US Defence Stocks Surge on Gates' Budget Proposal

Major US defence stocks were raised out of the doldrums by Defense Secretary Robert Gates' budget proposals thanks to the lifting of a degree of uncertainty and proposals that were not as dramatic as the markets expected.

Fitch Ratings was among those who noted that although four of the top 10 US programmes face reductions or delays, several of the leading projects - including the F-35 and F/A -18 aircraft programmes - were to be increased.

Whenever you can make an increase in defense spending look like a significant decrease, you got 'em by the balls!

Chomsky: NATO Should Immediately Disband!

Despite the costly maintenance of the US Military, which spends half of the world's military expenditure, and the financial crisis, President Obama has shown no desire to limit his military spending. "In reality there is little sign of CHANGE. You may have noticed that despite the financial crisis there is no serious attempt to limit US military spending since Obama became president. They may cancel some expensive high tech projects, because you don't need those sort of planes for the sort of wars we have now. The United States wants to recruit Eastern European nations to join NATO because they think they will be prepared to send soldiers to fight those sort of wars."

Yeah, right?

Lawrence Korb Assures Us 10+ More Years in Afghanistan!

In his speech at the University of Pittsburgh, this former Obama advisor assured his audience that by voting for Obama, we are now condemned to at least ten years of war in Afghanistan. After an amused smirk for those who wanted peace, he assured his bewildered audience that we would now be paying a high price for choosing Obama as President of our United States. He also attempted to "sell" Obama's election by assuring the audience that Afghanistan would now surely "become a narco state". WOW! That is certainly worth fighting and dying for! Give us more good news.

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Why Martin Luther King would speak against war in Afghanistan.

In 1967 Dr. Martin Luther King lashed out at the US government over the Vietnam War. His speech: "Beyond Vietnam: A time to break the silence" not just to raise parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan, which are certainly growing with President Obama's mission creep calls for military escalation. Dr. King's speech also illustrates how fighting a long war abroad grossly depletes our government's wherewithal to handle a more critical socioeconomic crisis at home. Dr. King saw the war as undermining our ability to fight the "unconditional war on poverty". "... I watched the (program for the destitute) eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such."

Punishing the Torturers: Fake Faith and Epic Crimes!

Compared to our current war criminals, many of the Nazis tried at Nuremberg were choir boys: International law would be mere farce, said the US chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson, if, in future, we do not apply its principles to ourselves.

"WELL SAID !!On 19 January, the George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley compared the status of George W. Bush with that of Pinochet. "Outside the United States there is not the ambiguity about what to do about a war crime, so if you try to travel, most people are not going to view you as 'former President George Bush' but as a current war criminal. For this reason, former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who personally approved torture techniques in Iraq and at Guantanamo, no longer travels. In the spirit of the war crimes trials at Nuremberg, he has twice been indicted for war crimes in Germany. Mr. Bush, please go to Germany. Make my day!!

We have met the enemy, and it is us!

The government accountability office has called on the Obama administration to explain the meaning of "responsible" troop pullout from Iraq. Mr. President, you said last month that most of the 140,000 US combat troops would be withdrawn by the end of August 2010.
Up to 50,000 would remain until the end of 2011, when an agreement between Iraq and the US requires all troops to leave. The logistics of withdrawing tens of thousands of troops within two years and the removal of equipment and material will be a massive and expensive effort. Meanwhile, back in the United States, the voters, many of them now out of work, and thrown out of their homes, who gave you control of our budget, go begging for jobs to feed their hungry families.
Mr. President: This is change we don't want or need!

Iran, US find common ground on Afghanistan

Delegates from almost 80 countries and organizations are meeting in the Hague to discuss reconstruction in Afghanistan. Ms Clinton said the United States and Iran share mutual interests in Afghanistan, and the US envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke had a brief and cordial meeting. She also said that the Iranian Minister's speech was promising because of his offer to cooperate over border security to take on Afghan drug smugglers. She told the conference that she supports Afghanistan's plans to hold reconciliation talks with with moderate members of the Taliban. She said:"We must support the efforts by the government of Afghanistan to separate the extremists of Al Quaeda and the Taliban from those who join their ranks, not out of conviction, but out of desperation."