the republicans, but that doesn't get you $86 million in the campaign bank and in any case, he isn't interested. Obama could give a sh*t. Or is that couldn't give a sh*t? Whatever.