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POPSAlternate Iraq War Universe … Obama Won!
Never mind that the surge was initiated by President George Bush, and the current withdrawal was negotiated by the Bush administration with a sovereign, elected Iraqi government which his actions allowed to come into being, in place of the prior despot he had deposed, while Democrats, including Obama, were howling for abandonment. Obama deserves some credit, of course. For staying Bush’s course and throwing his own boneheaded pandering demands for a precipitous pullout under the bus. OK, I thought Friedman had got about as weird as he could. Silly me. This next step is particularly important, which is why we cannot let Afghanistan distract U.S. diplomats from Iraq. Remember: Transform Iraq and it will impact the whole Arab-Muslim world. Change Afghanistan and you just change Afghanistan. Fascinating. The big clamor for the last few years of course has been that Iraq was distracting us from Afghanistan, and now every jackanape out there, to include Friedman . . .
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POPSOct. 23,1983 Lebanese Terrorists Bomb the Marine Barracks in Beirut . . with Syria. Although the United States had mounted two previous successful peacekeeping operations in Lebanon in 1958 and earlier in 1982 (to facilitate the evacuation of P.L.O. forces from Beirut that had been defeated by Israel), the ignominious end of the MNF intervention brought disastrous consequences. The failure of the peacekeeping mission led to renewed fighting between Lebanese factions and the ascendancy of Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria. Moreover, the Marine barracks bombing, which was the deadliest terrorist attack against Americans before the 9/11 attacks, later inspired Osama bin Laden, who viewed the United States as a “paper tiger” because of its rapid withdrawal of peacekeeping forces from Lebanon and Somalia after suffering casualties. Al Qaeda members were later dispatched to Hezbollah training camps in Lebanon, according to the 9/11 Commission Report (p. 68). Posted October 23rd, 2009 in American Leadership.
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POPS Waiting For Godot “The thunderstorm is there and it’s kind of brewing and it’s unstable and the lightning hasn’t struck, and hopefully it won’t,” said Nathaniel C. Fick, a former Marine Corps infantry officer who briefed Mr. Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign and is now the chief executive of the Center for a New American Security, a military research institution in Washington. “I think it can probably be contained and avoided, but people are aware of the volatile brew.” Last week the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Thomas J. Tradewell Sr., gave voice to the concerns of those in the military when he issued a terse statement criticizing Mr. Obama’s review of Afghan war strategy. “The extremists are sensing weakness and indecision within the U.S. government, which plays into their hands,” said Mr. Tradewell’s statement on behalf of his group, which represents 1.5 million former soldiers. Last August, in a speech to the V.F.W., Mr. Obama defended . . .
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POPSAIM’s Kincaid Urges Fox News to Quit Shilling for Terrorists and Cop-Killer Apologist Kincaid will also press Murdoch and his board about the publication by Harper Collins of Mark Rudd's terrorist memoir, Underground: My Life With SDS and the Weathermen, about his days in the Weather Underground. Rudd has said he got a $50,000 advance and that while some went to his agent, "the rest went up my nose for coke..." One of the members of Murdoch's board is Professor Viet Dinh, a former Bush counter-terrorism official who had fled Vietnam as a child when Rudd's communist comrades took over South Vietnam in the wake of the U.S. military withdrawal. The meeting of News Corporation, the parent of Fox News and Harper Collins, will be held October 16 at 10 a.m. at the W New York Hotel, 541 Lexington Avenue. Accuracy in Media is a citizens' media watchdog organization whose mission is to promote fairness, balance, and accuracy in news reporting. Founded in 1969, AIM is the oldest non-profit press watchdog group in America. www.aim.org.
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POPSdrug rehab in California Withdrawal effects are unpleasant and reduction in these effects would therefore constitute negative reinforcement .
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POPSWho Are the Taliban? Does anyone understand these fanatics? Restore peace, no! Establish their version of Sharia, maybe, but at what price to human life, mostly not their own?
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POPSU.S. Iraq Withdrawal 'accelerating' What a waste of lives and money Iraq and Afghanistan are! "President Barack Obama meets senior military officers and administration officials to discuss US strategy in Afghanistan." It's pathetic!
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POPSBin Laden Message to Europe: Withdraw from Afghanistan I clipped the most intriguing phrases. Go to clip source to read entire message. The closing paragraph: His message seems to be Europe, you still have a chance. Don't go down with the American ship. Happy is whoever learns a lesson from the mistakes committed by others. Modest precautions are better than expensive follow-up care. Returning to truth is better than insisting on falsehood. And peace be upon those who follow the path of righteousness.
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POPSDemocrats Never Meant What They Said About Afghanistan even when the president has declared: Al Qaeda and its allies " the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks " are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan. And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban " or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged " that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can. That's not the last president; that's the current president, an entire six months ago. Notice this only applies to the use of military force and violence overseas; as we've seen, these same folks have a very different reaction when they hear about a town-hall protester having his finger bitten off. The base of the Democratic party is fundamentally pacifist and isolationist and has extraordinary, although not complete, leverage over this White House.
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POPSGermany Hit With "al-Qaida" Pre-election Propaganda Watch for a false-flag event in Germany if Merkel loses ( remember Spain's 3-11 here for backing out of Iraq), which this propaganda is actually designed to help by inciting fear of terrorism and pushing necessary war , by manufacturing an Islamist enemy (beardless youth in suit and tie for the first time) with a domestic terrorism threat in a timely presentation-- all pushed by the government and media , instead of censored! Just who does this propaganda benefit the most? In fact, the "powers that be" do want people to remember Madrid's 3/11, "vote for Merkel, or else". Note the issue is AFGHANISTAN, German people now largely opposing their war presence there (just as a majority in the U.S. and UK does). This is typical FEAR propaganda that always preceded Bush and Congressional elections, allegedly from Bin Laden or Al Qaeda, but always stoking war fever for the neoconservative-Israeli agenda.
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POPSU.S. Accepts Iran's Offer of Talks
Iran's proposal included efforts to curb nuclear weapons, so this should be interesting. Right now Western propganda says Iran MAY want nuke weapons someday...but if the focus gets to those countries that actually HAVE nuke weapons at least it would be talking about reality. Bush era politics refused to talk to Iran, so this is another progressive step forward for the Obama Administration: first the job creation and economic stimulus plans, health care reform on track to victory, withdrawal from Iraq going according to timetable/treaty deal, talking to Iran instead of threatening another war based on lies, first Hispanic/woman on Supreme Court, rolling back some unfair Bush era tax breaks for the Superrich, proposed regulations to stop Wall St. scams, restoring power to unions, equal pay for woman, end of torture, freeing Gitmo innocents and proceeding towards closing it down, etc. The country certainly is in better hands. 2010 elections the next big battle. It starts abou
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POPSIraqi Puppet Government Falling Apart? The U.S. supported government of Nouri al-Maliki appears to be facing a serious challenge, couple with proposals to ask U.S. troops to leave a year earlier than already agreed upon. Maybe it's some consolation to know that you can murder hundreds of thousands of people in a war started with deliberate lies, but it can't last forever. This Bush, neo-con created house of cards will fall. It's just a question of when.
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POPSThe Good War....well I didn't really vote for it. The war in Afghanistan was originally conceived as a necessary war after nearly 3,000 Americans lost their lives in an attack planned there, so rooting out the Taliban supporters of al-Qaida was viewed as justified. Now, however, some Americans have changed their minds. Any wonder? The liberals have never had the stomach for war. No, they do not believe in fighting for a cause unless it only involves a local protest with chants and signs against the evil capitalistic pigs that reside right here at home. So why should Afghanistan be any different? It is not so expect the expected, total surrender and withdrawal soon.
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POPSsavings FT - Merryn Somerset-Webb: The law of averaging Published: August 14 2009 17:28
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POPSThe Arab Peace Initiative: Arab Generosity, Israeli Intransigence 'There are no indications that the current American peace efforts are likely to produce any results. The Americans have, despite much persistence, lost the first and only round. Israel did not budge on the issue of stopping building settlements regardless of how trivial this issue is in comparison to others. Yet the Arabs have to shoulder the blame once more. To save face the American side had to deal with the issue of the settlement freeze not as a bilateral American-Israeli matter, but as part of a larger package. They conditioned Israeli compliance on Arab readiness for instant normalisation. This formula made it easy to press the claim that the Arab reluctance to start normalising must be blamed for Israeli rejection of the American demand of settlement freeze.'
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