If you're feeling skeptical after hearing President Obama's latest speech on the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, you're not alone. It's hard to know what to make of a President and an administration that brings over 90,000 troops homewhile ordering 50,000 soldiers along with 75,000 military contractors to remain. There are still some 150,000 personnel in Iraq and the US is supposed to be completely out of the country by 2011. That's next year. Bringing home thousands by the end of this August is a good step, but we really need to step on it. Unfortunately, the State Department is dragging its heels as much as the Pentagon and wants to hire 6,000 - 7,000 more staff and train them like soldiers. While working under the auspices of the State Department, these new personnel would have the status of “diplomats.” But who ever heard of a diplomat trained like a soldier and armed with a gun?
Did you hear the joke about the predator drone that bombed? Medea Benjamin and Nancy Mancias At the 2004 Radio and Television Correspondents’ Dinner, President Bush joked about searching for WMDs under Oval Office furniture. The joke backfired when parents who had lost their children fighting in Iraq said they found the joke offensive and [...]
Support for nuclear disarmament has spread to the heart of the Atlantic alliance and beyond. Originally posted on Foreign Policy in Focus By Alice Slater, March 9, 2010 President Obama’s call for a nuclear-weapons-free world in Prague last April unleashed a great outpouring of support from international allies and grassroots activists demanding a process to [...]
The Washington DC memorial to Martin Luther King, located on the Tidal Basin between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, was supposed to be completed by now. President Clinton authorized the memorial in 1996; President Bush appeared at a groundbreaking ceremony in 2006, as did Senator Barack Obama. But the memorial, designed with a massive statue [...]
My almost annual list of ten good things about the waning year has never before posed such a tremendous challenge. In the face of this challenge, I decided to try a minimalist thought experiment, blocking out the many baneful events that colored 2009, and instead seeking out the small, yet powerfully bright notes to inspire [...]
Hmm, judging by the near silence from the mainstream media, apparently no one seems too freaked out that the UNITED STATES IS FIRING MISSILES IN CALIFORNIA. Not even missiles for our own “security.” They’re test missiles, partially funded by the U.S., FOR ISRAEL TO FIRE AT IRAN (“preemptively,” of course). Crazy talk? Nope.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
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