(8PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)
In the spring of 2007, 6 months after taking control of Congress in the November 2006 midterm elections by running on an “end the Iraq occupation” platform throughout 2006, 
the Democratic controlled congress under the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned around 180 degrees, stuck their thumbs in the eye of the public who had given them their majority based on the expectations of ending the occupation, and gave George Bush the first Iraq supplemental funding bill ever passed by a Democratic congress, in their determination that the US would control the oil resources of Iraq and have a central base from which to attempt to expand that hoped for control across the Middle East.
Their dreams of empire have since developed a badly cracked and shattered facade but not died out, and that first supplemental funding bill was to become only the beginning of a two year long series of betrayals of their mandate, as the Democrats put all of their energy into enabling Bush with multiple Iraq supplemental funding bills and selling the same old deathtrap in Iraq with a shiny new Democratic paintjob, and over the past couple of months enabling and participating in the theft of nearly nine trillion dollars from taxpayers as they have fallen all over themselves to hand bags of cash to their criminal friends on Wall Street who have been busy as beavers all this time wrecking the US and global economy.
Yesterday in Obama’s Foreign Policy Team: Pragmatic Chump Change? The Real News talked to Lawrence J. Korb and Phyllis Bennis to analyze the overall message about ongoing US foreign policy that is sent out to the world by Obama’s choices as Hillary Clinton was confirmed as Obama’s Secretary of State, and three other appointments were confirmed as well: his closest foreign affairs adviser Susan Rice becoming UN ambassador with a seat at the cabinet table, former NATO commander General James L. Jones as national security adviser, and current Secretary of Defense Bush appointee Robert M. Gates to remain in that role.
For his “pragmatic” appointments of some of the most hawkish war and imperialism proponents in and out of the Democratic party…
Barack Obama is riding a tide of public approval over his performance so far as US president-elect, as well as strong support for his top cabinet picks, a new poll showed Tuesday.
Nearly a month after his historic November 4 election, and in the midst of the devastating downturn in the US economy, more than three out of four Americans approve of how Obama has handled his transition so far, according to the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll.
Of his high-profile cabinet appointments, 69 percent to 25 percent approve Obama’s pick of his former Democratic nomination rival Hillary Rodham Clinton to be his secretary of state.
By an overwhelming margin, 80 percent to 14 percent of Americans endorse Obama’s decision to ask President George W. Bush’s defense secretary Robert Gates to keep his post, said the poll.
We then heard about the propagandizing “Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism” wheeling out the heavy artillery once again of blatant WOT fearmongering with WAPO reporting on them saying:
The odds that terrorists will soon strike a major city with weapons of mass destruction are now better than even, a bipartisan congressionally mandated task force concludes in a draft study that warns of growing threats from rogue states, nuclear smuggling networks and the spread of atomic know-how in the developing world.
The sobering assessment of such threats, due for release as early as today, singled out Pakistan as a grave concern because of its terrorist networks, history of instability and arsenal of several dozen nuclear warheads. The report urged the incoming Obama administration to take “decisive action” to reduce the likelihood of a devastating attack
Today Pepe Escobar at The Real News describes a shiny new Democratic “war on terror” being sold to the American public….
Much has been said about the strong personalities who will feature in President-elect Barack Obama’s national security “team of rivals”. But Obama has already made it clear that “the buck stops” with him.
Pepe Escobar argues that instead of “change”, what America has in fact bought is an Obama vision that may not be too dissimilar from the war on terror framework.
Real News: December 3, 2008
Empire classic or empire lite?
Obama foreign policy does not question basic assumptions of the past
Go shopping. Don’t forget to pick up duct tape…
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The boogeymen are coming to get you.
Pepe Escobar.
I, too, have been seeing a lot of news concerning WMD’s that we may be confronted with — there is no end to the fear tactics. Or is it because we have used WMD’s (DU and white phosphorous) in both Afghanistan and Iraq that the fear exists?
Good one, Edger!
The terrorists and our government.
I am not afraid.
I was there, 9/11, only a few miles uptown from Ground Zero.
I lived next door (sorta–less than half a block) from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Only slightly further away from the Lincoln Tunnel. Only one (long) block away from the A train. And two (long) blocks from Times Square Station.
During a period when we were all informed that attacks could come anyhow, anywhen–and worry about any seemingly abandoned backpacks.
NYC has been on “Orange Alert” (one step down from red) since roughly 9/12/01 or whenever chimpy’s crew devised the alert system.
I no longer live there: but fear did not drive me from Manhattan. The lack of jobs, and the fact that my elderly father was living alone, did. In 2003.
So I hope I may claim some experience when I say: if the terrorists kill you, they kill you. Do not live in fear.
(“Shopping” however is probably not the best recourse, either.)
They–our government–think we are a bunch of wussies. It is up to us to prove them wrong. (Edger, this is your cue for the “oh noes” thingie.)
country is this. Taking into account the urban warfare practices that have gone on in various parts of the country for over two years now (possibly more) and a build-up for martial law, now, warnings of possible attacks, etc., it just might be possible that those who will go “free” could be dreaming up a staged attack on us — to show Obama as a fool on the “war on terror,” to completely discredit him, so they can set the stage for 2012. O.K., I know, that’s a stretch — but, we still don’t really know about 9/11 either.
Maybe, some of Obama’s choices in his cabinet have been partly to combat some of the foreseeable attempts to “sabotage” his efforts.
And, there’s already an effort being made to Impeach Obama and he’s not even in office, so anything seems possible.
Just thoughts!
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of Obama’s national security/foreign affairs appointments todays Cato Institute daily podcast with Christopher A. Preble, Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Institute, gives a fairly reasoned unemotional and more favorable analysis….
Preble also has a text article posted at Cato today: Obama Chooses to Stay the Course on Foreign Policy, that concludes with:
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