Barack Obama

[randolph]

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

What do you all think about Obama's troop surge in Afghanistan? or ?

One- Cut a deal with the Taliban, money talks in Afghanistan.

Two- Clean out Al Qaida in Pakistan

Three- Support Pakistan's moderates.

Four- Get serious about energy.

Five- Stop eating beef (cow gas = 50% of global warming)

Obama's plan?

[randolph]

But while the president may be showing disloyalty to his political base, he's remaining faithful to the defense industry interests that so generously funded his campaign.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org database, the top recipient of defense industry money in the 2008 election cycle was Barack Obama, whose haul of $1,029,997 far surpassed Republican contender Sen. John McCain's $696,948.

During the 2008 cycle, the industry contributed a total of $23.7 million to federal candidates -- far more than the $17.4 million it invested during the 2006 cycle or the $18.1 million in the 2004 cycle.

The top five defense industry contributors during the 2008 elections were Lockheed Martin at $2.5 million, Boeing at $2.1 million, Northrop Grumman at $1.8 million, and Raytheon and General Dynamics at $1.7 million each.

And it appears their investment may be paying off: The Associated Press reports that analyst Howard A. Rubel of the global investment bank Jefferies & Co. sent out a client note today stating that the fiscal 2010 Defense Department Budget will likely boost demand for precision munitions, communications gear, helicopters, armor and surveillance systems.

Among the companies whose stock Rubel rated as "Buy"? General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman.

We have been fucked again. Guess who is going to pay for it!

[randolph]

This is one of the best explanation of the Muslim terrorist situation I have ever read. His references to past history are accurate and clear. Not long, easy to understand, and well worth the read. The author of this email is Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist.


A German's View on Islam
A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories.'
We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.
The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honour-kill. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers.
The hard, quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' is cowed and extraneous.
Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people.
The average Japanese individual prior to World War II was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians; most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet.
And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were 'peace loving'?
History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:
Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence.
Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend fromGermany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.
Peace-loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late. As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts -- the fanatics who threaten our way of life.
Lastly, anyone who doubts that the issue is serious and just deletes this email without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on! Let us hope that thousands, world-wide, read this and think about it, and send it on - before it's too late.

Emanuel Tanay, M.D. 2980 Provincial St. Ann Arbor, MI 48104

[randolph]

Obama's War

by Jim Hightower

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to war we go! Pound the drums loudly, stand with your country proudly!

Wait, wait, wait - hold it right there. Cut the music, slow the rush, and let's all ponder what Barack Obama, Roberts Gates, Stanley McChrystal and Co. are getting us into ... and whether we really want to go there. After all, just because the White House and the Pentagon brass are waving the flag and insisting that a major escalation of America's military mission in Afghanistan is a "necessity" doesn't mean it is ... or that We the People must accept it.

Remember the wisdom of Mark Twain about war-whooping generals and politicians: "Loyalty to the country, always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it."

How many more dead and mangled American soldiers does the government's "new" Afghan policy deserve? How many more tens of billions of dollars should we let them siphon from our public treasury to fuel their war policy? How much more of our country's good name will they squander on what is essentially a civil war?

We've been lied to for nearly a decade about "success" in Iraq and Afghanistan - why do the hawks deserve our trust that this time will be different?

Their rationales for escalation are hardly confidence boosters. The goal, we're told, is to defeat the al-Qaida terrorist network that threatens our national security. Yes, but al-Qaida is not in Afghanistan! Nor is it one network. It has metastasized, with strongholds now in Pakistan, Indonesia, Morocco, Yemen and Somalia, plus even having enclaves in England and France.

Well, claims Obama himself, we must protect the democratic process in Afghanistan. Does he think we have suckerwrappers around our heads? America's chosen leader over there is President Hamid Karzai - a preening incompetent who was "elected" this year only through flagrant fraud and whose government is controlled by warlords, rife with corruption and opposed by the great majority of Afghans.

During the election campaign from July through October, 195 Americans were killed and more than 1,000 wounded to protect this guy's "democratic process." Why should even one more American die for Karzai?

Finally, Washington's war establishment asserts that adding some 30,000 more troops will let us greatly expand and train the Afghan army and police force during the next couple of years so they can secure their own country and we can leave.
Mission accomplished!

Nearly every independent military analyst, however, says this assertion is not just fantasy, it's delusional - it'll take at least 10 years to raise Afghanistan's largely illiterate and corrupt security forces to a level of barely adequate, costing us taxpayers more than $4 billion a year to train and support them.

Obama has been taken over by the military industrial hawks and national security theorists who play war games with other people's lives and money. I had hoped Obama might be a more forceful leader who would reject the same old interventionist mindset of those who profit from permanent war. But his newly announced Afghan policy shows he is not that leader.

So, we must look elsewhere, starting with ourselves. The first job of a citizen is to keep your mouth open. Obama is wrong on his policy - deadly wrong - and those of you who see this have both a moral and patriotic duty to reach out to others to inform, organize and mobilize our grassroots objections, taking common sense to high places.

Also, look to leaders in Congress who are standing up against Obama's war and finally beginning to reassert the legislative branch's constitutional responsibility to oversee and direct military policy. For example, Rep. Jim McGovern is pushing for a specific, congressionally mandated exit strategy; Rep. Barbara Lee wants to use Congress' control of the public purse strings to stop Obama's escalation; and Rep. David Obey is calling for a war tax on the richest Americans to put any escalation on-budget, rather than on a credit card for China to finance and future generations to pay.

This is no time to be deferential to executive authority. Stand up. Speak out. It's our country, not theirs. We are America - ultimately, we have the power and the responsibility.

I agree, Obama appears to be a weak President following the hawks. We need to resist.

[Hedonistman]

Obamaman a war loving President,,, lol. This megolomaniac is into EVERYTHING. And he's not got 1 single policy issue right yet.... No wait, his very 1st call was I think a good 1 ---allowing more stem cell research. Other than that though, he's a Bushboy clone..... Anyone here feel 'stimulated' yet,,
ie from/by Obamaman and his 1,000 or more plans,,, ? lol

[jimnaseum]

It's hard to get too serious about International Affairs when you're staring at pictures of Raging Shemale Schlongfests, and since I've missed all the Presidential briefings on the Middle East, I admit I have no idea what's going on over there. It's possible Obama could do a JFK and take us to the brink of Nuclear War, it's obvious we're not sending 100,000 troops over there to respond to 19 guys armed with box-cutters. We're sending 100,000 troops over there to respond to one imaginary guy armed with a nuclear suitcase.

One day there will be a most fascinating book written about what Time Magazine calls "The Decade from Hell." I can't wait to read it to find out what the hell happened these last ten years. It'll be a page turner.

[TracyCoxx]

There's about 100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The rest are Taliban. I never really knew what Bush's beef was with the Taliban. Sure they suck, but we're not going to change that mentality over there, and they are entitled to it, as long as they don't interfere with us. Our war is not with the Taliban, it's with Al Qaeda. And right now it looks like they're in Pakistan. Pakistan should answer for that. We're giving them a lot of money to help us track Al Qaeda down. If they're allowing Al Qaeda to run around in their country, I say we do some air strikes, and renegotiate.

So what are we doing in Afghanistan? BO hasn't really said. Just that he's sending 30000 more troops there (finally), and then starting to bring them home before the 2012 elections. We have to have a goal there. Does he intend to completely wipe out the Taliban? Then he's in for something like Iraq. Maybe worse if he doesn't handle the Afghan war as well as Bush did.

Question... while BO is attacking the Taliban, is he apologizing too?

I will say Bush, or the military commanders or whoever, royally up Tora Bora. That could have been a clean victory.

[randolph]

I found the part of his speech about the Afgan army needing more training really ludicrous. We already have more soldiers in Afghanistan than the Afghan army. Besides, the Afghans are some of the toughest fighters in the world. They don't need more training, they need to be on the "right" side. If they don't want the Taliban then let them work it out. We need to focus on Pakistan and keep those rockets and a-bombs secure. Obama seems to be going down the same path as Bush/Cheney.

[jimnaseum]

Since August '45, the office of President only has one real job -preventing a nuclear war. The Government is so bereaucrocized that you could put a cardboard cut-out in the oval office and nobody would notice (Reagan)
In the summer of '45 we had our brand new B-29 bombers fly over Tokyo one night and drop incindiary bombs, the city was built largely of wood and we killed 100,000 "Jap" civilians. (More than the individual A-bombs killed.) That was a good policy back then. Today, you BOW to the Japanese leader. Because we're going to need the japanese, chinese, russians, and anybody else we can find to prevent Iran, Israel, N Korea, Pakistan, and India from selling Thermonuclear Missles on eBay.