Iraq, Afghanistan, War and Money: A Look at Two Presidencies:

Bush 2000: “I don’t want to be the world’s police man, I want to be the world’s peacemaker.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9SOVzMV2bc

Bush 2003: “My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger. ”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkOCIfNQXP0

It is not in every case easy or pleasant to ask men of the nation to leave their homes and women of the nation to give their men to the service of the nation. But the men and women of America have never held back even when it has meant personal sacrifice on their part if that is sacrifice for the common good.

The greatest attack that has ever been launched against freedom of the individual is nearer the Americas than ever before. To meet that attack we must prepare beforehand — for preparing later may and probably would be too late.

There is, moreover, another enemy at home. That enemy is the mean and petty spirit that mocks at ideals, sneers at sacrifice and pretends the American people can live by bread alone. If the spirit of God is not in us, and if we will not prepare to give all that we are to preserve Christian civilization in our own land, we shall go to destruction.

–F.D.R, Smokey Mtn. Nat’l Park Dedication Speech

The tactic of labeling every nation that doesn’t play ball with the administration as an enemy of freedom is a time-honored tradition. George Bush used the same tact:

On September 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Americans have known wars, but for the past 136 years, they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have known the casualties of war, but not at the center of a great city on a peaceful morning. Americans have known surprise attacks but never before on thousands of civilians. All of this was brought upon us in a single day, and night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack.

–George W. Bush, Joint Session of Congress

Oddly enough, Bush referenced Pearl Harbour in his speech. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s without doubt that FDR had foreknowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbour because he specifically goaded the Japanese into attacking by following Arthur McCollum’s eight-action plan. This plan was meant to force Japan into a first strike against the U.S., since that would allow the U.S. to enter the war with popular support. Japan had allied itself to Germany and Italy, so that any attack by it would allow the U.S. to attack all of the countries included in the “axis powers” (or “axis of evil” in Bush-speak). Here’s some pertinent quotes to support this:

“The Roosevelt strategy of maneuvering the Japanese into striking the first blow at America was unknown to us,” [Admiral Husband] Kimmel wrote in his book, Admiral Kimmel’s Story, published in 1954. His first suspicions that someone in high office in Washington had consciously pursued a policy that led straight to Pearl Harbor “did not occur to him until after December 7, 1941.”

Richardson’s removal on February 1, 1941, strengthened the position of McCollum. Only five months earlier, in mid-September 1940, Germany and her Axis partner, Italy, had signed a mutual-assistance alliance with Japan. The Tripartite Pact committed the three partners to assist each other in the event of an attack on any one of them. McCollum saw the alliance as a golden opportunity. If Japan could be provoked into committing an overt act of war against the United States, then the Pact’s mutual assistance provisions would kick in. It was a back-door approach: Germany and Italy would come to Japan’s aid and thus directly involve the United States in the European war.

The number one problem for the United States, according to McCollum, was mobilizing public support for a declaration of war against the Axis powers. He saw little chance that Congress would send American troops to Europe. Over the objections of the majority of the populace, who still felt that European alarmists were creating much ado about nothing, he called for the Administration to create what he called “more ado”: “It is not believed,” wrote McCollum, “that in the present state of political opinion the United States government is capable of declaring war against Japan without more ado.”

His solution to the political stalemate: use the eight proposed actions to provoke Japan into committing an overt act of war against the United States, thus triggering military responses from the two other signers of the Tripartite Pact. An allusion to McCollum’s eight actions was recorded by Assistant Secretary of State Breckenridge Long. He wrote that on October 7, 1940, he learned of a series of steps involving the US Navy and that one included concentrating the fleet at Honolulu to be ready for any eventuality. “It looks to me as if little by little we will face a situation which will bring us into conflict with Japan,” Long wrote in his diary.

–Stinnett, Day of Deceit

The point I’m trying to make is that a simple ideology that says “they are bad guys and we’re good guys” or “they hate our freedom” is just way too clean and tidy to be real. I mean, seriously, who “hates freedom” except government? Isn’t it far more believable that the reason we are attacked by terrorists is not because they “hate our freedom”, but because they hate the things our government does to their life? After all, the west has been meddling in the middle-east for over a century. Just read The First World War and see how England invaded middle-eastern countries left and right for no apparent reason.

What’s more believable in all of these situations is that, in order for governments to maintain their legitimacy with their own people they must find convenient enemies. In the 40′s it was the Japanese. Today it’s the middle-east. What we are spoon-fed by the media is 75% propaganda to deliver a constant theme that we all come to believe in. Something like: “The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour was unprovoked.” The reality behind the headlines is almost always way more complicated and orchestrated than that. You have to look behind the curtain.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m not anti-war, and I’m definitely not a pacifist. What I’m opposed to is standing armies and governments being the only ones allowed to legally use force. It’s dangerous and it leads to just the type of things we see over and over. Namely, politicians using military action for political purposes, not defense.

As I always say: think about who benefits. Firstly, Obama gets tons of campaign money from the oil industry:

In a new ad, Obama says, “I don’t take money from oil companies.”

Technically, that’s true, since a law that has been on the books for more than a century prohibits corporations from giving money directly to any federal candidate. But that doesn’t distinguish Obama from his rivals in the race.

We find the statement misleading:

• Obama has accepted more than $213,000 from individuals who work for companies in the oil and gas industry and their spouses.
• Two of Obama’s bundlers are top executives at oil companies and are listed on his Web site as raising between $50,000 and $100,000 for the presidential hopeful.

–Factcheck.org

and from BP specifically, nobody was given more than Obama during the 2008 election cycle:

During the 2008 campaign cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, individuals and political action committees (PACs) associated with oil-giant BP contributed about $500,000 to federal candidates. About 40 percent went to Democrats.

The top recipient overall? President Obama, who got $71,000 from the company tied to the environmental disaster in the Gulf, according to the group.

–Brian Montopoli, CBS

So, armed with those facts, how are you going to convince yourself that Obama is going to shut down off-shore drilling? He’s not. What he will do is make multiple head-fakes to appease his green base. That’s a given. He did one of them yesterday:

President Obama ordered a halt Thursday to drilling operations at all 33 exploratory deep-water rigs in the Gulf of Mexico for as long as six months, one of several steps he announced at a news conference where he sought to defend his administration’s handling of the spill.

Most of the measures, including a six-month moratorium on new wells, concern future operations. But in perhaps the most dramatic shift, Obama ordered nearly three dozen existing rigs or others preparing to drill to stop operation pending the findings of a presidential commission. Production rigs in deep water may continue to operate, and exploratory drilling in shallow water will continue, White House officials said.

–Shear and Wilson, Washington Post

This is a classic political head-fake. Obama announces that he is halting drilling until his commission concludes it’s research. We get a clearer picture on exactly what’s going on by looking at another article:

(Reuters) – President Barack Obama will announce a six month extension on a deepwater oil drilling moratorium on Thursday while a special commission studies the reasons for the Gulf of Mexico spill, a White House aide said.

–Hans Deryk, Reuters

So, when he says that he’s “halting drilling”, what he means is that he’s simply extending an existing moratorium on off-shore drilling that has been in place since 1990. This is the same moratorium that he vowed to “relax” as recently as March:

The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering 167 million acres of ocean.

–John Broder, NY Times (March 31, 2010)

So, he isn’t “banning” or “halting” anything in any meaningful way. He’s just extending an already in-place moratorium on drilling off of the East coast. Guess who first put that moratorium in place. Yep, George Bush Sr.:

Navigating a middle course between environmental advocates and oil companies, President Clinton announced today a 10-year extension of the moratorium on oil drilling off virtually all United States ocean coastlines.

Mr. Clinton also placed several marine sanctuaries off-limits to oil exploration, setting no expiration date. The areas include the Channel Islands and Monterey Bay sanctuaries in California, the Florida Keys, Gray’s Reef in Georgia and the Olympic Coast sanctuary off Washington State.

The moratorium does not, however, affect areas off the Texas and Louisiana coasts, where extensive drilling has been going on for years, nor does it protect any areas, including the coastline of the southeastern United States, not already covered by the drilling ban first imposed by President George Bush in 1990.

–John Broder, NY Times(1998)

And a little more digging in the NY Times archive turns up further clarification of exactly what the moratorium entails:

New Coastal Drilling Would Be Barred by Gore

Vice President Al Gore said that as President he would ban any new offshore drilling for oil and gas along the California and Florida coasts. The proposal by Mr. Gore, who is battling his Presidential rival Bill Bradley for the support of environmental groups, would go beyond a current moratorium on drilling and apply to companies that had already bought billions of dollars’ worth of leases but not drilled yet. Mr. Gore cast his proposal as part of a bold environmental agenda that he pledged would be central to his campaign.

–News Summary, NY Times(1999)

So, essentially, the moratorium itself was a classic corporate protection bill to begin with. It applied only to companies that had not “already bought billions of dollars’ worth of leases.” It essentially kept competition out of the oil exploration market, thus protecting the big boys. All that Obama has done is just find a politically expedient way to extend this big oil protection mechanism for even longer, while cashing it out as a green friendly move to mollify his base. And it’s working like a charm:

Finally: Obama halts new offshore leases and stumps for climate bill

Now we’re getting somewhere on the offshore drilling problem. Some progress from the top:

Mr. Obama ordered a further six-month moratorium on new permits for new deepwater oil and gas wells; suspended the planned exploration in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off the coast of Alaska; canceled a planned August lease sale in the western Gulf of Mexico; and canceled a proposed lease sale off the coast of Virginia. Environmentalists who had opposed the Alaska and Virginia projects hailed the decisions.

Mr. Obama said further moves will be made to strengthen oversight of the drilling industry and enhance safety as a commission he is appointing opens its own six-month inquiry.

–Jonathan Hiskes, Grist.org

So the green army(ever naive), have fallen for the bait hook, line and sinker. [sigh] I guess they will never learn. Politics is always smoke and mirrors. If you just read a headline and take it as fact, you will never, ever be properly informed. It takes tracing the flow of influence, money and motivation in order to find out the truth.

THE discovery of three American soldiers among the dead in a suicide bombing at the opening of a girls’ school in the northwestern Pakistan town of Dir last week reignited the fears of many Pakistanis that Washington was set on invading their country.

US airstrikes in Pakistan, launched from unmanned drones, are now averaging three a week, triple the number last year. “We’re quietly seeing a geographical shift,” an intelligence officer said.

For the past month drones have pounded the tribal region of North Waziristan in apparent retaliation for the murder of seven CIA officers in Afghanistan by a Jordanian suicide bomber working with the Pakistani Taliban.

Last week America launched its first multiple drone attack, according to Pakistani security officials. Eighteen missiles were fired from eight unmanned aircraft in Dattakhel village, killing 16 people.

The discovery of the dead US soldiers revealed that America’s shadowy war in Pakistan not only involves drones but also small cadres of special operations soldiers.

When are the Democrat rank and file going to wake up and understand that the guys they put in office are just as pro-war as the Republicans. Indeed, of the major wars fought in the 20th century, only one was waged under a Republican president – the first gulf war under Daddy Bush. All the biggies were Democrat-led. Woodrow Wilson(D) got us into WWI, Franklin Roosevelt(D) got us into WWII, Harry Truman(D) nuked Japan and got us into Korea, John F. Kennedy(D) got us into Vietnam and Lyndon Johnson(D) finished the job, with a brief cameo by Richard Nixon(R). As I’ve said time and time again, there is no difference between the two parties when it comes to anything of major importance. And when it comes to America policing the world, there is absolutely no difference between a Republican president and a Democrat one. They both love the thrill of killing in the name of freedom.

On a final note, Pakistan is going just as Iraq did. We’re now seeing things like suicide bombings begin to happen. Isn’t it odd that we didn’t see any suicide bombings before the U.S. began it’s military operations there. Why do we find it odd that people would be willing to give their lives to defend their land? If some other country invaded the U.S. or began secret missions here wouldn’t we do the same?