Obama's Newest "Surge" in Afghanistan-by Tom Engelhardt

It seems that our military "urge to surge" is once more rearing its ugly head: The so-called "leaders" in the Obama administration, and "senior American military commanders" in Afghanistan slipped information to New York Times reporters Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins about 'secret' planning to increase pressure in the Pakistani tribal borderlands, possibly the "tinderbox province" of Baluchistan, looking for cross-border raids by US Special Operations forces in the new year. My guess is, that the constant Television advertising by our "Central Intelligence" Agency, apparently in need of new suckers for extremely dangerous work, have more than a little to do with our CIA's need for clearly disposable agents to fill our needs in that mortal environment. If you were of a certain age, as I am, you could sense that the next step in spreading the war, the NEXT escalation, could be the decisive one. Beware though, that a tour of duty in Afghanistan could very well be your death sentence: Before Vietnam, when I served as the Intelligence Operations Officer of our 4th US Armored Division in Goeppingen, Germany, my boss, who was almost a second father to me, warned against working for our CIA: "This is NOT James Bond. Should you decide to serve with the "Agency", the East German Police will definitely find you, and you will spend the rest of your life in a rat-infested jail. I can also assure you that the CIA is not going to spend any time or effort in trying to get you out!!"
Please click on my headline to read the full story by Tom Engelhardt on The Smirking Chimp!

The "Urge to Surge"

Just as 2011 begins, prepare yourself for more foolish decisions by Obama. It seems that so-called "leaders" in the Obama administration and "senior American military commanders have consumed too much new year "cheer" immediately after the new millenium began! They slipped information to the New York Times reporters Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins, about secret planning to increase pressure in the Pakistani tribal borderlands, as well as the Pakistani government, and military via cross-border raids by US Special Forces in the new year. In the front-page story, those two reporters produced, you could practically taste the chagrin of the military that their war was against - well, you name it: terrorists, guerrillas, former Islamic fundamentalist allies, Afghan and Pakistani nationalists, and who knows who else. You could practically reach out and be seared by their anger at the Pakistanis for continuing to take American dollars by the billions, while playing their own game, rather than the American one in their region. As a combat veteran of Vietnam, I can clearly see the end of our Afghanistan adventure coming: Top military leaders narrowly escaping enemy forces from a tower in Kabul, while a few remaining American troops die to assure the timely departure of our bureaucrats and other idiotic morons, including OUR CIA, which should have predicted this disaster, based on their superb "Intelligence"!! May I hope that President Obama, who is responsible for this catastrophe, is the last man on the helicopter, and finally becomes an unsung hero, while he goes down with his sinking ship!!

Ron Kovic: "Raise Your Voices, Protest, Stop These Wars"

Ron Kovic was a United States Marine Corps infantry sergeant who was shot and paralyzed from the mid-chest down on January 20, 1968, during his second tour of duty in Vietnam. He has lived with the wounds of that war for over 40 years. At this stage of his life, he desperately wants as many soldiers and civilians to join him, to begin a critical new phase in the growing anti-war movement. Many of our soldiers have already served multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and have been "coming home" for almost 10 years. Those who served have begun to question that service live with the physical and emotional scars of war, and live with these wounds every day, feeling their weight and pain every morning. You have walked and wheeled through the streets of our country, while watching stare at us, as they wonder why! Since we are the reminders of the exorbitant cost of our service, we must struggle every day to make others understand, yet endure for the sake of others. Like many Americans who served in Vietnam, and those now serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, and who had believed the lies of our politicians, Ron Kovic believed the lies of our government. It is time to deflate these misunderstandings, and join the rest of our world.

A Tale of Two Cities = A Tale of One Country??!!

Over many years, "A Tale of Two Cities", written in 1859 by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris, poignantly depicts the plight of the French peasantry, demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, the corresponding brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution, as well as many unflattering social parallels with life in London during the same period. My history teachers in Canada and the United States pointed out that history always repeats itself, since our human race is too foolish to learn the important lessons of past historical mistakes. At four in the morning on New Year's Day 2011, a group of young Afghan peace makers and their much older US colleagues huddled around a laptop computer in Kabul, to begin a 24-hour conversation with people from all over the world. They called the project: "Dear Afghanistan", and their important work may well be the first of a kind. The effort consisted of an entire day of Skyped-in phone calls, emails, Facebook and Twitter posts, with the goals of providing an opportunity for world citizens to learn about Afghanistan first-hand from experts - people trying to live their lives in a war zone; provide moral support for the members of Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers (AYPV), and begin linking conversations among a global, below-the-radar network of veteran peace activists, determined that the war in this country can, and MUST be ended absent of military force.

Obama's Dismal Two-Year Economic Report Card

Judged by the financial condition of the majority of our American population, Obama deserves merely a failing grade, propping up the already wealthy, and failing to aid those who were barely making ends meet. Though the S&P 500 index is up 50% since Obama took office, unemployment remains higher than it was when he entered the White House, while home foreclosures continue to mount, to the detriment of borrowers and entire neighborhoods. Health insurance companies have responded to his "health care reform bill" by raising premiums, and the financial system's largest banks continue to prosper in the wake of a multi-trillion dollar bailout with no strings attached to share their subsidization with the rest of American citizens. To top it all off, as he approaches the 'midpoint' of his 'first', and likely last term, Obama bowed to the pressure of the Republican Party, and extended tax cuts for the richest Americans in order to also to be able to extend them for everyone else more sorely in need. Obama's economic policies have been continuations of his predecessor's, as in the case of taxes and bank bailouts, or bills so watered down to appease corporations, notably banks and insurance companies. In the process, he continues to alienate his supporters (individual voters), not the companies which funded his candidacy, leaving their economy in shambles! His tax plan, especially designed for the rich, adds another $1 trillion to the record United States deficit, $700 billion of which would be the cost of extending tax breaks to the wealthiest 2 percent of the country, the rest going to jobless benefits, necessary to help those victims of of the wider economic problems, but not complemented with a job-creation program!
And then there are those continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan!!!!!

Bombs Make No Moral Distinctions Where They Fall!

In a documentary on a Danish NATO unit in Afghanistan, real bullets whizzing past one of the bravest directors of photography in the world, real soldiers falling wounded, one with a Wilfred Owen pallour of death on his face, but he survives. Others don't. After storming a Taliban position, the Danes find at least three Afghans, apparently still alive. After a crack of gunfire, they are all dead. "We eliminated them in the most humane way possible," one of the Danes says right there on the soundtrack. The words "war crimes", recalling my experiences in Vietnam, are in my mind. When Robert Fisk stumbles out into the cold afternoon to walk back to his hotel behind the 19th century "Kunsthalle", there are shrapnel gashes along the red stone walls, deep wounds in the brickwork of the school next door, a slash in the basement window casing, but most of the houses in Dresden, including those of the wonderful Red Cross nurses, who served us noodle soup in the Dresden Haptbahnhof, where we were greeted by friendly faces after our train survived the American fighter planes, deep in the dense forests halfway between our home in Breslau, and Dresden.

War Destroys the Tranquility of Our Soul:

About war much has been written.
More must yet be said
by those who saw them die,
so that the dead may rest,
and sight be gained,
to see war for what it was and is:

War is not fighting,
though fighting's what we see,
nor is it death,
for death is but it's end.
It is the rancor of disunited hearts,
the death of love, the end of hope.

The war around us echoes in our hearts,
and grants it life.
Once, mortals dared to tame this ancient beast,
and yet it thrives.
Each age must fight this force again,
or pay it's price.

Wolfgang P. May -Clickhereformywebsite-
Advisory Team Leader
Republic of Vietnam
1968-1969