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POPSObama's War Whoop: "Let the bloodbath begin!"
Obama also has a glaring truth-in-advertising problem. He's just not who he pretends to be. He was sold as an avatar of change but, as soon as he was sworn in, he proceeded to reinforce the most regressive policies of the Bush administration. With typical callousness, he has run roughshod over his liberal base who mistook his sweeping proclamations as a sincere commitment to progressive politics. Boy, were they duped. No change, no way. So what exactly is the difference between George Bush and Barack Obama? 3 inches and maybe 20 lbs, beyond that, not a thing. They're carbon copies. Obama will now deploy 30,000 troops to the Afghan hellhole while activating Gen Stanley "death squad" McChrystal's savage counterinsurgency operation which will integrate psyops, special forces, NGOs, psychologists, media, anthropologists, humanitarian agencies, public relations, reconstruction, robotic drones, and conventional forces to assert control over the South and the tribal areas of Pakistan
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POPSThe Afghan Quagmire So what would a rigorous public and internal administration debate have highlighted? First, the more occupation forces there are, the more they fuel the insurgency against the occupation, especially since so many more civilians than fighters lose their lives. Witness the wedding parties, villagers, and innocent bystanders blown up by the U.S. military’s superior weaponry. Second, there was a remarkable absence in Obama’s speech about the tribal conflicts and the diversity of motivations of those he lumped under the name of “Taliban.” Some are protecting their valleys, others are in the drug trade, others want to drive out the occupiers, others are struggling for supremacy between the Pashtuns on one side and the Tajiks and Uzbeks on the other (roughly the south against the north). The latter has been the substance of a continuing civil war for many years. Third, how can Obama’s plan begin to work, requiring a stable, functioning Afghan government—which now is largely a collection
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POPSAnti-US Feeling Running High as CIA Drones Take a Civilian Toll Many Pakistanis see the US military presence in their region as the cause of militant extremism, not its cure. Reaction to Obama's speech was ambivalent, with rightwing commentators insisting his true aim is to invade Pakistan and capture its nuclear weapons. The hostility means that, in Pakistan, Obama relies more heavily on spies than soldiers. Obama's favoured tactic has been the use of CIA-operated pilotless drones, which have made over 80 strikes in the tribal belt since 2006, half of them this year. Targets included the Pakistani Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, killed last August, and al-Qaida leaders. Today the New York Times said the CIA is pushing to extend drone strikes into Balochistan province, further west along the Afghan border. While the drones put few American lives in danger, they still carry substantial risks. Strikes that have killed at least 750 people in the past two years have provoked public hostility. Any move into Balochistan is likely to spark a fierc
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POPSObama with Blood on His Hands n reality, U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have operated under standing orders to "call for fire" (an air-strike) whenever resistance fighters take cover in a house or apartment building, even when large numbers of civilians may also be inside the building. The overriding priorities have always been to avoid risking American lives in dangerous house searches and to kill "insurgents." Human rights reports by the U.N. Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) have documented many such incidents in which civilians have been killed, as well as extensive discussions between U.N. and U.S. officials about them. For instance, in its human rights report for the 2nd quarter of 2007, UNAMI insisted that American air strikes in densely populated civilian areas were violations of international law. American attitudes to protecting civilians in wartime and other requirements of international humanitarian law differ sharply from those of people in other countries.
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POPSCreech Air Force Base: A Place of Disbelief, Confusion and Sadness There is a disturbing contrast between aggressor and victim. The aggressor zooming around Las Vegas in a posh automobile, living a luxurious life style and launching missiles onto a target that is far away and the victim located in a village or inside a building on the Afghanistan Pakistan borders. There are over 200,000 people in internally displaced camps (IDP) in Afghanistan because of US bombardment and war. The number one enemy in Afghanistan is poverty. For many of those holding a presence outside of Creech Air Force Base, there is a look of total disbelief, confusion, and sadness. As the US troop presence in Afghanistan increases, the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) program will ramp up. Read about the actions in the local spotlight here and in the news here.
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POPSOpium, Rape and the American Way Truth from the women in Afghanistan: (read the whole article for the real story) "In eight years less than 2,000 Talib have been killed and more than 8,000 innocent civilians has been killed," she went on. "We believe that this is not war on terror. This is war on innocent civilians. Look at the massacres carried out by NATO forces in Afghanistan. Look what they did in May in the Farah province, where more than 150 civilians were killed, most of them women and children. They used white phosphorus and cluster bombs. There were 200 civilians on 9th of September killed in the Kunduz province, again most of them women and children. You can see the Web site of professor Marc Herold, this democratic man, to know better the war crimes in Afghanistan imposed on our people. The United States and NATO eight years ago occupied my country under the banner of woman's rights and democracy. But they have only pushed us from the frying pan into the fire. They put into power men who are photocopies o
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POPS6 Signs That the American Empire Is Coming to an Early End Funny, I've been saying this (out loud) for years. More of an interesting article: "No one seems to be saying this out loud -- yet -- but let's put it bluntly: less than a year into the 15-year span of Global Trends 2025, the days of America's unquestioned global dominance have come to an end. It may take a decade or two (or three) before historians will be able to look back and say with assurance, "That was the moment when the United States ceased to be the planet's preeminent power and was forced to behave like another major player in a world of many competing great powers." The indications of this great transition, however, are there for those who care to look."
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POPSNY Times: Afghan Opium Kingpin On CIA Payroll What have I been sayin' for over a year? Just like in Vietnam the CIA is nose deep in the heroin trade--it's fuckin' OUTRAGEOUS and disgusting. Our people and innocent civilians die foe the obscene profits of Karzai and the Godamned CIA.
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POPSThe War Condolences Obama Hasn’t Sent Chance was very troubled during his first tour of duty in Iraq, although he performed admirably by all accounts. At one point he was put on a suicide watch and had his ammunition taken away for a week. After Iraq, Chance declined a $27,000 reenlistment bonus and transitioned to the U.S. Army Reserves, hoping to avoid another deployment. He sought and was receiving treatment at a Veterans Affairs facility. Gregg said, “We sat down as a family, and we said, ‘President Obama is going to be elected, and President Obama will end this war, and you won’t have to go.’ ” But then his son’s orders to deploy came again. the GI Rights Hotline, which advises active-duty soldiers on options for leaving the military, says outside psychological professionals can help suicidal soldiers obtain a medical discharge: “The military wants to know whether the patient can perform their duties without causing trouble, embarrassment or expense. His or her welfare is distinctly less important.”
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POPSArmy Experience Center's Bad Experience: Turns out Training Kids to Kill Not Popular with Public September 12, 2009, a crowd of 250 activists marched to the AEC in opposition to the use of public dollars to teach children--in a quasi-public-space--that killing can be fun, while also recruiting eighteen-year-olds to engage in the real thing. This time, police arrested six protesters and one journalist. The journalist, Cheryl Biren, wasn't with the protesters but was picked out of the crowd, apparently because of her professional camera. Days prior to this long-planned and publicly announced protest, the Army preemptively announced that it would likely close the AEC and not open any others in shopping malls, as had been planned. The reason? Are you ready to hear this? By their own admission, the Army doesn't need any more recruits because the bad economy has driven up recruitment significantly.
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POPSObama raise drone attacks The obscenity of this policy is seldom mentioned. " the drone attacks have backfired. As he told The New Yorker, "Every one of these dead non-combatants represents an alienated family, a new revenge feud, and more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially even as drone strikes have increased." And because of the C.I.A. program's secrecy, Mayer writes, "there is no visible system of accountability in place, despite the fact that the agency has killed many civilians inside a politically fragile, nuclear-armed country with which the U.S. is not at war." The New Yorker further reports the Obama Administration has also expanded the sphere of authorized drone assaults in Afghanistan. An August Senate Foreign Relations Committee report said the Pentagon's list of approved terrorist targets held 367 names and included some 50 Afghan drug lords "who are suspected of giving money to help finance the Taliban," Mayer reports. She quotes the Senate report as stating, "The
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